Russian trolls

[Speaker to Animals]

Civilization only emerged on its own in maybe five places that I can think of offhand (Sumer, Egypt, Yellow River, Mesoamerica, and Andes).

From those first civilizations, a lot of others branched off. Western civilization isn't an original. It branched off from Sumeria and Egypt. Still much older than China.

Mycenaean contact and trade with Sumeria and Egypt is what induced them to adopt customs and ideas, like a written language, etc. That's how our civilization began.

Another example is the Mexica who came down from the north into the Mexico valley and formed their own civilization based around the older civilizations of the area. They created their own written language, origin myths, and so forth, and adapted their previous culture to the new surroundings. It doesn't make sense to claim Aztec civilization simply emerged on it's own (it definitely did not). It was an offshoot of the original Mesoamerican civilization (I guess Olmecs as best anybody can tell).

Whether or not civilization existed in the fertile crescent before the yellow river is not the same thing as claiming western civ is older than Chinese civ.

(which was your point when trying to claim that Chinese civ is only as old as 200 bc)

It's still irrelevant. The Mycenaeans are where you want to draw the beginning of Western Civilization, and that's still over a thousand years prior to China.

Personally, I would start with Crete, which was about two thousand years older than Chinese civilization.

Chinese civilization was the origin of civilization in the Far East. The origin of civilization in the West was Egypt and Sumer. Whether or not you want to acknowledge the fact that we adopted civilization from the Egyptians and Sumerians really is still irrelevant to the original point. Chinese are not that old.

This "China is the oldest civilization" nonsense is the Chinese version of We Wuz Kangz.

[Speaker to Animals]

China is really about as old as Mesoamerica (Olmecs). One could argue the Olmecs are civilized long before the complex culture in the Yellow River area became a civilization as well.

We Was Kangz..

[BjornP]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xia_dynas ... iscoveries

and compare...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... k_alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese

[nmoore63]

It's still irrelevant. The Mycenaeans are where you want to draw the beginning of Western Civilization, and that's still over a thousand years prior to China.

Your original point is irrelevant?

I concur.

[Speaker to Animals]

I find it very interesting how everybody has to be better than the West. Chinese insist they are much older despite zero evidence to support it. Africans think they invented everything and we stole the credit.

I personally find most civilizations very interesting on their own merits without needing them to be bigger and better than the West. Obviously the West is the apex civilization and has been at least since Xerxes fled back across the Hellespont. That doesn't make China less interesting or noble. But to compete with us, they still had to adopt western science, western legal and intellectual customs, etc., and integrate those things in a Chinese way. Which is still quite amazing!

[Speaker to Animals]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xia_dynas ... iscoveries

and compare...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... k_alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese

Linear B.

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC.[1] It is descended from the older Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Cydonia,[2] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae,[3] disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is also the only one of the prehistoric Aegean scripts to have been deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris.[4]

The first Chinese script that was what we would consider a written language (was not pictographic) was from 700 BC.

Xiaozhuan - known as Lesser Seal script, developed c. 700 BCE and is still in use today. This script was less pictographic and more logographic, meaning the symbols represented concepts themselves, not objects. Example: if one now wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would inscribe the image for the king and the sign which represented 'hunting' and 'tomorrow'.

https://www.ancient.eu/Chinese_Writing/

[nmoore63]

It would be easier to take your assertion at face value if you hadn't just tried to imply that Confucius doesn't count as Chinese.

[Speaker to Animals]

And while we are talking about civilizations not getting their due, let's discuss Mexico. They are FAR more interesting than China.

[BjornP]

Linear B.

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC.[1] It is descended from the older Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Cydonia,[2] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae,[3] disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is also the only one of the prehistoric Aegean scripts to have been deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris.[4]

The first Chinese script that was what we would consider a written language (was not pictographic) was from 700 BC.

Xiaozhuan - known as Lesser Seal script, developed c. 700 BCE and is still in use today. This script was less pictographic and more logographic, meaning the symbols represented concepts themselves, not objects. Example: if one now wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would inscribe the image for the king and the sign which represented 'hunting' and 'tomorrow'.

https://www.ancient.eu/Chinese_Writing/

While I agree with Nick about the problems of you linking Western civilization all the way back to Sumeria, as opposed to the traditional start of Greece, you're right about Linear B.

That still leaves the Chinese Xia dynasty with an older date, and wether one wants to talk of Chinese civilization being older or not, depends mostly on if one's definition of "civilization" allows for lack of a writing system.

[Speaker to Animals]

Linear B.

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC.[1] It is descended from the older Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Cydonia,[2] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae,[3] disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is also the only one of the prehistoric Aegean scripts to have been deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris.[4]

The first Chinese script that was what we would consider a written language (was not pictographic) was from 700 BC.

Xiaozhuan - known as Lesser Seal script, developed c. 700 BCE and is still in use today. This script was less pictographic and more logographic, meaning the symbols represented concepts themselves, not objects. Example: if one now wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would inscribe the image for the king and the sign which represented 'hunting' and 'tomorrow'.

https://www.ancient.eu/Chinese_Writing/

While I agree with Nick about the problems of you linking Western civilization all the way back to Sumeria, as opposed to the traditional start of Greece, you're right about Linear B.

That still leaves the Chinese Xia dynasty with an older date, and wether one wants to talk of Chinese civilization being older or not, depends mostly on if one's definition of "civilization" allows for lack of a writing system.

700 BC is not before 1450 BC,

Chinese scripts before that were not what we call a written language. They were pictographic. It's literally like what you do when you play Pictionary. If I drew a picture of a fat viking sucking a cock, it could mean that Bjorn is a massive faggot, but it could also mean any number of other things. That's what is meant by pictographic.

Furthermore, trying to tie the date of a civilization to writing is problematic in that civilizations have existed without written languages and plenty of complex cultures have had written languages but are not what we consider civilizations.