11,000-Year-Old Temple Found In Turkey

Ralph Spoilsport writes "In Southeast Turkey, the archaeologist Klaus Schmidt has discovered an 11,000-year-old temple. Established civilization theory suggests that agriculture created cities, and cities created monuments. This discovery suggests just the opposite — people got together to build a huge monument to their religion, and in order to sustain it, communities were formed and agriculture (already in development) quickly followed on to sustain the population. Truly a startling find with significant implications."

I read that wrong, and I have to admit...

...turkey found in 11,000-year-old temple sounds much more delicious.

fruitcake found in 11,000 yo temple

sounds more probable

both for reasons of its greater chance of being left alone and untouched, in regards to the original inhabitants and later tomb raiders, and also for its greater chance of surviving physically, intact and inert for millenia

Re:fruitcake found in 11,000 yo temple

It's actually a long-standing hoax among people who know how to make fruitcake. You see, if you make fruitcake with quality dried fruit, (not the chemicalized gooey shit in plastic tubs that comes pre-mixed) spice it well, and let it age in the fridge wrapped in a cotton wrapper soaked in liquor (spiced rum ftw) it's pretty friggin fantastic. It's those people, talking about fantastic fruitcakes, which indirectly convince the ignorant suckers to make it. Not knowing what they're doing, they choose the crap from the store which tastes like shit.

Of course, I'm violating the unwritten rule of those who-know-how-to-make-it: Don't tell people - it's better they think all fruitcakes are shit. More for us.

Problem

The bible says the earth is 6000 years old so it CANT be 11,000 years old! Simple math people!

Re:Problem

Mod parent funny! This guy at my uni is quite smart, but has studied the wrong things and he can argue very thoroughly things like "there were dinosaurs roaming north America less than 500 years ago because they found red blood cells in bones..."

I personally can't stand religion messing with science, they are mutually exclusive fields IMHO. You're not gonna convince me that there is no 11,000 year old turkey because the bible says the earth is too young!!!

Re:Problem

I'm not sure who to attribute it to, but one of the QOTDs on the bottom (Quote of the Moments, maybe? they change more often than daily, but I digress) said something along the lines of, "Science and religion are not incompatible, but science and faith are."

Re:Problem

It's not science and faith, it's science and myths that are incompatible.

There's nothing in the bible that says how long one of God's days are (in human years), so there's no definitive date for the age of the earth in the bible -- just the age of 'men'.

That having been said, I would argue that, you could still accept the 6000 year old 'birth' date of adam and reconcile that with a 11,000 year old temple, if you declare that pre-adam homo-sapiens simply weren't officially 'men' from the bible's perspective (Pre-release betas, so to speak)

OK: so it's science and blind faith in myths that are incompatible.

Re:Problem

nah, it's rational thought and faith that are incompatible. myths aren't incompatible with science/rational thought as long as you recognize what they are. you can be a rational person and adhere to scientific principles while appreciating cultural myths, folklore, and legends.

i mean, you can be an atheist and still appreciate the beauty of Greek mythology. you don't have to actually believe in Hellenic polytheism to appreciate the literary value and rich cultural tapestry that's woven into Greek mythology. likewise, you can study and appreciate the myths of other ancient cultures without abandoning logic and reason.

but religion by definition requires blind faith, and that's why it's incompatible with rational thought.

Re:Problem

Of course we'd have to go back to the original language, and also understand that language well enough to understand what a "day" was meant to be in all occurances. It could be pretty flexible, just like we have cultures that don't have much of a number system, and just use their version of "many" pretty early in discussing quantity.

If you go back to the original Hebrew, you find that it's not even that big of an issue because the word "day" doesn't even appear.

I believe the Hebrew word used in Genesis is "yem" (or something like that), which simply means "passage of time"--much like our modern-day "eon" except without the automatic connotation of a long time period (though not excluding long periods of time). In other words, essentially zero context as to how long was the period that was translated into the English word "day".

Re:Problem

I looked this up in my old notes, and found the following more detailed explanation. Please pardon my original mistake or two on the issue.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, think of it this way: The word "yom" was also used in Biblical Hebrew in such contexts of "The day [yom] of the Romans" or "The day [yom] of God's wrath", neither of which specifically refer to a 24 hour period.

