Lost Civilizations

[Mal_Adjusted]

Greets

How to succeed in history
Societies don't die by accident - they commit ecological suicide
By David Shi

Why did once flourishing societies collapse and disappear? Jared Diamond, a Pulitzer Prize-winning geographer at UCLA, has spent much of his career wrestling with this profound question. It is not merely a romantic mystery; the answers, he believes, offer us the prospect of self-preservation.

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" is remarkable for its ambitious sweep and interpretive panache. Diamond studies four ancient societies across space and time: Easter Island in Polynesia, the native American Anasazi tribe in what is now the southwestern United States, the Maya civilization in Central America, and the isolated Viking settlement on the coast of Greenland. Although diverse in nature and context, these four societies experienced what Diamond calls "ecocide," unintentional ecological suicide.


For example, seafaring Polynesians settled on Easter Island 1,100 years ago. They cut the trees for canoes and firewood and used logs to help transport huge statues weighing as much as 80 tons. Eventually, they chopped down all the forests, and their society collapsed in an epidemic of cannibalism. By 1600, all of the trees and land birds on Easter Island were extinct.

"The parallels between Easter Island and the whole modern world," Diamond notes, "are chillingly obvious."

Diamond details how other societies pursued the same errors. But what makes the issue doubly fascinating is that some ancient cultures have found ways to persist for thousands of years. Japan, Java, and Tonga, for example, have flourished. What factors made some societies implode and others prosper?

Diamond, an evolutionary biologist trained in biochemistry and physiology, deftly uses comparative methods and multidisciplinary tools - archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, and botany - to marshal evidence that sustaining societies over time depends primarily on the quality of human interaction with the environment.

All of the vanished societies experienced environmental damage such as deforestation, soil erosion, the intrusion of salt water, or overhunting game animals. The second common factor was climate change, such as cooling temperatures or increased aridity. Add to that mix hostile neighbors, rapid population growth, and a loss of trading partners, and few societies can survive for long.

In each case, though, what ultimately caused ecocide was a series of flawed responses to societal crises. Environmental degradation does not ensure collapse. A society's fate, Diamond concludes, depends upon how it manages challenging situations.

He reveals, for instance, how the Vikings who settled in Greenland after AD 984 established a pastoral economy, raising sheep, goats, and cattle. They also hunted caribou and seal, and developed a flourishing trade in walrus ivory with Norway. But 300 years later, the Vikings vanished from Greenland. Documentary sources along with physical evidence reveal that their settlements gradually experienced deforestation and soil erosion. A colder climate in the 14th and 15th centuries impeded commerce with Norway and reduced the production of hay, which diminished their herds.

At the same time that the Vikings were being cut off from Norway, the Inuits began attacks on the Norse settlements in Greenland. Cultural prejudices prevented the Vikings from adopting Inuit technologies, such as harpoons, so they could not harvest whales. Nor were they willing to mimic the Inuits in developing dog sleighs, sealskin kayaks, and seagoing boats. As a result of these cultural prejudices, by 1440 the Vikings had all died out in Greenland, whereas the Inuits survive to this day.

Diamond's perspective is not solely historical. He also discusses contemporary developments in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, China, and Australia, as well as in Montana, a state that once was among the wealthiest in the nation but now struggles with poverty, population decline, and environmental problems.

Diamond complements his sobering analysis of collapsed civilizations with more uplifting examples of societies that have found ways to sustain themselves without overexploiting their environments.

What determines a society's fate, Diamond concludes, is how well its leaders and citizens anticipate problems before they become crises, and how decisively a society responds. Such factors may seem obvious, yet Diamond marshals overwhelming evidence of the short-sightedness, selfishness, and fractiousness of many otherwise robust cultures. He reveals that many leaders were (and are) so absorbed with their own pursuit of power that they lost sight of festering systemic problems.

Today, Diamond observes, the world is "on a nonsustainable course," but he remains a "cautious optimist." The problems facing us are stern, he notes, but not insoluble. They demand stiff political will, a commitment to long-term thinking, and a willingness to make painful changes in what we value.

