

Archeological dig reshaping human history - splat
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844/page/1

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CytokineStorm
The title of this post is a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least. There is
a great discussion over at Reddit about this same article, I strongly
recommend reading the highest rated comment.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b53f5/a_temple_comp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b53f5/a_temple_complex_in_turkey_that_predates_even_the/)

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yread
That is indeed a great commentary. Now I wish HN was _more_ like Reddit!

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falsestprophet
Thanks for doing your part

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=yread>

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pmichaud
Interesting.

Synopsis is that there's a temple complex in Turkey that dates back 11,500
years, way before anything like it (6,000 years before stone henge, for
example).

The earlier theories were that farming and animal domestication led to stuff
like religion, since it made food more abundant and stable. This guy is
saying, based on this finding, that in fact religion prompted them to build
the temple complex, and the task of maintaining it prompted people to get
clever about staying in one spot and supplying a population with food.

I'm not qualified to evaluate the merit of the claim, but hot damn those are
old temples!

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ajross
The "predates agriculture" bit is a little spun. Dates for the dawn of
agriculture in the fertile crescent typically run about 12kybp. So this thing
(if the dating holds -- often times new sites jump around a bit) would be
contemporary. So the causality could still go either way, or you could posit a
feedback situation I guess. Still a really important find.

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kaffeinecoma
This is a good opportunity for me to ask a question that has been bugging me
for ages (eh, bad pun. :-)

How do sites like this get "buried"? I can understand how small objects might
get lost and later buried in the soil, or perhaps get intentionally buried in
a gravesite. I can also see how dinosaur remains might have been buried by
geological processes over millions of years. But how do huge monuments or even
cities get lost this way?

On the geologic scale, these things are very very recent, and I don't see how
the Earth could have swallowed them up in such a short amount of time. There
was another story in the news recently about an ancient road being re-
discovered in Jerusalem. I never understood how such things get buried, and
would appreciate it if someone could explain, thanks!

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kaffeinecoma
OK, the end of the article mentions "the entire site was buried, deliberately
and all at once". But no hint as to why.

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FlorinAndrei
Conquered by some other tribe?

