Why is your opinion on potential lost Ancient Aryan civilizations?

submitted by JuliusCaesar225Nationalist + Socialist from self.debatealtright

Graham Hancock is probably one of the most famous writers who focuses on the concept that human civilizations is far older than we realize but these ancient civilizations have been lost through time. I enjoy his work but he is a typical liberal type therefore he cannot engage in true Alternative History analysis. In fact he even denies The Aryan Invasion concept which is accepted by modern PC mainstream science.

March of the Titans- The History of the White Race book also deals with these concepts but from the little I've read it seems to stick to recorded history. The idea I am talking about not just Aryans having a role in the creation of ancient civilizations we know about through history but a role to play in the creation of civilizations that have been forgotten. Graham promotes the idea of a global empire civilization that was formed then lost due to a cataclysmic event. It is an attempt to understand why we can find so many similarities to these civilizations despite them being completely separate. Perhaps at one point before recorded history they were united.

Ropert Sepehr writes books and makes videos about similar concepts but from an Aryan perspective. Of course with this Alternative History stuff there is some nonsense but still plenty of good information. Funny thing is when I first came across Robert Sepehr's youtube channel I had no idea that he promoted these Aryan concepts. His channel is not promoted as anything "Far Right" and much of his viewers surely are not either. I thought it was just a regular youtube channel dealing with Ancient History from an alternative perspective but watching his videos you quickly find out he is one of "our guys".

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[–]JuliusCaesar225Nationalist + Socialist[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Here is a post from reddit that puts things into perspective of how little we know about human history-

Our species' absolute earliest written records (that we've found) date back just over 5500 years. Thing is, humanity in just it's current form has been around for AT LEAST 100,000 years. That means that all of recorded history, as ancient as it may seem, is less than 1/10th of the human experience. As another user put it (comment attached below), take the total of recorded human experience, then multiply it by 20, and that's the minimum threshold of how long we've been kicking around. I'm a huge fan of conspiracies and cultural layer shit, but so many of the bizzare coincidences and similarities in global culture are actually really easy to explain with occams razor: lots of shit happened so long ago that we'll never know.

Just think, the Trojan War happened roughly 3,250 years ago right? And that was so long ago that most historians assumed the story of the Iliad was entirely a myth and were shocked to find the actual ruins of the city. Even Greek historians living less than 1000 years after the event were dubious of it's historical basis. So much of the historical narrative only exists due to one or two sources that bothered to record past events; last semester I took a class on the Hasmonean Dynasty, which existed at the same time as the incredibly well documented Roman Republic, and yet we only have one or two accounts of it on the record and those are suspected to be heavily biased. The fact is, the vast majority of the historical record can be contributed to a very small collection of individuals usually recounting first or second hand sources. Because of that our view of history is only a small, curated sliver that's tainted by all number of biases, inaccuracies and unsurities.

The most likely explanation for the vast majority of ancient aliens-style historical mysteries is that sometime in that 90,000+ year black hole of history (much longer if you want to include the cultural timespan of other hominids) there was at any given point plenty of cultural exchange between continents by peoples or civilizations that we will likely never know about. There could have been an advanced civilization that reigned for 15,000 years with a global reach and organized religion that then collapsed, fought a 1,000 year civil war that was then followed by another 3,000 year golden age (I'm just making up numbers but you get the idea) and we could still likely never know of it. My suspicion is that the commonality we see between many different ancient religions actually is a case of those religions being the diaspora of a major unified religion from sometime in the mists of the past

Honestly the absolute monolith that is deep time is in some ways more fascinating a thought than the ancient aliens concept. Like, as a historian, I'm simultaneously fascinated and deeply disturbed by how infinitesimally small our sliver of history is compared to everything we dont, and can't possibly, know. Its why native peoples with complex oral histories are so neat. Some of the Hopi people have a creation myth that actually seems to be a loose record of their ancestors traveling across the Bering Straight to the America, even recording it's disappearance into the sea. Some Aboriginal Australians have oral narratives dating back over 30,000 years that have been proven at least partially true after scientists checked their stories against tidal lines irrc.

Add on to this that any settlements or cities were likely razed as a result of time even if abandoned untouched. Many would be ground away as a result of tectonic activity, ice sheets and flooding. Most are likely buried in the ocean or in the deserts and waste of once fertile deserts. Take Doggerland for example, a massive swath of land that would have been fertile and perfect for human settlement, it was swallowed by the ocean 6,500 years ago and buried the secrets of it's culture forever. Now just imagine the costal cities (which tend to be the largest of the ancient world thanks to trade networks) that were buried by water in the ever-rising and changing costline.

If I had a time machine, I wouldn't go back and visit ancient Rome (thats saying something as that's what my field of study focuses on) but instead a random point 20 or 30 thousand years ago. Maybe I'd fly around looking for that legendary battle described in the most ancient of Hindu texts that describes flying battle machines and what appears to be a nuclear device detonating (complete with descriptions of radiation sickness). Most myths are usually based on nuggets of truth, I just would love to see how juicy those nuggets are.