From the outset, we note that at least some of the acrimony over the interpretation of the Genesis days arises from language differences. Turning biblical Hebrew into English prose and poetry presents some enormous difficulties. Whereas biblical Hebrew has a vocabulary of under 3,100 words (not including proper nouns), English words number over 4,000,000. The disparity is even greater for nouns. Therefore, we should not be surprised that Hebrew nouns have multiple literal definitions. The English word day most often refers either to the daylight hours or to a period of 24 hours. As in "the day of the Romans," it is also used for a longer time period. English speakers and writers, however, have many words for an extended period--age, era, epoch, and eon, just to name a few. The Hebrew word yom similarly refers to daylight hours, 24 hours, and a long (but finite) time period. Unlike English, however, biblical Hebrew has no word other than yom to denote a long timespan. The word yom appears repeatedly in the Hebrew Scriptures with reference to a period longer than 12 or 24 hours. The Hebrew terms yom (singular) and yamin (plural) often refer to an extended time frame. Perhaps the most familiar passages are those referring to God's "day of wrath." Before English translations were available, animosity over the length of the Genesis days did not exist, at least not as far as anyone can tell from the extant theological literature. Prior to the Nicene Council, the early Church fathers wrote two thousand pages of commentary on the Genesis creation days, yet did not devote a word to disparaging each other's viewpoints on the creation time scale. All these early scholars accepted that yom could mean "a long time period." The majority explicitly taught that the Genesis creation days were extended time periods (something like a thousand years per yom). Not one Ante-Nicene Father explicitly endorsed the 24-hour interpretation. Ambrose, who came the closest to doing so, apparently vacillated on the issue. We certainly cannot charge the Church fathers with "scientific bias" in their interpretations. They wrote long before astronomical, geological, and paleontological evidences for the antiquity of the universe, the earth, and life became available. Nor had biological evolution yet been proposed. Lamarck, Darwin, and Huxley came along some 1,400 years later."

(Ross H.N. and Archer G.L., "The Day-Age View," in Hagopian D.G., ed., The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation, Crux Press: Mission Viejo CA, 2001, pp. 125-126, as cited by Jones)
[I'd link to the online source where I found this, but it's been 403'd]

Re:Problem

in the beginning God creates the heavens and earth, then at some point later he says let their be light

That's why I find God to be so amazing. He made all this, IN THE DARK! I would have been, "Oh, sod this, let there be a small star or something, so I can see what I'm doing here."

Actually, that explains why some things are a bit fucked up. Wave/Particle duality? Yeah, look, God couldn't see exactly what He was doing there when that bit came together, so no wonder. Duck-billed mamallian egg-laying Platypuses? Vestigial tails on humans? Same deal. With Him working blind, consider yourself lucky you don't have an anus right next to your nose.

(Well, *some* people do sometimes, but that's a matter of lifestyle preference.)

Re:Problem

You mistake the interplay between truth (is there any?), theory, hypothesis, and observation.

Both science and faith can exist in this gray area.

Science generates incremental, provable (observable, repeatable) hypotheses. If these are generally believed (faith!), they are called a theory. There is no generally accepted absolute truth [wikipedia.org] available to a scientist.

I refer you to Albert Einstein's quote, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind," and so religion at least can co-exist with science. You certainly don't have to accept either one!

Faith in the scientific method and in the majority of your scientific peers is essential, unless you intend to resolve everything you believe in through exhaustive observations -- and then you would only have it down to a small probability that you are deceived. Scientists must consider their peers and teachers trustworthy, or our collected knowledge could not be accepted and those who found it out would die faster than those who could prove it to themselves.

Faith in absolute truths accepted by a large population at some point gets called a "religion." [wikipedia.org] Pascal's wager [wikipedia.org] -- since the majority of the humans alive today are religious, you are safer to accept the hypothesis that religion is not a hoax, than you are to accept the hypothesis that religion is a hoax -- implies that science provides support of faith.

So in other words, science (about faith) proves that faith is a reasonable assumption -- as much as science can prove anything. Faith (in science) is a necessary assumption to prevent the loss of scientific knowledge, and faith as a general quality allows scientists to work together.

Science often suffers from "groupthink." Faith often also gets lost in "myth." All in pursuit of truth, something that men can't ever really capture.

Good luck!

Another common mystery

"Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility."

We've known about the rings at Stonehenge for how long? What do we know about them? Not much.

The simple fact is that we are still discovering evidence of what man did before inventing writing of any sort. I'm continually amazed at the apparent opinion of many that what science knows now is all there is to know, or that it is not possible that it is not quite right.

