PopSci picking up on internet archaeology

[Rokcet Scientist]

With popular science mags and TV docs picking up on the 'technique' of internet and Google Earth archaeology the next few years should see an avalanche of discoveries:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1764

[Minimalist]

They've found extinct rivers in the Sahara using these techniques. Very impressive.

[Cognito]

Not only Sahara rivers now under sand, but canals in the Near East that served settlements and cities. This is a great tool for the archaeologist. As for me, I'm going after King Solomon's mines (please Min, don't tell me the old fart never existed).

[Minimalist]

Okay. Mum's the word.

[Rokcet Scientist]

They've found extinct rivers in the Sahara using these techniques. Very impressive.

Indeed. No less than 7, if I recall correctly. A whole lake and river system.
It's certainly conceivable to me that that would have been the engine sustaining a pre-Pharaonic mid-Saharan civilisation! You would almost expect it in such a place: fertile, green, water, trading crossroads... it must have been ideal! 'Begging' for human settlement!
The same lot at the end befell Angkor Wat more or less too, didn't it? The river system dried up?

[Minimalist]

It sure as hell befell the Harappans. Where Ishtar? We need our India specialist.

[Rokcet Scientist]

a pre-Pharaonic mid-Saharan civilisation! You would almost expect it in such a place: fertile, green, water, trading crossroads... it must have been ideal! 'Begging' for human settlement!

Only microwaves and mobile phones were still missin' . . .

[Ishtar]

It sure as hell befell the Harappans. Where Ishtar? We need our India specialist.

Yes, the Harappans left the Indus valley region as the river system, fed by the Saraswati, dried up. This drying up, although already begun, is thought to have been exacerbated by a worldwide drought that happened around this time:

"On the basis of extensive explorations carried out in Northern Mesopotamia, a joint French-American team led by H. Weiss of Yale University has determined that most of the old world civilization were severely affected by a prolonged drought that began about 2200 B.C. and persisted for about 300 years. The most drastically hit region seems to have been the Akkadian civilization neighbouring India. The drought may have been triggered by massive volcanic eruptions. According to the findings of this historic study concluded only recently:

"'At approximately 2,200 B.C., occupations of Tell Leilan and Tell Brak (in Northern Mesopotamia) were suddenly abandoned...a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced considerable degradation in land use conditions.... this abrupt climatic change caused abandonement of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of the Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests the impact of abrupt climatic change was excessive.'"

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... -myth.html

In fact it was the satellite discovery of the dried up bed of the Saraswati river in the desert that put the final nail in the coffin of the Aryan invasion theory and the dating of the Vedas.

If you remember, the Club posits that there was an invasion of 'Aryans' from the north into India around 1,500 BC, and that it was these taller, fairer skinned 'Indo-Europeans' who also wrote the Vedas at around the same time.

At the centre of the Vedas is the river Saraswati. It is not just a river but also a goddess in which the 'Vedics' took their daily spiritually purifiying ablutions which were a key part of Vedic rituals. For this reason, the Saraswati features in all the books of the Vedas and in most of them, it is in full flow.

But the latest satellite data combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Saraswati had stopped being a full flowing river long before 3,000 BCE.

As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed,

"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition, that when the protohistoric people [Harrapans] settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time."

So it begged the question, why would these Aryans invade a country and then make a river that had dried up more than 1,000 years before the centre of their spiritual literature and practises?

It's also worth mentioning this:

The Vedas is solely about 'India' (and possibly bits of Afghanistan, which used to be under 'Indian' rule at that time.) I've put India in inverted commas because it wasn't known as that until after Alexander invaded (around 300 BC). Before that, it was called Bharata-varsa, or the kingdom of King Bharatha, the head of the Bharatha clan of the Purus, the people that actually did actually create the Vedas.

On top of that, the Vedic hymns actually refer back to a 'Golden Age', the age of the great Angirasa rishis, their ancestors who created the Vedic religion. And so the great epics they speak of in the hymns, like the Battle of Sudas and the 10 Kings, all take place in geographical locations within 'India' or Bharatha-varsa a long time before the hymns were actually composed.

So if the 'Aryans' did invade India around 1,500 BC (and write the Vedas then, as that is the date The Club has decided upon for it) why would invaders from the north confine their spiritual literature to stories about ancient 'Indians' in 'India', and to a river that had dried up 1,000 years before they got there?

It doesn't make any sense. But as we all know, common sense is uncommon in orthodox archaeological circles.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...]"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition, that when the protohistoric people [Harrapans] settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time." [...]

So why did they settle there then?

[Ishtar]

[...]"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition, that when the protohistoric people [Harrapans] settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time." [...]

So why would they have settled there then?

I don't know....maybe there were good schools in the area?

Seriously, though, on this page from the Indian Academy of Science’s website,

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct25/articles20.htm

there is a diagram and explanation. According to this model, the Vedic period ended between 3,000 – 5,000 BC when the onset of greater aridity saw the headwaters of the Saraswati captured and the river swung off to the west. This resulted in the decline of the Saraswati/Ghaggar/Hakra/Nara civilisation and the start of the Indus Valley civilisation, in other words, a civilisation along the Indus system of rivers.

[Rokcet Scientist]

All illustrative of civilisations rising and thriving at the confluence of rivers, and failing and fading into oblivion as the waters recede.

That doesn't bode well when one considers that water shortage will be the greatest problem of humanity in the next couple centuries. I'm fairly confident 'we' can lick the fossil fuel/energy crisis/squeeze. Solving water shortage will be a faaar bigger prob, I fear.
Some predict water wars. I'll bet on it.
And consequentially a sharp cut in 'civilisation' . . .

[Digit]

If we solve the fuel crises RS we solve any water crisis by de-salination.
The Russinas are exploring diverting some of the rivers that flow North? into their hinterland, the idea is it stops the de-salination of the North Atlantic and brings water into the centre of the Russian Federation.

[Rokcet Scientist]

If we solve the fuel crises RS we solve any water crisis by de-salination.

If we solve the fuel crisis, we'll solve it for US, rich westerners, Dig.
80% of the world's population cannot afford to pay that kind of money for potable water.

The Russinas are exploring diverting some of the rivers that flow North? into their hinterland, the idea is it stops the de-salination of the North Atlantic and brings water into the centre of the Russian Federation.

The Russians have a very bad record with water use: the Aral lake – only 50 years ago the world's largest body of fresh water – has now already shrunk by 75%, and will be totally gone in 20 years. Leaving a new 'Sahara'.

[Digit]

They have indeed RS and hopefully, if proceeded with, this scheme should help redress the balance somewhat.
As regards the non-western world you are without doubt correct, but untill they address their other problems there is little that can be done I fear. Look at Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Zimbabwee.
What the hell are we supposed to do about that little lot?

[Ishtar]

Don't worry. The international bankers will soon commandeer the whole lot, and then we'll have to pay through the nose for it.

Did anyone see the story today about Tony Blair being paid half a million a year to be a "part time advisor" (ha ha!) of J P Morgan bank?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180306.stm

How the Masters of War reward their own!