Should Nabta Playa be included in an introductory history text? Nabta Playa is the African Stonehenge. A truly remarkable feat, considering it's 80 miles west of the Nile. Note, desert begins one mile west of the Nile.
When I was in school, I was taught very little about the ancient wonders of Africa. Although, recently there have been some efforts for a more inclusive historical approach. Yet, a truly fair curriculum has yet to become mainstream.
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Is that Stonehenge for ants?
strange how the alliums made a much larger and more impressive stonehendge in britain than they did in africa. i wonder why they made that choice.
Yet, it was the most advanced of its time.
If that is unironically being compared to stonehenge, those must be the footprints of giants.
Kek, OP thinks Stonehenge is famous for being simply old.
Not the fact that we have no fucking idea about how we stacked massive rocks on top of each other.
Just rock standing up therefore is comparable to this.
i just looked it up, that's a reconstruction. idunno how they found accurate archeological remnants in order to make that reconstruction, or if they're just make an assumption about the types of calendars that were supposedly there. idunno. i can't tell if this is a troll thread or if its sincere or what's going on.
Your pride is incredible. How about those ancient European pyramids... oh wait.
>implying the size of the pyramids makes that loose collection of cobble impressive
Kill yourself my man
you're just mad cuz they was kangs and you wasn't
Whoever was first deserves the most credit.
"Stonehenge of Africa", when you put it like that it sounds somewhat shocking but when you put it like this, "Egypt", no one is surprised.
If you're gonna go on about the marvels of Africa make note of things that are actually marvelous - like the pyramids - not a shitty calendar.
I'd like to see you move stones 2x2x4 meters across. Keep in mind, part of the achievement is how inhospitable the land is, and the distance of the nearest water source. Then there's also the question "where did the rocks come from?"
Can't you just analyze the rocks and try to compare to the nearest deposits?
That begs another question, why the fuck would anyone waste their time building a shitty calendar in the assfuck middle of nowhere? This doesn't require much achievement as far as civilization goes, it just requires one stupid, determined asshole who wants to go way out of his way to build a dinky little structure in a place where it won't be any help. Stonehenge, on the other hand, requires actual cohesion to cut the rocks and drag them into place.
I'm not even one of those /pol/-tier 'africa is useless' people but that thing is pretty shit-tier even as far as African achievements go.
>implying it wasn't a large basin
>implying wells don't exist
>implying ephemeral lakes don't form in former basins
>implying sandstone is hard to find in the sahara
>implying stones are hard to move for a community
t. STEM master race
Your last point is part of what's notable about this culture. They had a community capable of what few others were at the time. They predate the Sumerians and Harappans. They predate agriculture. So how did they do it?
Another factor to consider is that astronomy is responsible for some of the greatest human inventions. If it weren't for Copernicus and Galileo, the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened. Suffice to say, humans everywhere around the world are a lot alike.
>don't hate the playa hate the game.
What did he mean by this?
Looks more like Stonerhenge to me.
Memes aside, this site goes back to 6,000 BC.
Stonehenge is from 2,000-3,000 BC.
Given its age and location, the Nabta circle is very, very impressive.
>Given its age and location
As said multiple times. This has got literally nothing to do with why Stonehenge is so important.
Stonehenge represents a missing link in our information. We have no idea how they did it, that's the mystery. not it being old (although that is worked into the mystery of it) and not the location.
It's the fact that we think we know what was going on in that time, but Stonehenge completely proves otherwise and represents a mystery which is still unsolved, fucking thousands of years later. They know the purpose of Nabta, how it was constructed and when.
While yes it's impressive. It's got nothing on Stonehenge in terms of historical importance. Discovering how the ancient peoples made Stonehenge will uncover a piece of technology or knowledge previously known to us, essentially it will revolutionise our understanding of the past.
That is the importance of Stonehenge, it's not just some big rocks, it's the fact that we have literally no idea how they made it.
>african stonehenge
>looks like TOTAL shit
>africa
well of course
>we have no idea how Stonehenge was built
Trilithons and dolmens are some of the most common architectural elements for low-tier civilizations.
>Discovering how the ancient peoples made Stonehenge will uncover a piece of technology or knowledge previously known to us, essentially it will revolutionise our understanding of the past.
Please. It won't revolutionize shit, especially since we already know what they were capable of. It will probably turn out that they built it the exact same way they built stone doorways for their huts.
