How did humans be around for 200,000 years and only got technology recently?

[Loiosh]

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

Is that why fantasy worlds stay at the same level of technology for tens of thousands of years?

 

[BoogerDawson]

The US has only been around for 230 years.

 

[andnowweknow]

That scripture has absolutely nothing to do with my post, not even tangentially... let alone that fact that it has nothing to do with anyone's post in this thread. There is no theologian anywhere that thinks Ecclesiastes is making any statements AT ALL about technological advancement. Instead is is a somewhat fatalistic philosophy on the futility of human endevour...

Hmmm...

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it - Genesis 1:28

And of course there aren't theologians interpreting the Bible in context. The book is a mix mash of cherry picked and often loosely translated musings based on earlier books and ideas that go deep into our history.

The Bible is a great reference source and super early work. The mistake is making it a supernatural god thing.

 

[andnowweknow]

Is that why fantasy worlds stay at the same level of technology for tens of thousands of years?

 

[Phr3121]

For creating an empire Greece is not so good - Macedonia either. Full of mountains and land is not as fertile as in the Levant - which they conquered.

Well, look at Egypt. Desert. Most of the major cities are along the Nile river. Alexandria is the only city with access to the Mediterranean sea. They also have access to the Red sea but very few towns grew along the East front.

 

[French Canadian]

Well, look at Egypt. Desert. Most of the major cities are along the Nile river. Alexandria is the only city with access to the Mediterranean sea. They also have access to the Red sea but very few towns grew along the East front.

Yes, the cause of Egypt's greatness was it' agricultural power, a lot of great countries were great because of their agricultural power. However, lots of people with agriculture got nowhere. Lots of nomadic people became powerful. Agriculture is the right cause for certain countries' development, but it is not a law of history. Laws of history are great to have a beginning knowledge, but real historians have been refuting them since the 50's.

 

[Phr3121]

Don't want to be a dick here and don't take it personally, but the answer is stupid people asking stupid questions...

@superpunch sorry for being a 'dick' earlier. Your question and thread has taken off quite well. I'm the stupid one.

 

[Phr3121]

Yes, the cause of Egypt's greatness was it' agricultural power, a lot of great countries were great because of their agricultural power.

I don't know that agriculture was what made Egypt great. We are talking 2630 BC when the pyramids were built, and there are still questions as to how it was done. Stone cutting (masonry), batteries, and light bulbs had already been invented by the Egyptians. There is no carbon residue on the ceiling inside the pyramids. Torches were not used. A system of mirrors to deflect light from the sun would not have worked either.

Pumapunku in Bolivia is also another mystery. How were the Tiwanaku able to build what they built? I think the stone work there is even more amazing. And there is no connection between the Egyptians and the Tiwanaku. Two highly intelligent cultures that disappeared.

 

[5crew]

Uh, actually, technology does allow us longer lives, it's called medicine.

Maybe you should read my last sentence of what you quoted again.

 

[Hollywood Jack]

This is mind blowing to me. So supposedly we were around for 200,000 years and the most advanced stuff we invented was farming, bows and arrows, a wheel, swords, and shields?

Civilizations come and go. The ancient Romans were able to perform advanced surgeries and certain things like that. And then they were toppled by Barbarians. We could lose our advanced civilization to fucking cavemen following some bullshit in their ancient holy book. Imagine how advanced civilization could be were it not for negative outside forces.

 

[MusterX]

Civilizations come and go. The ancient Romans were able to perform advanced surgeries and certain things like that. And then they were toppled by Barbarians. We could lose our advanced civilization to fucking cavemen following some bullshit in their ancient holy book. Imagine how advanced civilization could be were it not for negative outside forces.

Exactly my point in this entire thread. Modern humans have been around for 200,000 years and that is not a length of time to be underestimated. Because of lower world populations in the past, humanity could have been set back, over and over, by a large variety of things such as asteroids and comets, super volcanoes, ice ages, and as you point out, barbarians. The fact that we didn't go extinct at all is miraculous if you think about a world population of say less than a million people, it wouldn't take much to have us fully 100% focused on daily survival and little Johny Einstein would never have the opportunity to create some new technology.

Now the threat has gone from so small we might go extinct to so large, we may kill ourselves.

 

[therealdope]

Progress in my opinion hinges oddly on very distict advancements. This is going to sound cheesy but all those key achievements in the Civ games were big deals. Pottery, glassmaking, printing press, alphabets, algebra, calculus, public education, antibiotics, sterilization , vaccinations.

The wheel, the steam engine, metallurgy, gun powder ... there were some huge leaps as a result of adding one item.

Adding the zero to your numbering system meant that you could defeat the Romans.

Hell, advancements just in medicine have doubled to trippled people's lifespans. Advancements and agriculture have reduced the time people need to work for food tremendously. We ate living in an age were most people in the first world have only wants, not needs. That said, most people in the world still have very poor standards of living. Around half the world population resides in China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan. The rural parts of those counties are over 100 years behind the rest of the world.

Yup - without question.

