Thats simple. Using Byblos as evidence for cities of people around 10,000 years ago is much simpler than using the Amazon because 1) theres more evidence and 2) its much closer to Gobekli Tepe which is the area we are talking about.
As I said I mentioned the Amazon as another area where evidence is being found for large groups of people being organised like small cities. But its still being investigated. But so far the evidence shows similar cultural practices to people like Gobekli Tepe and other monolithic cultures.
Why then go through the agony of debating that less established evidence for the Amazon when cultures around Gobekli Tepe have more evidence to prove the same point. Which is that there were cultures around back when a major flood event happened who were advanced enough in knowledge and religion to be the origin of the flood stories that came later in Mesopotamia and other cultures.
This doesn’t even make any sense.
To make the case that cities existed in the Amazon basin 8000-20,000 years ago, requires evidence from the basin, not a city or site located in Lebanon or Turkey.
We don't know that. In fact what is found at Göbekli Tepeis only about 10% of whar is possibly there. There are many tells and other pillars jutting out that are yet to be discovered. It may be an entire network of temples and communal places.
What is my basic arguement. Its that the cultures around 10,000 years ago were far more advanced than scientists thought. That because of this advanced knowledge and religion were able to come up with the flood myths as a result of a real major flood event they all experienced or heard about.
Your attempts to create logical fallacies in trying and limit measuring that advancement to whether they were cities or any other single measure are false representations. It doesn't matter how we measure them. Whether they were more settled and communities or hunters and gathers or both.
None of that negates the fact that these people were advanced enough in knowledge and religion to be able to come up with the flood myth which takes a certain level of belief compared to hunter gatherers. The idea of trying to say they were only hunter gatherers is to make out these people were primitive. But I am saying the evidence shows they were far more advanced.
On the subject of logical fallacies, do I need to remind you the people which constructed the temple at Gobekli Tepe were hunter gatherers and your sweeping generalization of cultures that built temples had a more sophisticated religion compared to those primitives which didn't.
These primitives also happened to be hunter gatherers and it is ironic of you to claim I am making this criticism when you are the one inadvertently making this very point about hunter gatherers.
So therefore around 10,000 years ago there may have been many advanced cultures all worshipping their gods. There was a common belief associated with the skies, the stars and astrology and animals. But nonetheless it was an advanced belief that even paraelles with the Egyptians in some ways.
So a major flood event at that time will be seen as something from the gods and being it was a global event at least for large parts of the northern hemisphere and the most major flood at the beginning of when cultures had complex beliefs it trumps all other floods it may be the source of the flood myth.
In other words those flood myths would have been around well before any other floods. I cannot see how any culture at that time did not know of this flood event. If there was any myth to be made about floods it was at this time.
These cultures 10,000 years ago were not that advanced, writing was not invented nor was chronology and they had no way of recording when this great flood occurred.
It was only through oral traditions until cultures became advanced to make written records of the traditions.
It is science that determines whether there was a great flood and through the analysis and dating of sediments along with other techniques the answer is no; there was regional flooding instead which occurred at different times.
How is that Gish Gallop. I made the point that to make these monoliths it requires the organisation of 1,000s of people. Just like it took 1,000s of slaves organised by the Egyptians to build the Pyramids. So if it took 1,000s of organisied people working together than they must have been far more organised as far as culture and community is concerned. They were not simple primitive hunters and gatherers.
But of course you missed that point altogether and call it gish gallop. If you are calling my arguements gish gallop then how are we to even debate this.
A symptom of a Gish Gallop are irrelevancies such as equating thousands of slaves building the pyramids with thousands of organised workers which does not address the issue if cities existed in the Amazon 8000-20,000 years ago.
Well thats only natural to ignore it when its just a claim without one bit of supporting evidence. The fact is a major earth shattering flood event would be experienced by many cultures at the same time.