I don't know or care how the Amish raise their barns but I doubt it involves alien technology.
Megalithic architecture is pretty cool though, I'll grant you that.
Fucking this. It's not even like Ancient Britain was lacking for giant architecture.
...
>insert Spinal tap joke here.
Italy has more pyramids than Egypt
They're much smaller desu. It was just an equestrian-class fad.
Egyptian pyramids were a fad too, the last pyramid was built 90 years after the first
Can someone give me an actual scale for this African arrangement? Because from what I've seen I'd be more impressed with a dozen Subway foot-longs shoved in the ground.
>Suffice to say, humans everywhere around the world are a lot alike.
lmao @ such obvious agenda pushing
The scale isn't why it's regarded as important, it's because it's an astronomical calculator.
>we know how they built Trilithons
Please, enlighten me.
Funny how we know how they built that. Not Stonehenge though.
...
...
Well if the scale isn't why it's important, then why is it important how far away from the Nile it is? Some schmuck made it outside of his yurt and I'm sure some other schmucks made one in their backyard too but it didn't stand the test of time because it wasn't in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I could make that in my living room; it's still not gonna be half as impressive as Stonehenge - and I'm damn sure no one will write it in the history books
>Well if the scale isn't why it's important, then why is it important how far away from the Nile it is? Some schmuck made it outside of his yurt
So your proposal is that some random dude without the benefit of complex society must have been some extraordinary gifted genius and just did all this shit on his own, using his own observations, and that's not even more remarkable?
>I could make that in my living room; it's still not gonna be half as impressive as Stonehenge
You have the advantage of thousands and thousands of years of accumulated, and the freaking internet, and you couldn't build it.
?
Britons 3000 years a go had ideas of mathematics, more specifically triangular mathematics only to appear a few thousand years later? That would be quite the revolutionary discovery.
That's speculation you fucking idiot.
>Britons 3000 years a go
~5,000 years a go sorry.
Also a book dealing with megalithic construction techniques around the world:
amazon.com
I don't know how academically credible it is but it's written by an architect with a hobby for Andean history and it doesn't invoke ancient aliens despite the title, so I'm inclined to believe the techniques are at least plausible.
Ultimately it doesn't matter too much what method they chose to go with.
>Funny how we know how they built that.
>Implying we know fuck all about pre-celtic hibernians.
Seriously, go write up a detailed paper on the construction methods of Newgrage because that would be the most important work in Irish Archaeology in decades.
>mathematics
Are you retarded? You don't even need any mathematics to pack shit under a log.
But ironically, some archeologists suspect megalith builders might have used geometry:
en.wikipedia.org
Not to mention building astronomy circles generally involves some knowledge of geometry.
>Seriously, go write up a detailed paper on the construction methods of Newgrage because that would be the most important work in Irish Archaeology in decades.
It's brickwork and earth-moving. Nothing unknown at the times.
>Are you retarded? You don't even need any mathematics to pack shit under a log.
Kek. People know how to do things, because.
It's a literal fact that we don't know how they made Stonehenge, there is no evidence of what you are suggesting (I've seen those claims before). And if they were true, it wouldn't be a secret, it would be known accepted knowledge.
In short, you're an idiot who can't handle being wrong and should have stopped posting a while ago. You are not tricking anyone, why are you even trying?
>It's brickwork
No.
>and earth-moving. Nothing unknown at the times.
So what, you're positing those techniques were lost between the construction of Newgrage and Stonehenge?
>No.
Yes.
>So what, you're positing those techniques were lost between the construction of Newgrage and Stonehenge?
Stonehenge has nothing to do with earth-moving? Past digging holes for the rocks to sit in.
>Nabta Playa is the African Stonehenge.
lol
>Yes.
Those aren't bricks, dumbass.
>Stonehenge has nothing to do with earth-moving?
Oh, so we DO know how the construction was done?
>People know how to do things, because.
Because it's fucking obvious?
"Uuurrgh I'm trying to keep this stone lifted but it's heavy"
"Hey let's try putting another stone under it to keep it up"
"Wow now it's even easier to lift it further, i couldn't make it stand upright before but now I can"
"I wonder if this works for bigger stones!"
I'm pretty sure I did something like that when I was 4 years old and hunting for bugs. You don't need a greek academy to come up with such techniques, you just need some very basic carpentry and architectural skills, a good sense for balancing weight, and some time to think about stuff.
How do you think these primitives managed to move that stone?
