Oikoman

Theres a school of thought that some khipu actually were writing, but with the dissappearance of the Incan civilization no-one has a clue what they mean anymore.

spanner365

What's your point? You copy/pasted from a creationist web site, then ask for evidence, then... well, what?

Your opening post has been shown to be fallacious, but I don't even know what argument you are putting forth.

Can you please answer some of the other posts?

I don't really know what to believe at this point. I didn't even realize I was on a creationist website and posted that to get the ball rolling. My point with the tree was that it was in California and it was the oldest known tree in existance. How do they use tree rings to go back ten thousand (or is it twelve thousand) years? Do they have dead trees that they corrolate with live trees? Do they have wooden creations that show a clear progression over six thousand years or more? Someone said that civilizations were not formed because there were too few people or something to that effect. There have been civilizations discovered where the population was thought to be no more than a few thousand. A quick search of the web shows a claim to be the oldest civilization in existence. Once again they say they make assumptions based on the layers of civilization. Tree dating and the fire technique aren't mentioned. A little more searching reveals the Sumerian civilization of 5500 years ago to be the most commonly accepted oldest civilization in existence. Which is it. Are these techniques not thought to be reliable enough?

Writing was invented from scratch only a few times in the history of humanity, once in Sumeria, perhaps once in China, probably once in Central America, and perhaps a few extra times elsewhere. But after it was invented, it has spread all over the world; either by borrowing or by stimulus diffusion -- the presence of writing suggests that it is possible to write.

I wouldn't place writing as being as out of reach as the lightbulb. The lightbulb wasn't invented multiple times independantly. Why was a milliion year barrier broken several times in the space of a few hundred years?
I know the Bible is false but that doesn't mean God doesn't exist. I want an afterlife damnit.

Graculus

Yes. Things like roof timbers, etc, extend the dendrochonolgy in some areas very far back. In UK, for instance, you have old living trees, Georgian timered houses, Elizabethan timbered house, Saxon churches and barns, etc, etc. So you essentially have trees whose lives "ovelapped" allowing you to construct a very good, long term dendrochronological sequence.
Per settlement. But there were more than one settlement. Population isn't the defining characteristic of "civilization". "Urban living" is. It has to do with organization, not numbers.
Which claim are you refering to? China, Sumer, Old Europe, Atlantis?
Without knowing which site you are talking about I can't answer this. Offhand I can't think of any modern work where this is true.
Doesn't mean that they weren't used. the amount of detail you get varies widely from website to website. If you have any specific sites in mind I'll try to point you to more detailed information, but I warn you it will probablyy be jargon-heavy.
A complex problem. There is a general ignorance among the public at large about the work on Old Europe. Many websites, including encyclopedias, are copied from old textbooks. Essentially, ignorance. And something else. The civilization of Old Europe completely destroys a couple of cherished paradigms. Some people aren't willing tolet go of the 19th century yet.
Oh, they are reliable enough. Not all techniques can be applied to all sites. For instance, you may not have a good dendroochronology for a particular area, or you may not have material suitable for thermoluminescence. For instance, dendrochronology and C-14 are both used at Catal Huyuk.
Completely irrelevant. At that point there was no "independence" possible. Communications were well developed enough that one person's discoveries would be known to some extent by all others that had an interest. More relevant would be the domestication of animals. Not all domestic animals were somesticated at once. The dog domesticated around 15,000 years ago, the cat only a couple of thousand years ago. Cattle were domesticated in three different areas independently.
I think there's a different forum for that a couple of doors down My interest is in history (prehistory, protohistory, paleontology, etc) not theology or textual criticism.

justsumner

According to research I did for my new book, Humanity (As a species) is no more than 1.8 million years old, culture (define that!) is in some sense almost 80,000 years old. By culture I don't mean type writers, etc. I mean peoiple living in defined groups, language, work divission, etc.

I guess if you define culture differently you get a different time.

RBH

justsumner wroteWhich species? Not Homo sapiens, surely. 1.8 mya is in the Homo erectus range. H. erectus is a "human", but not the current species of "human" we see around us today. "Human" is a non-technical term; "species" is a technical concept. Mixing the two leads to unfortunate confusions.

RBH

justsumner

My mistake. I meant "HOMO" in one form or another.

Kingreaper

I remember reading somewhere that "human" can be used for any member of the genus homo in a technical sense

However I'm not certain on that

justsumner

This is my understanding as well. This is an opinion that I recieved from several friends who are paleoanthropologists or evolutionary biologists

RBH

That's possible, but (as justsumner just illustrated) using the genus name when one means the genus is a lot less confusing. "Human" carries a whole lot of extraneous connotations that "Homo" as a genus name does not.

RBH

ohwilleke

Actually, quite a few. Mayan and Inca cultures had pre-Columbian writings (mostly ideograms). The Mayans are in North America. Also, there are glyphs which could be considered writing among the Anastazi. Those are a few counterexamples just to prove the point. I'm sure there are more.