Ancient human history is being rewritten

Following several recent articles, including this one below, I think feel and believe that ancient human history is – finally – being rewritten.

The Neanderthal are finally being reevaluated to what they have always been: our human predecessors rather than “tall, dumb and non-human“. Indeed, it’s hard to argue otherwise given the significant interbreeding between early humans and the Neanderthal (eg, History-2018, Phys-2018, NYPost-2018, Temple University study).

A November 2018 study published in Nature claims the (surprising) find of Levallois advanced stone-tool manufacturing technology in southwest China, dating to 170,000–80,000 years ago (eg, Haaretz, Nature, New Scientist). 

The dating of Levallois stone-tool technology in China supports the – thus far highly controversial – 1981 findings of geologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre at the Hueyatlaco archaeological site in Central Mexico. These findings already suggested “human habitation dated to ca. 250,000 years before the present” (Wiki).

There are many more scientific anomalies on which I have written:

• my 2016 blogs on Ancient advanced artefacts and the Piri Reis map;
• my 2016 blogs on the “not invented here” syndrome: (1) Pyramids, (2) Sphinx, (3) languages;
• my 2016 blog on underwater discoveries, related to the Great Flood of 11000 BC – 4000 BC;
• my 2016 blogs on History, Legends and Myths, being part 1 and part 2;
• my 2017 blog: Civilizations before 4,000 BC and Black Death
• my 2018 blogs on the decline in Common Knowledge, being part 1, part 2, and part 3;
• my 2018 blog on discovering a 4,000 year old Sumerian port in the Iraqi desert;
• my 2016-2018 blogs on the origins of the ancient Sumerian civilization (all related blogs).

The article below suggests that the scientific notion about an absence of advanced societies before 5,000 BC must be wrong. The idea that primitive societies of hunter-gatherers would be able to draw “European Palaeolithic [cave] art [which depicts] extremely ancient knowledge of precession of the equinoxes” would be preposterous.

Please see my blogs Wobbling Earth (2016) and Wobbling Earth (2): climate shift vs climate change (2017), for more information on this astronomical axial precession of planet Earth.

Remarkably, climate change – once again – appears to be the culprit:

• the post-glacial sea level rise “by more than 125 metres (410ft) [] since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago” (Wiki);
• the Great Flood of ca. 11,000 BC to 4,000 BC;
• the transformation of the Green Sahara (ca. 7500 BC-3500 BC) into the Sahara desert;
• climate change as one of the Great Filters in civilizations (my 2018 blog).

Science Daily title: Prehistoric cave art suggests ancient use of complex astronomy
SD subtitle: Some of the world’s oldest cave paintings have revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy.
By: University of Edinburgh
Date: 27 November 2018

“The artworks, at sites across Europe, are not simply depictions of wild animals, as was previously thought. Instead, the animal symbols represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes, analysis suggests.

They reveal that, perhaps as far back as 40,000 years ago, humans kept track of time using knowledge of how the position of the stars slowly changes over thousands of years.

The findings suggest that ancient people understood an effect caused by the gradual shift of Earth’s rotational axis. Discovery of this phenomenon, called precession of the equinoxes, was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.

Around the time that Neanderthals became extinct, and perhaps before humankind settled in Western Europe, people could define dates to within 250 years, the study shows.

The findings indicate that the astronomical insights of ancient people were far greater than previously believed. Their knowledge may have aided navigation of the open seas, with implications for our understanding of prehistoric human migration.

Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Kent studied details of Palaeolithic and Neolithic art featuring animal symbols at sites in Turkey, Spain, France and Germany.

They found all the sites used the same method of date-keeping based on sophisticated astronomy, even though the art was separated in time by tens of thousands of years.

Researchers clarified earlier findings from a study of stone carvings at one of these sites — Gobekli Tepe in modern-day Turkey — which is interpreted as a memorial to a devastating comet strike around 11,000 BC. This strike was thought to have initiated a mini ice-age known as the Younger Dryas period.

They also decoded what is probably the best known ancient artwork — the Lascaux Shaft Scene in France. The work, which features a dying man and several animals, may commemorate another comet strike around 15,200 BC, researchers suggest.

The team confirmed their findings by comparing the age of many examples of cave art — known from chemically dating the paints used — with the positions of stars in ancient times as predicted by sophisticated software.

The world’s oldest sculpture, the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, from 38,000 BC, was also found to conform to this ancient time-keeping system.

This study was published in Athens Journal of History.

Dr Martin Sweatman, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, who led the study, said: “Early cave art shows that people had advanced knowledge of the night sky within the last ice age. Intellectually, they were hardly any different to us today.

“These findings support a theory of multiple comet impacts over the course of human development, and will probably revolutionise how prehistoric populations are seen.” “

Source: 
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181127111025.htm

Original source: https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2018/cave-paintings-reveal-use-of-complex-astronomy

Original study on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00046