 

[TSO]

This is mind blowing to me. So supposedly we were around for 200,000 years and the most advanced stuff we invented was farming, bows and arrows, a wheel, swords, and shields?

Can you make a functional bow by hand? Its an incredibly advanced piece of technology, especially a composite recurve. To you it just looks like a stick with a string, but it took eons to perfect. Same with basic metallurgy. Have you seen raw ferrium? How did anyone come up with taking some random blueish rock and making iron out of it? Study some ancient tech and the answers to you question will seem stupidly obvious.

 

[ralphc1]

Ok...

But "the Romans did it" is the problem.

Also, our cranes aren't designed with the proper rigging apparatus for lifting giant handleless stones.

Your comment was that

The Trilithon and the Stone of the Pregnant Woman are at the absolute max ends of our largest, most sophisticated crane technology for weight

I pointed out that there are many cranes that can easily pick those weights so it's nowhere near the "absolute max ends" . In lifting heavy weights two cranes are often used for better control. Clearly you have no experience with lifting cranes and rigging. We have the ability to rig anything for lifting.

Of course we are familiar with using what we now have and don't really think about how it would be done without the latest technology. Knowledge is lost rather quickly in as little as a generation or two.

 

[andnowweknow]

Can you make a functional bow by hand? Its an incredibly advanced piece of technology, especially a composite recurve. To you it just looks like a stick with a string, but it took eons to perfect. Same with basic metallurgy. Have you seen raw ferrium? How did anyone come up with taking some random blueish rock and making iron out of it? Study some ancient tech and the answers to you question will seem stupidly obvious.

If you could go back in time and watch unknown events from say 30k years ago, my guess is that peoples activities would be disturbingly modern, in so far as far from hunting and gathering.

The general notion of the "invention" of things like animal husbandry and farming within the last 10k years shows a laughable lack of understanding of human capability and nature.

 

[andnowweknow]

Your comment was that


I pointed out that there are many cranes that can easily pick those weights so it's nowhere near the "absolute max ends" . In lifting heavy weights two cranes are often used for better control. Clearly you have no experience with lifting cranes and rigging. We have the ability to rig anything for lifting.

Of course we are familiar with using what we now have and don't really think about how it would be done without the latest technology. Knowledge is lost rather quickly in as little as a generation or two.

We don't have riggs for lifting something like the trilithon without modifying the block. Don't talk to me about a lack of understanding of cranes when you equate weights to being able to lift. We would need to develop completely new systems to move the stuff we see at Baalbek. Yes we could do it. Nothing in existence at this moment is getting on that site and moving the largest block with a short period of time without heavy modification of either the block or our equipment.

As an aside, we don't use blocks of that size because it's easier to just break the stone down. The people who cut and moved these stones logically would have known this as well, yet found it easy and convenient enough to bypass cutting them altogether. Which is the real mystery...

The above also lends credence that for all the time the Roman's spent building the top part of the temple of Jupiter, they had no idea the stone of the pregnant woman was even there.

 

[Fawlty]

Transient hunter gathers did not manage to build Gobekli 12,000 years ago.

Is that not the working theory?

The site is not fully excavated but last I checked no evidence of agricultural life.

 

[MusterX]

Is that not the working theory?

The site is not fully excavated but last I checked no evidence of agricultural life.

I don't think there is any way in hell that transient hunter gatherers were able to build a massive monolithic complex. It would require a huge labor force that was in place and able to work for years to complete it. It would require a solid usable language as well as knowledge of mathematics and planning. You don't just roll up with 25 hunter gatherers who are always on the move trying to follow migration patterns and build a Gobekli Tepi. Its just as asinine as Egyptologists claiming for decades that the pyramids were built in 22 years or whatever it was. That is an impossibility and yet really smart people had that as a "working theory" for a long time. We couldn't build it in that amount of time with modern equipment and crews.

 

[Fawlty]

I don't think there is any way in hell that transient hunter gatherers were able to build a massive monolithic complex. It would require a huge labor force that was in place and able to work for years to complete it. It would require a solid usable language as well as knowledge of mathematics and planning. You don't just roll up with 25 hunter gatherers who are always on the move trying to follow migration patterns and build a Gobekli Tepi. Its just as asinine as Egyptologists claiming for decades that the pyramids were built in 22 years or whatever it was. That is an impossibility and yet really smart people had that as a "working theory" for a long time. We couldn't build it in that amount of time with modern equipment and crews.

I could imagine Native Americans having done something of that scope in the US fwiw.

I'll give a better answer when I get back to the PC. It's a really interesting spot.

 

[andnowweknow]

Is that not the working theory?

The site is not fully excavated but last I checked no evidence of agricultural life.

Gobekli Tepe is 50 times as large as stone hedge, and many times more sophisticated. Karahan Tepe (23 miles from Gobekli) and several other sites just like Gobekli Tepe (t shaped megalithic pillars) are already known and suggest a widespread single culture in the area at least going back to the end of the last ice age, at LEAST 7k years prior to the building of Stonehenge.

Anything of this scope could not have been accomplished without acute specialization and large food surplus.