>It's a literal fact that we don't know how they made Stonehenge
It's a literal fact that there are dozens of possible ways to build Stonehenge with neolithic technology. There's no revolutionary knowledge here.
>Those aren't bricks, dumbass.
It's still brickwork placement.
>wanting to divulge that much into semantics.
Fine, it's even less impressive. It's simply stacking small rocks.
>Oh, so we DO know how the construction was done?
What are you even trying to do? You have literally no argument, are you a child?
>It's a literal fact that there are dozens of possible ways to build Stonehenge with neolithic technology. There's no revolutionary knowledge here.
You are so fucking wrong it's not even funny. We can speculate, we do not know.
>we know how ancient peoples over 5000 years old were able to lift stones that weighed over 20
tons almost 10 meters high
Yeah, sure. You surely aren't claiming this for the purpose of your ego and argument. We don't even know where the rocks fucking came from you pleb. But no, you know exactly how it was done and it's no mystery at all to you.
Just fuck off already and take your ignorance with you, this is my last reply.
>It's still brickwork placement.
No, it's stonework placement. Fucking duh.
>wanting to divulge that much into semantics
You made this a discussion of specific construction techniques in Ancient Britain, and now you're mad that people are actually having a discussion on specific construction techniques?
>Fine, it's even less impressive. It's simply stacking small rocks.
And how would they go about stacking small rocks? That would require knowledge of triangular mathematics, which you believe cannot be intuited by persons and was unknown, even at later dates, in the british isles.
>What are you even trying to do?
Get it through your thick fucking skull that there's nothing unique about Stonehenge. In order to justify your Spinal Tap inspired fantasies, you're now arguing that you have certainty of the construction methods used at Stonehenge, because they couldn't possibly be the techniques Megalithic Architecture in Britain for thousands of years. How the fuck do you know this?
Politically correct archeologists find a random pile of rocks.
Most likely use to hold down the edges of goat skin tents.
They “reconstruct” it into something they had hoped to find.
Wa-La!
“Worlds Oldest Astronomical Observatory”!
What are you talking about?
en.wikipedia.org
"Djoser c. 2670 BC
...
Taharqa c. 664 BC"
You might not be a STEM, but that's basic math, man.
Do they know when this was supposedly built?
They don't even know when the sphinx was built. The common date is 4500+ years old, and that is purely guessing on not a single bit of evidence that I've heard of.
>And how would they go about stacking small rocks? That would require knowledge of triangular mathematics, which you believe cannot be intuited by persons and was unknown, even at later dates, in the british isles.
>Stacking small rocks on top of each other until you have a large structure is the same as creating mechanism to lift move and hold multiple 20 tonne stones 10 meters high.
c'mon man.
>Get it through your thick fucking skull that there's nothing unique about Stonehenge. In order to justify your Spinal Tap inspired fantasies, you're now arguing that you have certainty of the construction methods used at Stonehenge, because they couldn't possibly be the techniques Megalithic Architecture in Britain for thousands of years. How the fuck do you know this?
>you're now arguing that you have certainty of the construction methods used at Stonehenge
That projection is god dam insane, literally all I said was they dug hole to put the stones in, even if thats wrong (which it probably is), it's still got nothing to do with the argument.
This is actually hilarious, you have actually no fucking point, like literally, not one fucking point at all past projection.
>nothing unique about Stonehenge
Holy shit, 10 years on Veeky Forums and I've now heard it all. Please, keep going.
>Wa-La!
>We can speculate, we do not know.
Right, we do not know which of the dozens of possible techniques, including techniques used by primitive tribes in other corners of the world, they used to build Stonehenge, because they didn't leave behind a building manual. That doesn't mean it's an incredible feat.
>we know how ancient peoples over 5000 years old were able to lift stones that weighed over 20 tons almost 10 meters high
We have working models for most monumental construction, yeah. If we can't conclusively decide on a method it's simply that there is little evidence and all the models have a degree of verisimilitude.
>We don't even know where the rocks fucking came from
It's basically settled that they came from Preseli Hills, with or without the help of glaciers.
Are you going to say that we still don't fucking know because we never found a receipt showing where ancient builders shopped for their stones?
Why are you so emotionally attached to Stonehenge being some mysterious thing? There are more interesting mysteries about it than how they lifted big rocks anyway.
He's like the dude that tried to tell us you can't reliably sail to Sardinia from Italy, with bronze-age navigation.
