# Are there any truly "forgotten" civilizations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342 "2015-07-16T17:45:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/21 "2015-07-19T06:13:54Z")
Nothing human , since Antarctica has been a frozen desert for the last 15 million years ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/22 "2015-07-19T06:46:04Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Weren’t the Etruscans kind of a surprise when their stuff first cropped up? Not in the least. The ancient Roman civilization grew up in the shadow of the Etruscans and left records of centuries of coexistence and conflict with Etruria, so there had never been a time when Etruscans were forgotten. It sucks though that no Roman studies of the Etruscan language are extant, so that the language remains poorly understood even though well documented. I think one good answer to the OP’s question would be Sumer. As far as anyone knew until the late 19th century, Babylon was the oldest and original civilization of Mesopotamia. It was a huge surprise to learn that Babylon was the successor to a much older civilization. The Sumerians had been completely forgotten for millennia. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/23 "2015-07-19T06:56:43Z")
Until the advent of radio-carbon dating, anthropologists made the assumption that civiilization radiated from the Fertile Crescent, so the discovery of cities that predate the civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia was a surprise. In addition to Çatalhöyük, the [Cucuteni-Tripolye civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture) centered near the Dniester River (Moldavia) and peaking 4000-3500 BC wasn’t discovered until almost the 20th century. Some cities had 1600 buildings; some were were rebuilt with up to 13 levels. In present-day Portugal and southern Spain are impressive cities associated with the Bell Beaker Copper Age and dating from about 3000 BC. Zambujal, for example, was unearthed only in 1932. And, although not qualifying as “civilization”, I’m impressed that in 4700 BC, a 340-ton monolith (Le Grand Menhir Brisé) was quarried, moved and erected by a prehistoric culture in Brittany. It fell and broke 700 years later, but retained its record as largest monolith ever moved until Egypt’s Old Kingdom. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/24 "2015-07-19T14:41:04Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > … but too much to write here - I have already waffled on too long. No problem. I thought it was fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/25 "2015-07-19T15:44:56Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > There is mounting evidence that the Amazon River basin was home to a very, very large pre-Columbian population. It remains to be seen if it was a cohesive civilization. There is very extensive human-engineered soil called _terra preta_ throughout the region, and as the rainforest is destroyed, remains of large settlements are being revealed in the form of mounds, foundations and ditches. > > We don’t really know much about those who built sites like Teotihuacan or Tiwanaku, sometimes not even who they were. > > I think there are plenty of sophisticated cultures that just predate known early civilizations, but weren’t large and didn’t build using materials that last like some does. > > The lesson? Build with stone, and carve words about yourself into the stone. The people who built Tiwanaku are quite mysterious-they were able to make extremely straight cuts in stone blocks-and even used arsenical bronze to clamp stone blocks together-no other use of this has been seen in the Americas. the other strange thing is that they made sculptures-which are laughably crude-while their stonework was highly sophisticated. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/26 "2015-07-19T16:23:29Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > It would be interesting if they ever could dig under the ice in Antactica what they could find. > [@coremelt](#): > > Nothing human , since Antarctica has been a frozen desert for the last 15 million years Lovecraft begs to differ… 😉 🆒 😃 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/27 "2015-07-19T16:51:03Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > How about Stonehenge? ISTR reading that it far predates the Druids. Do we know who actually built it? We’ve got a better idea than even 30 years ago or so, mostly from things like careful nuclear analysis of the pits and soil samples, but I believe our picture is still a very sparsely tiled mosaic. The Druids never had anything to do with it until modern times. But they’re welcome to their silly blood-of-a-tree ceremonies and such there, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![SeniorCitizen007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@SeniorCitizen007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeniorCitizen007)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/28 "2015-07-19T20:10:56Z")
Jericho was a stone-walled city around 9,000 bc, surrounded by a moat (cut into the rock) 33ft wide and 7 ft deep. There was a tower that could have been of considerable height. ---
**Author:** ![Emiliana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@Emiliana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emiliana)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/29 "2015-07-19T21:05:36Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No problem. I thought it was fascinating. Me too, thanks! And I hope all goes well with your book. