ANyone care to answer some questions? I KNOW U WANT TO!

Anthropology
What you might want to do is to research Anthropology books. The type of questions you seek answers to are answered there. Have you tried doing any Anthropology research at the library? Forgive me for saying so, but it appears that you don't know some of the basics.

Also, it's my opinion that the questions you ask overlap several subjects: Sociology, Geography, Archaeology, and Anthropology. Perhaps even Paleontology can be researched.

Link to African and History of Western civilization:
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_African_Civilization"

"Beginning with a survey of Paleontological discoveries on the origin of mankind in Africa, History of African Civilization sketches the numerous pre-historic migrations of Africans to populate the entire continent south of the Sahara desert, as well as into parts of the desert. Evidence of these migrations was gathered from linguistic, archeological, and ethno-botanical studies, and other areas of scientific inquiry, as well as classical Arabic accounts of travels by famous Arabic scholars. These ancillary sources have proved essential to the creation of a panoramic survey of Africa's history, because writing was a relatively recent development on most parts of the continent."

Geography of Arabian peninsula:
"Saudi Arabia's geography is varied. From the western coastal region (Tihamah), the land rises from sea level to a peninsula-long mountain range (Jabal al-Hejaz) beyond which lies the plateau of Nejd in the center. The southwestern 'Asir region has mountains as high as 3,000 m (9,840 feet) and is known for having the greenest and freshest climate in all of the country, one that attracts many Saudis to resorts such as Abha in the summer months. The east is primarily rocky or sandy lowland continuing to the shores of the Persian Gulf. The geographically hostile Rub' al Khali ("Empty Quarter") desert along the country's imprecisely defined southern borders contains almost no life.

Mostly uninhabited, much of the nation's landmass consists of desert and semi-arid regions, with a dwindling traditional Bedouin population. In these parts of the country, vegetation is limited to weeds, xerophytic herbs and shrubs. Less than two percent of the kingdom's total area is arable land. Population centers are mainly located along the eastern and western coasts and densely populated interior oases such as Hofuf and Buraydah."

So, based on the previous info, the Arabian peninsula's geography and topology predisposes it to being inhabited by nomadic tribes as there was no way to farm (sand and little water).


"Were hebrews nomadic? or was that the saudi arabians?"

There WAS no Saudi Arabia in antiquity. See the following link to Saudi Arabia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia

"Although the region in which the country stands today has an ancient history, the emergence of the Saudi dynasty began in central Arabia in 1744. That year, Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of the town of Ad-Dir'iyyah near Riyadh, joined forces with a cleric, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, to create a new political entity. This alliance formed in the 18th century remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today. "

Here's a link to the Hebrews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrews

History

"See also: History of ancient Israel and Judah
There is some disagreement as to both the history and legacy of the Hebrew people. Biblically, the Hebrews were the ancestors, or simply an alias, of the Israelites. Among historical scholars however, there is some disagreement as the real relationship between the Hebrews and Israelites. Archaeological and genealogical evidence however clearly demonstrates that today's Jews are descendants of the ancient Hebrews from the Levant.

The word Hebrew comes from a man, Eber, who was an ancestor of Jacob aka Israel, and therefore an ancestor of the jews, the jews being the sons of Juda, one of Jacob's twelve sons. In short, the term Hebrew applies to the sons of Eber.

Language
These areas were politically Phoenicia and of the Philistines in Canaan when they first arrived in the area (this statement is matter of debate: some archaeologists believe that the Israelites simply arose as a subculture within Canaanite society). The Hebrews lived within this region in the 2nd millennium BCE and spoke a Canaanite dialect, which played a role in the Hebrew languages, the local Canaanite culture. The extent of the distinction between the culture of the Canaanites and the Hebrews is a matter of great debate, touching as it does on strong religious sensibilities. They were also known as the Israelites and Judeans."

"-what kept humans from exploring africa before the rest of the world? "

Who says that Africa wasn't first in it's development? Some archaeologists seem to think it was first.

yeah it sucks needing to know every peice of information at once ;D

Some of the books i read give false information, and so set of a chain reaction of false observations.

im just tryin to make sure the stuff i already know is correct, and if not as correct as possible. and i have like seriously over 50 wiki windows open correlating all this damn information, im not even past sumer and egypt.

once we get to the abrahamic people im totally trying to peice everything together.

but setanta gave me that book recomendation, so once i get time (and im guessing its expensive, money) i wont have to bother you good ol forum folks wih my petty questions

Also, it's my opinion that the questions you ask overlap several subjects: Sociology, Geography, Archaeology, and Anthropology. Perhaps even Paleontology can be researched.

funny you noticed hahahaha. this is possibly why i cant find any good reading material. its not 1 book i need, its about a million.