The fact that the United States over the past 30 years has reduced major air pollutants by a quarter at the same time that energy consumption and population have risen 40 percent gives Diamond hope. So does the success of many nations in slowing their rates of population growth.

He concludes, "We have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples." But the question remains, will we?

• David Shi is the president of Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1228/p15s01-bogn.html

mal

 

[ramonmercado]

Drones and satellites spot lost civilizations in unlikely places

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA--What do the Sahara desert and the Amazon rainforest have in common? Until recently, archaeologists would have told you they were both inhospitable environments devoid of large-scale human settlements. But they were wrong. Here today at the annual meeting of the AAAS (which publishes Science), two researchers explained how remote sensing technology, including satellite imaging and drone flights, is revealing the traces of past civilizations that have been hiding in plain sight.

“Although [the Amazon and Sahara] seem so different, a lot of the questions are actually very similar,” says David Mattingly, an archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. He studies a culture known as the Garamantes, which began building a network of cities, forts, and farmland around oases in the Sahara of southern Libya around 1000 BCE. The civilization reached its peak in the early centuries of the Common Era, only to decline after 700 CE, possibly because they had tapped out the region’s groundwater, Mattingly explains.

Many Garamantian structures are still standing in some form or another today, but very few have been visited by archaeologists. It’s hard to do fieldwork in the hot, dry, remote Sahara, Mattingly explains. “And that relative absence of feet on the ground leads to an absence of evidence” about the Garamantes and other cultures that may have thrived before the Islamic conquest of the region. But since many Garamantin sites haven’t been buried or otherwise destroyed, they show up in stunning detail in satellite photos. By analyzing such images, “in an area of about 2,500 square kilometers, we’ve located 158 major settlements, 184 cemeteries, 30 square kilometers of fields, plus a variety of irrigation systems,” Mattingly says ...

http://news.sciencemag.org/2015/02/drones-and-satellites-spot-lost-civilizations-unlikely-places

 

[hunck]

The Baalbek Stones, Lebanon

I'd not heard of these before. The largest worked stones ever found - the pictured one, estimated to weigh around 1000 tons sits on top of an apparently even larger one, estimated to be around 1600 tons but they haven't uncovered the full extent of that one & most of it remains buried.

The Romans built a temple to Jupiter & are thought to have used the pre-existing monoliths as a base as can be seen in this photo. The difference in size is clear, & the straight edges & precise way they fit together is reminiscent of some of the ancient S. American or Egyptian stone structures.

The age of the monoliths is unknown as is the civilization which made them & the method of transport is a mystery.

 

[gerhard1]

Drones and satellites spot lost civilizations in unlikely places

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA--What do the Sahara desert and the Amazon rainforest have in common? Until recently, archaeologists would have told you they were both inhospitable environments devoid of large-scale human settlements. But they were wrong. Here today at the annual meeting of the AAAS (which publishes Science), two researchers explained how remote sensing technology, including satellite imaging and drone flights, is revealing the traces of past civilizations that have been hiding in plain sight.

“Although [the Amazon and Sahara] seem so different, a lot of the questions are actually very similar,” says David Mattingly, an archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. He studies a culture known as the Garamantes, which began building a network of cities, forts, and farmland around oases in the Sahara of southern Libya around 1000 BCE. The civilization reached its peak in the early centuries of the Common Era, only to decline after 700 CE, possibly because they had tapped out the region’s groundwater, Mattingly explains.

Many Garamantian structures are still standing in some form or another today, but very few have been visited by archaeologists. It’s hard to do fieldwork in the hot, dry, remote Sahara, Mattingly explains. “And that relative absence of feet on the ground leads to an absence of evidence” about the Garamantes and other cultures that may have thrived before the Islamic conquest of the region. But since many Garamantin sites haven’t been buried or otherwise destroyed, they show up in stunning detail in satellite photos. By analyzing such images, “in an area of about 2,500 square kilometers, we’ve located 158 major settlements, 184 cemeteries, 30 square kilometers of fields, plus a variety of irrigation systems,” Mattingly says ...

http://news.sciencemag.org/2015/02/drones-and-satellites-spot-lost-civilizations-unlikely-places

I recall theorizing on another website and possibly on this one, that the Sahara contains at least a few lost cities. I might say that this lends a bit of support to this idea.

