DMB

The OP seems to be essentially about social organisation and technology.
The choice of 6000 years in this quote is essentially arbitrary. You could just as well replace "6000" by "400" and it would be equally true.

If this kind of accomplishment is so important, one might ask the creationist why the creator didn't immediately endow humans with the ability to create complex societies, generate electricity and build communications satellites. Why did these things have to evolve at all? (As they undoubtedly have.)

One could point out that writing is less likely to be useful in hunter/gatherer groups than in settled cities. Writing seems to have originated along with bureaucracy! Then why didn't earlier humans live in cities? --The answer is simple! Their populations were too low. When you can make an adequate living moving around, there is not a great advantage in staying put in one place. It's only when population pressure starts to bite that agriculture is a necessary strategy. And you need the settlement and agriculture before you get the kind of social organisation that supports or even necessitates cities.

With regard to technology, its progress in our own lifetimes has been so rapid that we are all able to see that success builds on success. Such progress also depends on the infrastructure that comes with larger populations and complex social organisation.

I think it is very easy to write off our more remote ancestors as morons because they didn't have our arts or technology. But for most of us, technology and social organisation are a sort of crutch. We are heavily dependent on their support to continue living. We tend to take for granted adequate shelter, heat, light, clothing, food, clean water, sanitation, health care and communications. Our ancestors had to meet their basic needs more directly. When I visited Lascaux II, which is a brilliant replica of the original Lascaux caves, I was stunned by the sophistication of the animal paintings. The artists often used the shape of the underlying rock (not a smooth surface) to give a three-dimensional appearance to their creations. I had no doubt that these artists were as human as I.

Our technology is founded on the very earliest creations of stone tools. No man is an island. We should be grateful for the many unsung generations whose struggles laid the foundations for what we now enjoy.

Graculus

It's pretty much agreed that the Vinca script is a form of proto-writing, and some of it seems to re-appear in Linear A. Oh, and the early Vinca material is somewhere around 6,000 BCE. We may get a handle on some of it, if we ever "crack" Linear A. Omniglot on the Vinca script

The climate during the Ice Age was dry, and during the Younger Dryas it "flickered". Agriculture emerges very soon after the end of the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas ended 9,500 BCE, agriculture is firmly established by 6,000 BCE, with evidence of cultivation dating back to 9,000 BCE (Abu Hureyra, rye. See also Sorori, Korea and rice.. potential rice cultivation before the end of the Younger Dryas)

Except for the fact that it seems that Egyptian heiroglyphics pre-date cuniform... I think that those were simultaneous and independent developments. Making marks to represent something had been around for thousands of years.

Math far predates writing. People were counting 300,000 to 400,000 years ago.

Yes. Dating techniques are many and varied. In addition to carbon dating there is thermoluminescence, archeomagnetism, dendrochronology, other radiometrics, etc, etc. Anyways, you should be looking up Catal Huyuk, Hacilar, Jericho, Vinca, Starcevo, Jarmo, to name a few.

Yes. many, many, many forager cultures have art but not writing. Think Australia, PNG, north and South America, etc.

This link is very dangerous

TheEV1LGEN1US

Why did they not have writing back then? Why didn't the Ancient Romans have computers?

Written language is a technology just as computers are, albeit very basic. Like all technology (and science), it builds upon itself. One bit of knowledge leads to another. I'm not a archeology expert (although the knowledge may still reside within me somewhere lost in the years of education), but there were of course precursors to written language. Certain conditions had to exist before there was written language, just as there were certain conditions that had to exist before the first cities emerged or the first governments. Certain conditions had to exist before agriculture was invented. And so on and so on. That is why man sat on his ass.

chapka

That's interesting. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know of any other sources for the 6,000 B.C.E. date? My impression (backed up by Wikipedia, which gives a later date for Vinca, and not much else) was that the earliest examples of this sort of script were the Harappa script, around 4,000-3,500 B.C.E. (In any case, it's all still early enough to invalidate the Biblical chronology, especially since none of it is written in Hebrew.)

Anyone interested in ancient language or ancient Near Eastern archaeolgy should take a look at the excellent Harappa.com web site, especially the section on the Indus valley and Indus script.

CX

This should probably be split off into BC&H, but saying that oral legends persisted before the written copies of same in no way demonstrates that the oral legends themselves were composed contemporaneously with the events they portray. If we accept, as many current scholars do, that a majority of the bible was written down starting in the 10th-7th century or later, how long prior to their being written down could they have been transmitted orally and be remotely recognizable as the written myths? My point is that while these stories are about bronze age peoples they are not necessarily bronze age stories nor is it necessarily the case that they were composed by bronze age peoples.

Graculus

I've seen it cited elsewhere around the web, let me dig a bit. Some of the symbols appear quite early, but are rather obvously not a script. So I think we are looking at two ends of the same development. Interestingly enough, there are paralells in the signs between Old Europe and the early Chinese stuff... perhaps a comon inheritance? diffusion by trade?

Sparrow

Thanks for the clue, CX. I had thought that Genesis dated from around 2300 BCE, which from my understanding was the bronze age for those specific goat herders. I have no idea exactly how many generations an oral history can be maintained with any semblance to its original form. All I'm fairly certain of is that the text we have now (speaking primarily of Genesis) has little basis in real history.

energize

Now look what all of you gone and done...you scared spanner into abandoning the thread with your ultimate logic LoL. I think his head might have exploded? hehe

Agemegos

Dendrochronological dating of wooden and timber artifacts is one way. Thermoluminescence dating of minerals modified by fire (ceramics, hearthstones, and even the sand in fire-pits) is another. These two means and radiocarbon dating mutually confirm one another in many cases.

Jet Black

The Incas never had writing, though they did have khipu, and they had a massive empire.