(June 11, 2021 at 8:58 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(June 11, 2021 at 3:18 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote: Also in Turkey is Çatalhöyük. Fascinating early attempt at a city. Lots of homes, but no streets between them. One's east wall was also one's neighbours west wall and so on. How did one commute? One climbed out a trapdoor in the ceiling and skipped across the rooftops.
That seems odd to us, but they seemed quite content with the arrangement.
I still think the all time winner so far is the Mungo peoples of Australia. ca. 40,000 or more years ago they were sailing oceans with amazing aplomb.
Alas, we cannot investigate them anymore because "religious reasons".
Why are mungo people the all times winner? Their ancester’s may have developed over-the-horizon seafaring to get to Australia, but Mungo people lived well over 100 miles from sea, and exhibit no signs of continuing to have any association with, or any influence from, sea faring. They lived near an inland lake in a manner probably difficult to distinguish from thousands of other early Homo sapien settlements that probably existed at the same time across Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. The only thing distinguishing them is they exhibited the earliest known example of ceremonial cremation, and some burial traditions they exhibit that may have been continuous with modern aborigine practice.
That's the puzzle. They sailed across oceans with apparently no knowledge what or even if there might be anything on the other end of the journey. Making landfall in Australia, they abandoned their boats and migrated inland to an oasis they couldn't possibly have known was there.
That gives rise to a boatload (haha) of questions. We could research further of course. But we cannot because "religious reasons". Did Columbus discover America? Of course not. Columbus never set foot on it, ever.
My point is that ancient peoples are horribly underestimated as a matter of course. They were not stupid.