 

[Nemo]

Uncovering secrets of mystery civilization in Saudi Arabia

A team of researchers is carrying out the first in-depth archaeological survey of part of Saudi Arabia, in a bid to shed light on a mysterious civilisation that once lived there. The Nabataean culture left behind sophisticated stone monuments, but many sites remain unexplored.

The rock-strewn deserts of Al Ula in Saudi Arabia are known for their pitch-black skies, which allow stargazers to easily study celestial bodies without the problem of light pollution.

But the region is becoming even more attractive for archaeologists.

(c) BBC.'19

 

[maximus otter]

Have Sumatran fishing crews found the fabled Island of Gold?​

Treasures worth millions found in the last five years along the Musi River could be the site of the Srivijaya empire.

Palembang (near centre)

It was a fabled kingdom known in ancient times as the Island of Gold, a civilisation with untold wealth that explorers tried in vain to find long after its unexplained disappearance from history around the 14th century. The site of Srivijaya may finally have been found – by local fishing crews carrying out night-time dives on the Musi River near Palembang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

‘Extraordinary stuff’: a handful of gold rings, beads and sandalwood gold coins of Srivijaya, found on the seabed near Palembang. Photograph: Images courtesy of Wreckwatch Magazine

Their extraordinary catches are treasures ranging from a lifesize eighth-century Buddhist statue studded with precious gems – worth millions of pounds – to jewels worthy of kings.

Dr Sean Kingsley, a British maritime archaeologist, said: “In the last five years, extraordinary stuff has been coming up. Coins of all periods, gold and Buddhist statues, gems, all the kinds of things that you might read about in Sinbad the Sailor and think it was made up. It’s actually real.”

A fisher prepares to freedive with a hookah breathing system, and iron chain for a weight belt, in the Musi River at Palembang in search of sunken treasure. Photograph: Images courtesy of Wreckwatch Magazine

He described the trove as definitive evidence that Srivijaya was a “waterworld”, its people living on the river like modern boat people, just as ancient texts record: “When the civilisation ended, their wooden houses, palaces and temples all sank along with all their goods.”

Kingsley noted that, at its height, Srivijaya controlled the arteries of the Maritime Silk Road, a colossal market in which local, Chinese and Arab goods were traded: “While the western Mediterranean world was entering the dark ages in the eighth century, one of the world’s greatest kingdoms erupted on to the map of south-east Asia. For over 300 years the rulers of Srivijaya mastered the trade routes between the Middle East and imperial China. Srivijaya became the international crossroads for the finest produce of the age. Its rulers accumulated legendary wealth.”

He writes: “From the shallows have surfaced glittering gold and jewels befitting this richest of kingdoms - everything from tools of trade and weapons of war to relics of religion. From the lost temples and places of worship have appeared bronze and gold Buddhist figurines, bronze temple door-knockers bearing the demonic face of Kala, in Hindu legend the mythical head of Rahu who churned the oceans to make an elixir of immortality. Bronze monks’ bells and gold ceremonial rings are studded with rubies and adorned with four-pronged golden vajra sceptres, the Hindu symbol for the thunderbolt, the deity’s weapon of choice.

“Exquisite gold sword handles would have graced the sides of royal courtesans, while bronze mirrors and hundreds of gold rings, many stamped with enigmatic letters, figures and symbols, earrings and gold necklace beads resurrect the splendour of a merchant aristocracy going about its daily dealings, stamping shipping manifests, in the palace complex.”

Why the kingdom collapsed is unknown.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...fishing-crews-found-the-fabled-island-of-gold

maximus otter