[–]FriedrichLudwig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

While it's true that recorded human history is but a tiny fraction of how long anatomically modern humans have existed, and so there could have been thousands of ancient civilizations we don't know about, wouldn't we have found some archaeological evidence? Especially if you include "lost high-tech civilizations" in the theory. I mean, we have found dinosaur fossils from millions of years ago, and bacterial fossils from 3.5 billion years ago.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There are some weird bits of evidence here and there of ancient technologies https://www.theepochtimes.com/ancient-nanostructures-found-out-of-place-and-time_1058362.html

[–]ifuckredditsnitches_Resident Pajeet 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

wouldn't we have found some archaeological evidence? Especially if you include "lost high-tech civilizations" in the theory. I mean, we have found dinosaur fossils from millions of years ago, and bacterial fossils from 3.5 billion years ago.

I think you generally need special conditions for these things to be preserved, and most things are lost.

[–]asterias 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critias_(dialogue)

"Aryan" is often overused/misused, but anyway ancient civilizations disintegrated for various reasons, and demographics was one of them. In the case of Hindu civilization, the lower castes multiplied much more intensely and we know what happened next.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hancock is an egalitarian anarchist who hates neoliberalism.

[–]PeddaKondappa 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

My opinion is that "Aryan" (a term which was only ever used by Iranians and Indians in ancient times, never by Europeans) is an overrated and overused term, and there is no evidence that "Aryans" played any important role in the original formation of civilizations. None of the early civilizations like Sumerians and Egyptians were Indo-European, and there is no evidence that any Indo-European people ever independently developed a concept of writing or written literature. Every writing system used by Indo-European peoples (without exception) is ultimately derived from Semitic writing systems, since writing and literate civilization first emerged in the Middle East.

The original Indo-Europeans, who seem to have originated from the steppes of what is now southern Russia, were probably more similar to the later Turks than to any civilized, sedentary people. They were probably a highly warlike and patriarchal group that were able to expand across vast swathes of land due to mastering the horse and chariot (perhaps the first people to do so), which gave them a huge military advantage over more sedentary groups. Indo-European expansion was probably spearheaded by males with a strong sense of wanderlust and desire to conquer new lands and acquire women. This probably explains why Y-DNA haplogroups like R1a (which is inherited exclusively through the paternal line) is widely distributed across Indo-European populations of Eurasia, but mtDNA (which is inherited exclusively through the maternal line) shows far higher diversity. Thus, IE expansion out of the steppe and both west into Europe as well as east into India and other regions would be similar to how Turks and Mongols would later burst out of the steppe to conquer vast swathes of lands and acquire women, leading to many men in Eurasia sharing Y-DNA with Turks/Mongols and large regions like Central Asia and Anatolia becoming Turkified (in the past, both Central Asia and Anatolia were dominated by various Indo-European groups).

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

None of the early civilizations like Sumerians

The sumerians say that they learned civilizational skills from the white blue eyed Gods that bred with dark women.

Every writing system used by Indo-European peoples (without exception) is ultimately derived from Semitic writing systems, since writing and literate civilization first emerged in the Middle East.

Semitic propaganda

[–]PeddaKondappa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The sumerians say that they learned civilizational skills from the white blue eyed Gods that bred with dark women.

LOL.

Semitic propaganda

Name a single script or writing system that was developed by Indo-Europeans totally independently, without being ultimately borrowed or influenced from the Middle East. I can wait.

Most Europeans (other than southern Mediterraneans) don't even have any written literature until the Christian era. For example, one of the earliest books written in any Germanic language was the Gothic Bible, which was written in the 4th century by a Middle Eastern missionary.

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The indo europeans are from the same area. Your "middle east origin" theory is stupid.

[–]PeddaKondappa 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What are you talking about? The Proto-Indo-Europeans most likely originated in the steppes of what is now southern Russia, not in the Middle East. It is not until the 2nd millennium BC that we find some notable Indo-European groups in the Middle East, like the Hittites and Mitanni. Other Indo-European groups like the Persians don't appear until even later. By that time, non-Indo-European civilizations were already well-established in the Middle East for millennia.

What I said is not a "theory." It is a simple statement of facts. The earliest writing and literature in the world is from the Middle East, and most Europeans had no literature whatsoever until the Christian era (other than southern Mediterranean groups like the Greeks and Romans, who were more similar to Middle Easterners than to northern Europeans).

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just shut up if you ever want to spread your semitic propaganda. Look into the danube script which is much older than anything you have. We are just under extreme misinformation about our history, thats all.

[–]Jacinda 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The question turned up on subreddit r/AskHistorians.

Reddit:

Q: I heard the claim that since Homo Sapiens first emerged around 200,000 BC, it could be possible that there were civilisations akin to those of the Bronze Age something like 150,000+ years ago, but all archaeological evidence would have eroded in the long time span. Is that so? [Cont...]

The consensus is that there is no evidence to support ancient civilizations although the date for the Bronze Age could be pushed back.

My own feeling is that we would see a change in the environmental record. Any ancient civilization would modify the ecosystem extensively, just as our one has. It would leave its mark in things such as pollen profiles, the DNA of domesticated plants and animals, or even in our own DNA.

Of course it only takes one artifact to completely alter our understanding of prehistory. Maverick ideas are useful as they challenge the consensus. My perception is that academia is becoming more conformist