A Thriving Civilization in Malta Collapsed 4k Years Ago
nautil.us
nautil.us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
https://phys.org/news/2014-02-decline-bronze-age-megacities-... https://www.livescience.com/20614-collapse-mythical-river-ci...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present
Apparently, the "before present" time scale is commonly used in archaeology and geology, and uses an epoch date of Jan 1, 1950. And there're two reasons for this: radiocarbon dating was first standardized in the 1950s, using a reference sample from 1950; and after the 1950s, widespread nuclear testing made radiocarbon dating inaccurate.
It's actually less arbitrary and shortsighted than it seems. Future civilizations are going to face a discontinuity in the archaeological record, and it'll be roughly at the Before Present epoch date.
Nuclear bombs put energy and radioactive particulates into the atmosphere. The effects of the radioactive particulates are fairly well understood. The amount of energy from even the largest bombs is negligible at those scales.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity
See also "modern humans".
Wait, I'm confused. Are you claiming that current climate change will lead to the collapse of civilization?
Essentially the IPCC and scientists in general have baked in the assumption to the models that we are smart enough to avoid collapse by changing our behavior. TBD.
Or to put it in P.G./HN jargon, (our current) civilization is "default dead" if we stay above 10Gt/year for the latter half of the century.
The reality will probably look a bit more rosy if we get our act together and do manage to reduce CO2 emissions, at least I hope this will happen.
For the overview of the argument, I'd recommend a paper called "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy". Direct link: http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
"Until now, the Temple Culture was thought to have centered on the worship of a mother goddess, but Malone thinks it was more of a clubhouse culture, focused on ritual and feasting but where food—rather than a deity—was revered."
(The word'Temple' has for too long been a placeholder for 'we don't know.')
This reminded me of The Motel of the Mysteries[1] where modern-day objects and franchises are similarly turned into temples and objects of worship or religious tools.
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MotelOfThe...
[0] https://www.quora.com/Do-archaeologists-have-a-tendency-to-s...
[1] https://satwcomic.com/humans-never-change
[2] https://me.me/i/lesbianshepard-if-an-archaeologist-says-an-a...
Wouldn't this leave some sort of trace? A layer in the dirt? Even under water?
I'm a bit disappointed - this being the crux of the theory - this was left open. Intentionally?
However, the author points out that they lack the preservation of proxies such as what you've pointed out. They were analysing in a region where ecological change occurs frequently.
[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS106422931707001...
That context, to me, should be stated plain and obvious right upfront. Caveats. They matter.
Yep:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/prehis...
Wow. Our rail gauge is 142 centimeters. And half a meter deep? (Goes looking into Roman cart technology)... about the same!
> These rims had their outer side convex, inner side concave or flat, with a thickness of about 15 mm., a width of between 35 to 45mm., and a diameter from 1001 to 1193 mm.20
>Roman Traction Systems http://www.humanist.de/rome/rts/wagon.html
>The historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles approximately 5 feet (1,500 mm) apart probably derives from the width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts.
>Are U.S. Railroad Gauges Based on Roman Chariots? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/
Rail guages have also varied fairly considerably, though again, standards come to be imposed with time. Reguaging rolling stock is slow
Stories of societal/environmental reckonings are also a good reminder that civilizational resilience is a worthy goal, if for no other reason than future generations can experience the existential “enoughness” of eating olives in the Mediterranean sun (and such).
By the way, I recommend the book Collapse by Jared Diamond for more like this article. Spoiler alert: do not totally deforest whatever island you live on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choo...
Greenland's collapse was largely driven by a shift in northern trade routes and Greenland lost its cash crop export (ivory). Easter Island does not appear to have undergone any sort of collapse until after European contact. And the Mayan collapse is actually completely backwards from how it should progress if climate was the major factor: there was a shift in power from the more fertile highlands region to what was previously the relatively backwards arid Yucatan region (Cichen Itza, in the northern Yucatan, didn't start thriving until after the southern regions were in dramatic collapse).
Isn't that strange for an island-based people in the Med?
So they were in some ways more advanced than modern U.S.
Apparently the scientists reconstructed their diet from skeletal remains, and you'd expect your standard marauder types to feed more on meat, since meat packs more calories (and satisfaction) per kilo.
The scientists say they didn't find many signs of violent deaths (in contrast to South American sites) and collapsed without signs of an exodus. Also the location of the island can't have been that convenient for seafarers of the period. On top of that, they didn't do much fishing at all, further pointing to a lack of maritime ambition.
What makes the Maltese Temple Culture a "Civilization" is the higher population density and their efforts to bend the land to their will, leaving traces that endure for millenia.
https://grahamhancock.com/reedijkl1/
If you find the revised date hard to believe, take a look at this:
https://6abc.com/science/9000-year-old-city-unearthed-in-isr...
Also look up Gobekli Tepe.
Just as fascinating are the seemingly endless list of real civilizations and cultures we seldom here about (often because they're in poorer parts of the world). Trypillian is one of my favorites ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni%E2%80%93Trypillia_cul...) but a good starting point for others is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory#By_region
Hancock claims to have been misrepresented about this by the BBC in an interview many years ago, he explains it here [0]. I think if you asked him today, he would say the most likely location for the ruins of Atlantis is somewhere off the coast between southwest Spain [1] and the Celtic Shelf [2]. While certainly outside the mainstream, that is not an unreasonable hypothesis. In my experience, when you start to really research ancient civilizations you often find the mainstream view a bit unsatisfactory. In searching for alternate explanations however, you quickly end up in the land of fringe theories. Hancock often presents these ideas in a more favorable light than what the evidence supports, but there’s also some good history mixed in and he doesn’t go off into ancient aliens territory like many of the people who write about these topics.
[0] https://grahamhancock.com/horizon-antarctica/
To be fair, it must be pointed out that the linked article, though hosted at the domain of the crank Hancock, was written by another author. That other author, however, is a legal translator by profession and only decided to dabble in Maltese archeology, so she is hardly any better.