Heres the logic. If this is the case and its the most major and first flood event when humans became knowledgable and religious enough to make this story then no other flood will trump it that comes later for that same culture. If the majority of cultures were around at that time or come from these cultures back then, then there cannot be a greater source.
Especially when I have actually provided evidence of a massive world shaking flood event that could be the origin of all cultures flood myths. Especially when the finer details of the stories all match. That would seem unreal that several cultures just happen to come to the same story detail.
Your logic is based on a circular argument where the premise and conclusion are the same.
It doesn’t matter how ‘logical’ your argument is, it is the evidence that leads to the conclusion and as I explained there was no great flood but regional floods which occurred at different times.
Actually the structures in the ground, the shapes could be 10,000 years old. They mimick the monolith structures in stone as far as geometry and astrology. So we don't know. These markings were found by lidar so they may represent a culture well before the later structures like the Aztecs and Mayans made. They maybe the Gobekli Tepe of the Amazon. But more work is needed.
This is another example of a Gish Gallop, how is this in anyway relevant to responding to hunter gatherers use of “incipient horticulture” which developed into full scale agriculture 2000-4000 years ago?
It depends what you mean by cities and why cities are so important to proving a culture is advanced to be able to have complex beliefs about a flood myth. Like I said the evidence so far suggests that these geometric and astrological shapes are sim,ilar to other monolith cultures. If thats the case then these involved well organised cultures working together and coming together in religious ceremonies and linked.
Possibly 1,000s or more linked in a common belief and cultural practices rather than seperate hunter gather groups unrelated. In that sense it becomes more a city of people working together though they may have been dispersed throughout the land.
But once again why focus on me meeting the criteria of a city to prove that these cultures were advanced. That is not the only evidence. In fact take out the idea of a city. Delete that from the criteria. Now lets get on with determining whether these cultures were advanced enough to be the origin of the flood myth.
How many times do I have to repeat myself it is not about the cities, they could be Neolithic villages or thriving metropolises as far as I am concerned, the issue surrounds the time frame.
Even taking your earliest date of 8000 years, the inhabitants of the Amazon were hunter gatherers with some limited farming skills.
They did not have permanent settlements at the time and therefore providing a precise definition of the word city is irrelevant.
That is about later layers. Some of the earthworks go back 10,000 years. My arguement is based on what the shapes represent which aligns more with earlier monolith cultures.
“The mounds promoted landscape diversity, and show that small-scale communities began to shape the Amazon 8,000 years earlier than previously thought.”
A University of Bern-led study shows that, starting at around 10,850 years ago, inhabitants of the Llanos de Moxos region in northern Bolivia began to create a landscape that ultimately comprised 4,700 artificial ‘forest islands’ within a treeless, seasonally flooded savannah.
Like I said the Amazon is a fairly new area of research and evidence is changing all the time. The only reason most of the discoveries have happened is due to land clearing. But there is little access for archeology.
But like I said forget about the entire Amazon if you want. It doesn't change my point that cultures were far more advanced than scientists thought and they had sophisticated beliefs when the most major flood in the last 10,000 years or so happened. Thus possibly the source for the Flood myth of most cultures.
Oh great we now have a quote mine over an existing quote mine, you even provided the very sentence in quotations marks which undermines your argument; here it is again with the underlined case.
“The mounds promoted landscape diversity, and show that small-scale communities began to shape the Amazon 8,000 years earlier than previously thought.”
These small scale communities were hunter gatherer groups which contradicts your grandiose account of what was happening at the time.
“Like with the Amazon cultures it was found that rather than one big central city a vast area was set out in grids with large groups dispersed but also connected and coming together. Together they may have reach million people and formed a a sort of city State.”
And this.
“But we can see how they were organised by how they mapped the land in grids and geoglyphs for either religious or communal purposes. Or how they cultivated the land and grew crops within organised grids. This shows that 1,000s of people were involved and they were much more organised than hunter gatherers.”
Congratulations for yet another contradiction and continuing your 100% record of every link being an example of quote mining.