Here is the link.
Archaeologists have revealed that they have discovered Europe’s oldest civilization (4800-4600 BC) in parts of Germany, Austria and Slovakia. The unearthed buildings predate the pyramids in Egypt.
Among the items being excavated is a huge series of temples: “The network of temples, made of earth and wood, were constructed by a religious people whose economy appears to have been based on livestock farming.” Wow. I’ve always asked the question of whether or not humans could have evolved and matured as civilizations without some form or concept of religion. This kind of answers it. I guess all people need some idea of a higher power, and that is what helps to guide their lives.
It’s also amazing to think that despite our efforts to modernize the world, that there are still places where history can be discovered. Germany is a fairly traveled and a fairly modern country. If archaeologists can still roam around Germany and find artifacts of unknown civilizations, then there can still be others.
China comes to mind as a country that has been destroying its chances at excavating its buried history. As the country prepares itself for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, it has found itself in controversy. Beijing is an ancient city with tremendous possibilities of finding historical artifacts. But the government has been razing Beijing’s old buildings to make way for modern buildings. Some of the buildings represent the country’s history and tradition, but the efforts of some to convince the government to spare the buildings went unnoticed.
China is in a unique position to discover and preserve its country’s history. But it chooses to not take advantage of it in order to maintain its course for ascending onto the world stage. The United States is a fairly new nation, and what little history is left from its founding is treasured. But hopefully this new European finding will help open the door for new discoveries.
Article comments
1 - SFC SKI
Very interesting. It is also noteworthy just how many cities are actually layers built on the ruins of older cities.
2 - Christopher Rose
It's always fascinating when discoveries like this are made. All over the world there is clearly much lost history yet to be recovered.
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
i tried the link - twice. I wanted very much to read about this find. The link didn't seemn to work.
If someone who has found an article on this could post it - or its URL, I'd appreciate it very much.
4 - Christopher Rose
Here's one, Ruvy, hope it helps.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Thanks for the link, Chris. It was interesting reading, even if two of the sublinks couldn't be displayed and one was a hot dating site.
The round temple made its appearance in the one sublink that was displayed.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
BTW, Chris, and Tan the Man,
There was one item I was looking for that I did not find - evidence of writing.
7 - Bluto
This is a personal attack. I do not like Popeye!
8 - Sal
After 5,000 years of known civilization; probably another 5,000 years of lost history, it is scary how fast technology has raced ahead in only 100 years, while the planet is racing towards it's destruction we are barely conscious of our own extinction as history is litered with examples we are still so selfish and petty we stare at this screen like nero playing while rome burned.
9 - Nancy
Well, whoever wrote the article didn't bother to check dates; Egypt's earliest artifacts date back these days to the 5000+/- BC point. Even that isn't really recent; the famous Palette of Narmer dates back to the upper 4000s. Ditto some of the findings in the older parts of Harappa (Indus), not to mention early proto-China. Jericho's earliest ruins date back to 8-9000 BC. The Sumerian tells - Ur especially - date back to the 5-6000 range. These people are sort of in the middle, actually. I suspect there's earlier, but the artifacts/ruins haven't survived time or the proclivities of human activity & developers of all ages.
10 - Dr Dreadful
Nancy, you misread: the author states that these artifacts predate the Pyramids, not Egyptian civilization itself.
The significance of these findings is that they may be evidence of the oldest European civilization. No-one's disputing that there were some far older civilizations on other continents.
11 - Dr Dreadful
Well, this was the only reliable, non-dud page I could find on Google, two years after the event.
I stress "reliable" because, predictably, a lot of our white supremacist friends seem to have got quite orgasmic about the idea that Europeans might have been pioneers of civilization after all.
Quite how "white" these ancient people were is, of course, debatable...
12 - Nancy
Ah - my bad; thanks for correcting me.