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/30 "2015-07-19T21:29:29Z")
Houston’s Museum of Natural Science is showing [China’s Lost Civilization: The Mystery Of Sanxingdui](http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=749&Itemid=786). > [@](#): > > During the summer of 1986, construction workers accidentally uncovered an astounding cache of ancient jades, bone, pottery, elephant tusks, and monumental bronzes at Sanxingdui, about 40 kilometers outside of the Sichuan Province capitol of Chengdu. This chance discovery of two “sacrificial pits” would be one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century and force scholars to rewrite early Chinese history. The objects were dated to about 1800 BC, a time when it was thought that the cradle of Chinese civilization was 1200 kilometers to the northeast on the Yellow River in China’s central plain region. > > However, the cast bronzes of Sanxingdui were far larger and much stranger in appearance than anything seen before. The Sanxingdui culture left no written record or human remains and appears to have existed for only about 500 years before it vanished. In 2001, another archaeological discovery, this time in the city of Chengdu at Jinsha, revealed possible clues to the mystery of where they might have gone. This exhibition will present many of the most important discoveries from both Sanxingdui and Jinsha and examine the great mystery of where this 3500 year old culture could have come from and where and why they abruptly vanished. So–no bodies & no writing. But the artifacts look _quite_ different from other ancient Chinese things. (I’d seen a few in another show, some years back.) (The 25.00 exhibit charge seemed ridiculous, especially on top of the 20.00 museum admission. Then I realized becoming a Member would be more economical if I visit the place a few more times this year. Given the wonderful new Paleontology wing & the new Egyptian galleries, I’m a happy member!) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/31 "2015-07-20T04:30:52Z")
I think the Mound Builders are interesting because they built these huge mounds and seemed advanced yet left almost no records like pottery. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/32 "2015-07-20T12:25:08Z")
The Mound Builders are fascinating. I researched the early mounds in Louisiana, Watson Brake and Poverty Point. No farming, and probably not settled permanently, but the hugely rich environment of the Mississippi. Watson Brake was 3500 BC and Poverty Point nearly 2000 years later. I could not believe the size of the mosquitos at Poverty Point! So these are massive monuments built by hunter gatherers which is really challenging the commonly held idea that farming is needed to provide extra time for monument building. They did make millions of baked shapes made of loess, known as “Poverty Point Objects” or PPOs. And left some pottery. But they left lots of other artefacts especially carved stone objects. At Poverty Point there was no stone naturally, but they had massive trade networks so lots of stone was built to the site. Then is goes on through the millennia ending up with he sophisticated site like Cahokia in Illinois. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/33 "2015-07-20T12:47:42Z")
I can’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/34 "2015-07-20T13:35:36Z")
The Hittite state (fl. ~1700-1200BC) was pretty well forgotten until scientific excavation beginning in 1906 revealed evidence of an extensive literate civilization whose capital city may have had a population of 50,000. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/35 "2015-07-20T13:48:57Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#): > > The Hittite state (fl. ~1700-1200BC) was pretty well forgotten until scientific excavation beginning in 1906 revealed evidence of an extensive literate civilization whose capital city may have had a population of 50,000. Interestingly though people of Hittite ethnicity were specifically mentioned in the OT - the most famous being “Uriah the Hittite”, the unfortunate husband of Bathsheba (he’s the ‘inconvienient’ husband king David sends to the ‘forefront of the battle’ so he can ‘legitimately’ marry Bathsheba - apparently, David had got her pregnant while he was out fighting in David’s army, David orders him to come home so he could create some pausible deniability, Uriah refuses because he’s too honourable to leave his troops, David has him killed - according to the story. Nice guy. 😉 ). These events were alleged to have taken place a couple of hundred years after the Hittite kingdom fell apart, though. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/36 "2015-07-20T14:42:55Z")
How about the Sabean civilization (in modern day Yemen)? Has their language been decoded? ---
**Author:** ![quimper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7c8e57/32.png) [@quimper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quimper)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/37 "2015-07-21T19:51:29Z")
My favorite is [Doggerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland), which existed back when the British Isles were still connected to Europe. Apparently was discovered by fishermen dragging up gnawed mammoth bones, spear points, Neanderthal skulls and such like. Like all the best Hollywood disasters, it was innundated slowly at first by rising sea levels, and then all at once by a [megatsunami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide). A close second is the [Green Sahara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial). Qadaffi will be remembered for (mostly) bad things, but his [Man Made River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man-Made_River) is literally making the desert bloom by tapping into some of the ancient groundwater partly left over from this period. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/38 "2015-07-22T00:44:25Z")
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned [Hyboria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyborian_Age) yet. ---
**Author:** ![sonder999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@sonder999](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sonder999)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/39 "2015-07-22T03:38:59Z")
Many civilizations in Central Asia has been totally destroyed by the Mongol conquest. You can count them. The reason you never heard about them is because they are largely forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342/40 "2015-07-22T11:13:46Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > How about the Sabean civilization (in modern day Yemen)? Has their language been decoded? Sure! The alphabet is called Old South Arabian Epigraphic, and it is the ancestor of the Ethiopic abugida (writing system) developed for Ge‘ez and used to this day for Amharic & Tigrinya. The extinct Old South Arabian language, ancestor of Ethiopic languages, is pretty well understood thanks to Semitic cognates. (Not to be confused with modern South Arabian languages like Mahra or Soqotri, which are a totally different branch of Semitic). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-truly-forgotten-civilizations/725342.md?page=3)