>he actually kept going
(you)
>still using speculation as evidence
Kek.
Keep going. There is nothing in this post for you to argue. I am interested to see how you reply line by line. I honestly thought you were arguing past subjective opinion.
Please again, continue.
Why keep going? It's clear that you have your head too far up your ass to concede the argument and you can only kek like a butthurt 12 year old trying to hold back tears.
You lost this one, man. you're just frustrating the other guy and everyone else here at this point. You're not even arguing against him anymore, just restating your point using the "we can't know for certain so I'm right" fallacy.
Yes, we don't have the manual and instructions for the Stonehenge, but it's not as hugely impressive as you say it is. People are very adaptable, and so gaining a rudimentary understanding of how to move objects, with a large enough community, would make the placement of rocks at the Stonehenge fairly easy. The first pyramid was made a few hundred years after it, so it's a wonder why you do not instead focus on that as your call-to-mystery to help support that you are obviously and completely the smartest man in the room.
>Why keep going? It's clear that you have your head too far up your ass to concede the argument and you can only kek like a butthurt 12 year old trying to hold back tears.
Sorry, you hurt my feelings.
Your subjective opinion was so convincing. Want to know how I know you literally were googling as this argument went on? The rocks have actually since been proven to be matched from Craig Rhos-y-Felin - which is only about 10km from Preseli Hills.
But when you google to look for it you get linked to Preseli Hills but there is more recent information which you didn't use, out of pure ignorance.
Actually hilarious.
>nothing unique about Stonehenge
Please, continue dropping these gems of knowledge you can only find on 4chanz.
You guys really need to stop reply to this friend
>Stacking small rocks on top of each other until you have a large structure is the same as creating mechanism to lift move and hold multiple 20 tonne stones 10 meters high.
Remember that your claim wasn't that it was impossible to lift heavy stones. It was impossible to figure out how a triangle works.
The math involved in arranging irregularly sized polyhedrons into a bigger polyhedron is way more advanced than the math to raise a tritholon.
Since you lost that argument, you've moved the goalpost back to clearly, they couldn't lift heavy shit. Except Newgrange has loads of multiton stones in it's construction. You fucking posted one by accident you mongoloid.
This doesn't change the fact that you still have no idea how the stonework OR the Megalithic elements of Newgrange were constructed, something you hold is the thing which is 'unique' about Stonehenge.
>That projection is god dam insane, literally all I said was they dug hole to put the stones in, even if thats wrong (which it probably is), it's still got nothing to do with the argument.
Sure it is. Your entire argument depends on Stonehenge being totally unknowable, but also relies on absolute certainty that the construction techniques have nothing to do with the construction techniques used in other British Megaliths.
Just stop.
I literally said I am not arguing anymore. You idiots made literally no points past arguing speculating as hard fact.
Simply put, you two are fucking idiots.
You are literally saying one of the biggest mysteries still puzzling actual professionals is no big deal, simply because.
>so it's a wonder why you do not instead focus on that as your call-to-mystery to help support that
How is this even a logical point, at all?
Holy shit, keep going. I won't be here to see it, but rest assured, you idiots will stay in my mind as the fuck-wits who simply could not admit Stonehenge is amazing and wrote it off as 'easy' and not at all unique.
>Remember that your claim wasn't that it was impossible to lift heavy stones. It was impossible to figure out how a triangle works.
Kek, no. That's your projection.
>Since you lost that argument, you've moved the goalpost back to clearly, they couldn't lift heavy shit. Except Newgrange has loads of multiton stones in it's construction. You fucking posted one by accident you mongoloid.
Kek, really now? This is my first post about this point. Kek, holy shit.
, Jesus, keep going. You are projecting so fucking hard. My argument shifted as you idiots shifted it.
Seriously, wow. I wonder what the image of me looks like inside that crazy fucking head of yours.
You are fucking done. Literally 5th reply in this thread which has no replies except for the one I just did. Fuck off.
But yes, please tell me how you projected my argument into outer space and how it was me who did it.
>Are you going to say that we still don't fucking know because we never found a receipt showing where ancient builders shopped for their stones?
kek.
>"muh speculation"
This can be said about a majority of historical subjects, since most of history is an educated guess based on available evidence. The guy provided a feasible way a primitive society could do a thing and you immediately threw your toys out of the cot with "BUT HOW DO WE KNOW FOR ABSOLUTE CERTAIN." Stop acting like a jackass.