Alluding to an earlier post, massive drastic evolutionary changes just don't make sense to me. There has to be more history in the dirt than we know about. Chances of us finding it... meh!

I don't think that the curve of knowledge acquisition of the last 500 years is a linear projection of the millions of years before them. I think this whole gain in knowledge is rather logarithmic in nature. Meaning that the first several thousand centuries passed without writing, without lasting evidence to show we had been there. Stonehenge, the Sphinx... how many others? They all stand there with no written account of who or why they were erected. We are still arguing about how the great pyramids at Giza were built. (they made them of concrete).

Point is, this should not be surprising. What should be is that it has taken this long to find it, never mind any other corroborating evidence of early man's efforts to create. What the temple could mean in terms of sociology or religion is pittance compared to what it means to evolution IMO. The technology and effort used to create it means a lot. Guesses about agriculture and social groupings are just that. I have a sneaking suspicion that socially, mankind evolved from pack/clan culture early on. There are so many similarities to that, but we just don't see it in modern society, or ignore it. sheeple anyone? They need a pack leader, right?

Anyway, I hope that further study/excavation shows us something more meaningful than what has been found. We, as a species, need it to fully recognize where we came from, for that is how you understand what direction to go. Just an opinion.

Re:Another common mystery

So you're saying that in ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived an ancient race, the Druids. No-one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.

Re:Another common mystery

"I'm continually amazed at the apparent opinion of many that what science knows now is all there is to know, or that it is not possible that it is not quite right."

I'm continually amazed how often people claim this, I cannot think of one person I have met in my 50yrs that has held this idea but there are countless people who claim it is common.

What's more the assertion itself implies that somewhere "out there" is a correct answer that we can all accept with 100% unchanging certainty. That concept is the contrary to science both in philosophy and implementation, science simply provides the best answer (as demonstrated by centuries of usefull spin-off's). IMHO the pace of knowledge acquisition over the last 50yrs has exploded due mainly to more accessible education and a massive reduction of influence from religion. On the longer term mankinds colective body of knowledge goes up and down, but it does have a fairly consistent upward trend and is definitely related to events in society.

"Alluding to an earlier post, massive drastic evolutionary changes just don't make sense to me."

Then I suggest you argue with Dawkins or Gould.

"Anyway, I hope that further study/excavation shows us something more meaningful than what has been found."

I am glad to see you support the work even though you personally think it's meaningless, it implies a trust in science on your part that I admire. Having said that, it's only meaningless to those who don't understand what those "guesses" about the relationship between agriculture/religion/buildings are based on. Turkey (via many lines of evidence) is where both agriculture and buildings originated ~10,000yrs ago, an 11,000yo temple (anywhere in the world) is therefore meaningfull to people who are intrested in the origins and spread of civilization (not that nomadic tribes are uncivilised, just that they have an alterantive definition-re: modern day Mongolia). But yes, there is still a lot we don't know outside of Europe - perhaps Turkey wasn't the birthplace of civilization but right now at this point in time that idea is far more speculative than any of the ideas in TFA.

"We are still arguing about how the great pyramids at Giza were built. (they made them of concrete)."

Again simply because we don't know everything does not mean we know nothing. Some people actually know quite a bit about the various methods (note the plural) used to build pyramids. Normally they were made from limestone and/or granite blocks, some were given a coating of lime to make the sides smooth and white. Over the millenia most (if not all) the lime coating has been scavanged to cover the walls of nearby towns/cities.

As for "concrete blocks", it's an interesting idea backed up by a couple of material analysists and (to me anyway) the limestone covering demonstrates they knew about "concrete" but these guys are still very far from providing the evidence needed to ADD it to accepted idea's, let alone the "extrodinary evidence" that would be needed to show ALL pyramids were built with the concrete method.

Re:Another common mystery

I agree with you! I basically write code for a living right now, and every day I learn something new. It's invigorating. I cannot imagine that learning new things about the as yet unknown or our past is not invigorating for mankind. I look back at old code I have written and think... wow, I know a lot more now.

Interestingly, I don't believe this kind of thinking is new. 1000 years before the library at Alexandria there must have been people who thought the same thoughts. It follows that 10,000 years before that people had the same thoughts. All the way back past learning how to use fire or the wheel. Where we might be in 50, 100, or 500 years is an incredible thought. The people who built this temple must have done it with the latest technology and skills available... meaning that there were many skills and technologies prior that were not as good. From their perspective, it would seem no different than an architect working on a new building today.

