Mr Bombastic wrote:
Can you point to any man-made object that has lasted 4,000 years? Didn't think so.
15. Tumulus de Dissignac - 4,000 BC
The Tumulus of St. Michel is a megalithic grave mound, located east of Carnac in Brittany, France. It is the largest grave mound in continental Europe.Tumulus St Michel, just north of Carnac, in Morbihan, Brittany. This massive tumulus is 120m long and 12 metres high, with a chapel built on top of it. Many artifacts that were found during past excavations can be found in the Carnac Museum. The Tumulus of Saint Michel was used in the same manner as the pyramids of Egypt: a burial ground for the members of an elite. It contained various funerary objects, whose majority is now exhibited in the Prehistoric Museum of Carnac. The chapel above was built in 1663 and destroyed in 1923, to be rebuilt in its original form in 1926.
14. Tumulus Saint-Michel - Approx: 4,500 BC
The Locmariaquer megaliths are a complex of Neolithic constructions in Locmariaquer, Brittany. They comprise the elaborate Er-Grah tumulus passage grave, a dolmen known as the Table des Marchand and "The Broken Menhir of Er Grah", the largest known single block of stone to have been transported and erected by Neolithic man. The broken menhir was erected around 4700 BC, at the same time as another 18 blocks nearby, it is thought to have been broken around 4000 BC. Measuring 20.60 metres (67.6 ft), with a weight of 280 tonnes,[2] the stone is from a rocky outcrop located several kilometres away from Locmariaquer. The impressive dimensions of this menhir still divide specialists about the techniques used for transport and erection, but the fact that this was achieved during the Neolithic era remains remarkable.
13. Locmariaquer Megaliths - Approx: 4,700 BC
The Tumulus of Bougon or sometimes known as The Necropolis of Bougon is a group of five Neolithic barrows located in Bougon near La-Mothe-Saint-Héray, between Exoudon and Pamproux in Poitou-Charentes, France. Their discovery in 1840 raised great scientific interest. The oldest structures of this prehistoric monument date to 4800 BC. On of the strange finds at the site during its excavation in 1840 were about 200 skeletons discovered in three layers, separated by stone slabs. The vague reports of that early excavation prevent any detailed chronological analysis. Accompanying finds included flat-bottomed and round-bottomed pottery, beads, pierced teeth, chains of seashells and stone tools, including a diorite mace. More recent excavations showed that the grave was abandoned shortly after its construction. The passage had been blocked with a large stone slab. At its base lay the skull of a man who had undergone three trepanations during his lifetime. Pottery was also found in front of the monument's facade, suggesting that cult activities, entailing the deposition of pottery, took place after its closure. About 1,000 years later, the monument was re-used for more burials by people of a different culture who reached the passage from above.
12. Tumulus of Bougon - Approx: 4,700 BC
The Cairn of Barnenez is a Neolithic monument located near Plouezoc'h, on the Kernéléhen peninsula in northern Finistère, Brittany (FRANCE). It dates to the early Neolithic, about 4800 BC; it is considered one of the earliest megalithic monuments in Europe. It is also remarkable for the presence of megalithic art. Today, the Barnenez cairn is 72 m long, up to 25 m wide and over 8 m high. It is built of 13,000 to 14,000 tons of stone. The Barnenz contains 11 chambers entered by separate passages. The mound has steep facades and a stepped profile. Several internal walls either represent earlier facades or served the stability of the structure. The cairn consists of relatively small blocks of stone, with only the chambers being truly megalithic in character. The monument overlooks the Bay of Morlaix, probably a fertile coastal plain at the time of its erection. Engraved symbols occur in several of the chambers and passages. They depict bows, axes, wave symbols or snakes and a repeated U-shaped sign. One of the carved slabs is in secondary use was originally part of a different structure, an interesting parallel to the situation in several other such monuments.
11. Barnenez - Approx: 4,850 BC
10. Almendres Cromlech - Approx: 6,000 BC
The Cromlech of the Almendres megalithic complex or The Almendres Cromlech is located near Guadalupe, in the civil parish of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe, municipality of Évora, is the largest existing group of structured menhirs in the Iberian Peninsula, and one of the largest in Europe. This archaeological site has several megalithic structures: cromlechs, and menhir stones, the first belonging to the so-called "megalithic universe of Évora", with clear parallels to other cromlechs. The site is organized in a circular pattern and is marked by a forest of about 95 granite monoliths. The older (Early Neolithic) are designated by two or three concentric circles of smaller monoliths in the western part of the complex, while the mid structures consist of two ellipses and large menhirs. In the Late Neolithic phase both structures suffered modifications, transforming into a site for social or religious rituals.Ninety-two of the menhirs form two grounds, which were built and oriented to different directions associated with the Equinox
09. Atlit Yam -Approx: 6,900 BC
Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel. Atlit-Yam gives us the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. The final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Atlit Yam dates between 6900 and 6300 BC. Today, it lies between 26–39 ft beneath sea level in the Bay of Atlit, at the mouth of the Oren river on the Carmel coast. It covers an area of 47,800 sq yd. Underwater excavations revealed rectangular houses and a well. The site was covered by the eustatic rise of sea-levels after the end of the Ice age. It is assumed that the contemporary coast-line was about a half-mile west of the present coast.Piles of fish ready for trade or storage have led scientists to conclude that the village was abandoned suddenly. An Italian study by The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa indicates that a volcanic collapse of the Eastern flank of Mount Etna 8,500 years ago would likely have caused a 10-story or 131 ft tsunami to engulf some Mediterranean coastal cities within hours. Some scientists point to the apparent abandonment of Atlit Yam around the same time as further evidence that such a tsunami did indeed occur.