>We don't even know where the rocks fucking came from
>The rocks have actually since been proven to be matched from Craig Rhos-y-Felin
So were you being intellectually dishonest or have you resolved to stop being retarded?
But anyway, you're basically still wrong or dishonest because:
"The larger stones are of sarsen, a silicified sandstone that is found in dense concentrations within 20 miles of Salisbury Plain. The smaller ones, known as ‘bluestones’, are of a variety of lithologies that can have only come from in and around Mynydd Preseli (Preseli mountains) in west Wales, c. 140 miles away (Figure 1). Of the 43 identified Welsh bluestones at Stonehenge, 30 are of dolerite (mostly spotted). These have long been recognised as coming from Preseli (Thomas 1923), although only recently has a large sample of them been pinpointed to three sources, most on the northern flank of Mynydd Preseli (Bevins et al.2014):
• Group 1: from the outcrop of Carn Goedog.
• Group 2: from the outcrops of Cerrigmarchogion and Craig Talfynydd (these lack the distinctive spotting).
• Group 3: from Carn Breseb, Carn Gyfrwy, the Carn Alw area or an un-named outcrop west of Carn Ddafad-las; Group 3 might also come from an unsampled part of Carn Goedog."
Other types of Welsh bluestone at Stonehenge are at least three different types of rhyolite, two types of sandstone (one of them is a meta-sandstone, the other, the Altar Stone; Ixer & Turner 2006), and various argillaceous tuffs. One of the types of rhyolite, known from stone chippings found within and around the monument, is described macroscopically as ‘rhyolite with fabric’. This has recently been provenanced to an isolated outcrop at Craig Rhos-y-felin within the Brynberian valley, two miles downstream from Carn Goedog (Ixer & Bevins 2011)."
So yeah, I guess only MOST of the stones came from Preseli Hills. We can still pinpoint the rest.
>Kek, really now? This is my first post about this point. Kek, holy shit.
Oh, we're now at the point where you're too embarassed by your earlier posts that you pretend that was some totally unrelated guy in a string of replies?
>Britons 3000 years a go had ideas of mathematics, more specifically triangular mathematics only to appear a few thousand years later? That would be quite the revolutionary discovery.
>That's speculation you fucking idiot.
>Kek. People know how to do things, because.
And then you just quietly ignore the part about how Newgrange also demonstrated the capacity to move around multiton stones.
Y'all posting in a troll thread. Damn Veeky Forums is stupid. The Stonehenge and Nabta Playa are two different mysteries that aren't comparable.
It's probably also worth noting that Craig Rhos-y-Felin is extremely close to Preseli Hills when you take into account the river, it was literally on their path.
Pic related, the dark green relief is Preseli Hills.
I had full replies to each of you idiots. I am done, I will be the bigger person and simply stop.
You've made literally no points, but w/e. You guys win, you sure shrekt me.
I look forward to seeing how you reply in a few hours when I get home.
Nah man, these guys know how they made Stonehenge 100% there is no mystery Stonehenge is not unique at all, it was easy.
>You've made literally no points, but w/e. You guys win, you sure shrekt me.
Are you fucking retarded? You must be fucking retarded. How delusional do you have to be to totally ignore every argument provided against you (some right in the posts you're quoting), reply with "but how to you KNOOOOOWWWW" and now fuck off telling yourself you're the 'bigger person' and nobody provided any arguments?
You're hilariously childish or a 6/10 shitposter, well done.
>counting Nubian "pyramids"
zzz
It predates stonehenge by nearly 2000 years
>and location
No, not really. OP used faulty argument that this is located 80 miles west of the Nile of TODAY. We do not know what kind of area was there when it was created.
>Should Nabta Playa be included in an introductory history text?
Lol pic related was built over 3,000 years ago and apart from the impressive work of masonry it also required a precise knowledge of astronomy because it predicted the northen lunistice with accuracy
>The Nuraghic well of Santa Cristina, Sardinia has been regarded as a ritual monument built to receive moonlight on its water mirror at the time of the meridian passage of the moon when it reaches its highest point in the sky during and around the major northern lunistice. In this paper we investigate the precision that could have been achieved and conclude that the well could indeed have served as an instrument for measuring the lunar declination during half of the draconic cycle of 18.61 years.
They also built thousands of other impressive monuments and the oldest statues in Europe.
As an Italian I was never taught anything about them in school and even the Sardinians with whom I have spoken don't know much about it.