Our knowledge and skill really took off flying when we created ways to store knowledge and share it easily. The easier it is to share knowledge, the greater mankind becomes. My vote for invention of the last 1000 year? The internet, for all the reasons stated. Now, you as a 'scientist' can share your ideas with all of us, and we with you. One thought in the bathtub can lead to great moments in science. (unless you are in the porn industry... but that is another matter).

When I was in school, the paper encyclopedia was all there was, or a library. Now I can consult libraries all over the world... and never leave my house. Awesome. I hope that this discovery being blasted across the planet spurs on ideas and knowledge linking that was not possible before it's publication. Sort of the butterfly effect of knowledge acquisition.

I wish to know more about our past and origins and will patiently wait for those good folks who do such things to discover clues. I wait feeling assured that my wait is not in vain, that there will be answers, and that no one will find the garden of Eden. Discoveries like this can only light the way toward that enlightenment. I want to know about all the mysteries as though they were birthday gifts to me. Why are the Nasca lines there? Why did the migration of early man leave us separated? (I secretly doubt this is true) I want to know the true origins of mankind. I would also like to meet an alien. If not in person, by some communication method. I'm not afraid of what can be, or was. I just want to know. Simply knowing all these things and more is reason enough to have lived.

Enough blathering, on with the discoveries :-)

Wikipedia entry

Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] on the subject is more clear and concise. Also it's not exactly a news - wiki entry dates from four years ago.

I doubt that very f**ing much.

Since large communities and cities are not possible without agriculture, I highly doubt that agriculture sprang up after communities and cities.

Asserting that it did work that way (as the OP does), is like asserting that gasoline was developed to fuel all those gasoline engines that were already lying around.

Re:I doubt that very f**ing much.

Since large communities and cities are not possible without agriculture, I highly doubt that agriculture sprang up after communities and cities.

I think the OP was trying to argue that the growth of cities and monuments drove the development of agriculture, rather than simply being a nifty aftereffect.

well yeah

when i play the aztecs, i can usually get my obelisk built before my starting worker even finishes his first few roads, nevermind that i haven't even discovered agriculture yet. of course, this is because the aztecs have mysticism as a starting tech, and assumes i'm not cranking out warriors to combat barbarian threats so...

wait, we're talking reality?

sorry

Obligatory joke

So Germans found some cooper wires deep in the ground near Berlin and concluded that their ancestors used electricity way before anyone else, circa 1,000 years ago. Later on, the British found near London some glass way deeper than previous German team and concluded than optical cable was used on British 2,000 years ago. Turkish people kept digging and digging and found nothing. They concluded that their ancestors from 11,000 years ago have used wireless.

People didn't build that temple

Jesus did. With falsely pre-aged faith testing blocks.

Why always a temple?

Why do archaeologists always declare that old buildings are temples? It could have been a Sandwich Shop or a Greasy Spoon for all we know.

So this is how it all started

So some silver-tongued geezer persuades a bunch of nubile young lovelies that they'll suffer eternal damnation unless they polish his wood. After he finally croaks in the middle of his ninth threesome of the week, a bunch of less-talented pick-up artists find that no amount of funeral preparation can wipe the grin off the old goat's face. They assume this is proof that he's still getting his wand waxed in the afterlife, and build a monument to a god they now regard as eminently worthy of worship.

And it all goes from there. I gotta write me a prayer book.

Re:dont be silly

That implies that some of todays theories are wrong! ... This also implies that we are acting with a good deal of faith in scientific theories which are not yet proven.

Pretty much all of today's theories are wrong, in the sense that they are inaccurate and incomplete. General relativity fails us at the beginning of the Universe and at the centre of a black hole. Quantum mechanics gives us no description at all of gravitational effects. In cases where we need to use both theories together we end up with infinities and singularities and contradictions all over the place.

A new theory will dramatically change our description of these exotic systems. But in order to work, such a theory must agree with the current theories in domains where those theories are known to be valid. General relativity replaced Newtonian gravity, but it could only do so because it made nearly the same predictions in conditions where Newtonian gravity worked. Newton's theory is still used for interplanetary navigation, because the calculations are so much simpler and the error is small - but if you had to do a gravitational slingshot round a neutron star you'd go to Einstein.

I'd just add that no scientific theory is ever proved. You want proof, the mathematics department is next door. You want certainty, there's a church down the road. In science we accumulate evidence, and the more evidence agrees with our predictions, the more confident in the theory we become - but you can never test every possible case.