New (Ancient) Civilization In Central Asia

jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes has an interesting story on a new major ancient cover unearthed in Central Asia. The civilization existed for about 500 years over 4000 years ago and was independent of other roughly competorary civilizations in China, the Indus Valley, and Mesopotamia. The civilization also had at least begun to develop its own unique writing system. The end of the Cold War and new relations between Russian and American scientists made the discoveries possible."

Comments

Re:Brainwash 2001

[jd]

Unfortunately, what will end up getting -published- will be what George W would like the populace to believe, whether the writers are more aware now or not.

(Mind you, there's not been a decent comedy for ages. The only real problem will be that everyone will take it so seriously.)

Re:Brainwash 2001

[ksheff]

It looks like U of Pennsylvania archaeologists are busy in central Asia digging up stuff that may change history. Yesterday, I found an article about U of Penn's Dr. Victor Mair's research into 3000 year old Caucasian mummies found in western China. It too suggested that history would need to be re-written w/ reguards to when the Chinese first had contact with the West and how technologies that were previously thought to have been developed by the Chinese in isolation could have been imported. It is interesting to see what the Chinese have done to stiffle this research (DNA samples had to be smuggled out) and how some people are trying to downplay it because of past colonial expansions and Nazism.

I submitted it to Slashdot, but I guess this one was better because it was 1000 years older.

BMAC Tribesmen

[pubudu]

Does anyone have a link to some scholarly articles about the BMAC? The New York Times article didn't say much about any anthropological research that had been/will be done concerning them. Lacking a (deciphered) writing system, we probably can't as yet determine much with regard to linguistics, but the other stuff (pottery, architecture, etc) should tell us a bit about cultural linkages to other groups. They built impressive mud-brick buildings, but does their design suggest anything about who they were? The article suggests that they may have come from Turkey or from up North, but that's a pretty wide field of possibility.

As an offtopic aside, do I get any points for being the first ontopic post?

Re:Brainwash 2001

[Perx]

The statement is open to interpretation - in the context of the article, you interpreted it incorrectly.

What the archaeologist is not saying: 'We are rewriting history to better reflect what we think George W. would like the populace to believe'.

What the archaeologist is saying: 'As a result of improved relations between Russia and the US, areas that were formerly inaccessible to US archaeologists are now acessible and evidence of a previously onknown civilization has subsequently come to light'.

You were not totally wrong about the history books; your interpretation of the quote you are so concerned about is totally wrong.

Wow they found my civilization...

[glebite]

I had just finished learning "alphabet, pottery, writing, masonry" when the Russians wiped my civ off the map. Quickest game ever.

I hadn't even finished building city walls...

Brainwash 2001

[nnnneedles]

Was there anyone who reacted when they read this: "We are rewriting all the history books about the ancient world because of the new political order in our own time," Dr. Fredrik T. Hiebert, a University of Pennsylvania archaeologist involved in the excavation, said in an interview last week." Oh, great. Here I was thinking we were now civilized enough to start having objective history books in schools. Guess I was totally wrong. History Is A Lie Agreed Upon. - Napoleon