08. Mehrgarh -Approx: 7,000 BC
Mehrgarh sometimes Anglicized as Mehrgahr, Merhgarh or Merhgahr is one of the most important Neolithic sites in archaeology. It lies on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan. It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh, in the northeast corner of the 495-acre site, was a small farming village that has been dated to between 7000 BCE to 5500 BCE. The whole area covers a number of successive settlements. Archaeological material has been found in six mounds, and about 32,000 artifacts have been collected. Mehrgarh Period I 7000 BCE–5500 BCE, was Neolithic and aceramic The earliest farming in the area was developed by semi-nomadic people. The settlement was established with simple mud buildings and most of them had four internal subdivisions. Numerous burials have been found, many with elaborate goods such as baskets, stone and bone tools, beads, bangles, pendants and occasionally animal sacrifices, with more goods left with burials of males.
07. Khirokitia -Approx: 7,000 BC
Khirokitia is an archaeological site on the island of Cyprus dating from the Neolithic age. The site is known as one of the most important and best preserved prehistoric sites of the eastern Mediterranean. Much of its importance lies in the evidence of an organised functional society in the form of a collective settlement, with surrounding fortifications for communal protection. The Neolithic aceramic period is represented by this settlement and around 20 other similar settlements spread throughout Cyprus. The site was discovered in 1934. The initial findings were published in The Journal of Hellenic Studies in 1934. Further excavations were then held in the early 70's but were interrupted by the Turkish invasion of the island. A French mission under the direction of Alain Le Brun resumed excavation of the site in 1977 it is believed the site was occupied from the 7th until the 4th millennium BC.
06. Çatalhöyük -Approx: 7,600 BC
Çatalhöyük is Turkish for "fork mound" and was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000BC. It is a UNESCO World Heritage SIte It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. Çatalhöyük was uniqe as it was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger ones have rather ornate murals, the purpose of these rooms remain unclear. The population of the eastern mound has been estimated at up to 10,000 people, but population likely varied over the community’s history. An average population of between 5,000 to 8,000 is a reasonable estimate. The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük lived in mud-brick houses that were crammed together in an agglutinative manner. No footpaths or streets were used between the dwellings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze. Most were accessed by holes in the ceiling, with doors reached by ladders and stairs. The rooftops were effectively streets. The ceiling openings also served as the only source of ventilation, allowing smoke from the houses' open hearths and ovens to escape.
05. Nevali Çori - Approx: 8,000 BC
Nevali Çori was an early Neolithic settlement on the middle Euphrates, in Sanliurfa Province, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. The site is famous for having revealed some of the world's most ancient known temples and monumental sculpture. Together with the site of Göbekli Tepe, it has revolutionised scientific understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic. The settlement was located about 490 m above sea level, in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, on both banks of the Kantara stream. Beneath the stone floor, there were channels a metre apart. These ensured ventilation, refrigeration and insulation against humidity. A eerie find at the site was that some of the houses contained depositions of human skulls and incomplete skeletons.
04. Tell es-sultan / Jericho Walls - Approx: 8,000 BC
The Wall of Jericho in the anciet ruins of Tell es-sultan is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic defensive or flood protection wall suggested to date to approximately 8000 BC. The biblical account in the Book of Joshua, the Israelites destroy the wall of Jericho by walking around it with the Ark of the Covenant for seven days. On the last day they blew trumpets of rams' horns and shouted to make the walls fall down. The events of the account are suggested to be dated at around 1400 BC.Speculations about the existence of fortifications dating to this period persisted in biblical archaeology until Kathleen Kenyon's comprehensive excavations in the 1950s. Although not all structures in Jericho date as far back as the Walls of Jericho. The site has been constantly inhabited and built on since approx: 8,000 BC
03. Tell Qaramel - Approx: 9,650 BC
Tell Qaramel is a tell, or archaeological mound, located in the north of present-day Syria, 25 km north of Aleppo and about 65 km south of the Taurus mountains, adjacent to the river Quweiq. The remains of the structures uncovered at Tell Qaramel appear to be older than first thought, giving the first evidence of permanent stone-built settlement without signs of animal domestication or organised farming. Particularly striking are the remains of a succession of five round, stone-built towers, each over 6 metres in diameter, with stone walls over 1.5m thick. These have been carbon-dated to between the eleventh millennium and 9650 BC. This dating makes the towers roughly two thousand years older than the stone tower found at Jericho, which was previously believed to be the oldest known tower structure in the world.
02. Gobekli Tepe - Approx: 10,000 BC
While they might have fascinating theories about Gobekli Tepe, we still believe that ancient humans made these structures on their own. About six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey a archeologist named Klaus Schmidt made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time. Klaus had discovered massive carved stones about 11,000 years old. They crafted and arranged by ancient prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple.01. Theopetra caves Stone Wall - Approx: 21,000 BC