Follow Setanta's lead on books. there's no one here that is more expert than Setanta on history.

The questions aren't petty, but they require some more leg-work - not a quick hit. Don't be shy about digging in and reading more. Allow your inquisitive nature to gather more and explore. Good luck.

im gonna take a screenie of my browser duringg a wiki session. you will gasp in terror and wonder how my computer handles it.

im also lookin into the history of the molosses dogs at the same time.

yeah its insane.anyways im off to read more

Re: ANyone care to answer some questions? I KNOW U WANT TO!


It is not necessarily true that they didn't. There are symbols which have been found on pottery dating to 6000 years ago which resemble hieroglyphs. Whether this is pre-literate art work, or actually represents writing, no one cn say to a certainty. The earliest Sumerian pre- or proto-cuneiform clay tablets date to about 5500 years ago. The notion that the Sumerians had writing longer than the Egyptians comes from the archaeological canon of the late 19th century--discoveries in the 1990s have cast that position into doubt. It is, however, a question which likely can never be answered. Whether or not someone asserts that it can or can't be answered, it is not reasonable to compare the development of civilization in Egypt to the development in civilization in Sumeria. You have different peoples whose cultures arose from different sources. Who had writing "first" is a meaningless question, because they lived in different cultural and political spheres.

By the way, Sumer and Sumerian are derived from the names the Akkadians gave to these people. They called themselves the Sag-giga, meaning the black-headed people. No one can say with certainty how the Akkadians came up with "Shumeru," which appears to mean "southern land" in their language.



This was a temple society. While they may have traded with their neighbors, it is doubtful that they conducted any significant trade with people at greater distances, because there would not have been any significant value-added economies with which they would have traded.

The Sumerians erected a temple society, which is a society in which a priesthood regulates the affairs of the people, ostensibly to the greater benefit of all. They regulated the irrigation of fields, the planting and harvesting of crops, and the gathering and storage of millet and emmer (which you might think of as a "proto-wheat") with the emmer being replaced after a few centuries with barley, which was then redistributed. This was the means by which they erected a highly-organized society which freed the craftsman from the necessity of gathering or growing his own food, and freed the farmer from making his own cloth or pottery. Keeping good records was essential to this process, and most of the cuneiform tablets which have been found from the era of Sumerian ascendancy relates to the regulation of warehousing and distribution.



No one can tell you the answer to this for certain. The "sea peoples" are thought by many well-informed scholars for that period and that region to possibly have been survivors of the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization--but no one knows for certain, it is speculation. The sea peoples refers to people who raided into Egypt. It is possible that the Philistines were from the same source, and there is an hypothesis to this effect, but it is disputed, and no one can say for certain.



This is rather an awkward question on your part. Anciently, people migrated to find a better life, not because of any compulsion to "explore the globe." It is doubtful that any of them had even come to the conclusion that they lived on a globe, or that there would be any profit in exploring it. People migrate to follow the herds of animals they hunt, or to find better sources of food to gather.

It is generally accepted that the hominids from which we are descended first arose in East Africa.



Very likely not. There were a Semitic people of the middle east known as the Aramaeans who settled all over the region, and who traded widely among themselves, and therefore came to dominate the trade routes of the middle east. They did not dominate them in the sense of military or political domination, but rather in the sense of being the most successful merchants. Their langauge was also considered to be more sophisticated than the dominant languages of the region, and the Assyrians and Akkadians both adopted the language as a means of communicating with more subtlety, and communicating with the speakers of other languages in the middle east.

Their influence was so profound that by the time when Jesus is alleged to have lived, the people of the middle east spoke Aramaic in addition to their native languages, and sometimes to the exclusion of other languages. Aramaic was the most common language used in Palestine at that time, and the people of the "gospels" were speakers of Aramaic. Many of the Aramaeans became confessional Jews. That means that they were believers in Judaism, the religion of the Jews, while not being ethnically Jewish. As Semites, they were, of course, the ethnic "cousins" of the Jews. With their wide trading networks, they spread confessional Judaism throughout the middle east, and along the "Silk Road" into central Asia. Some of them reached China, where a small community of confessional "Jews" still existed in the 13th century when the Polos visited.



Sumeria didn't "collapse." It was superceded by the Akkadians, a Semitic people. The Hebrews were also a Semitic people, and had common ancestors with the Akkadians, although no one much believes any longer that they are descendants of the Akkadians, as was once the case, because of the story of Abraham. All that can be said with any certainty is that the Hebrews' linguistic heritage is that of a Semitic people speaking a western Semitic, Canaanite language.



They were probably semi-nomadic herders. There is no such people as "saudi arabians." Saudi Arabia is a political entity. The name derives from the clan of Ibn Saud, who was the first "King" of Saudi Arabia after the English and French carved up the middle east at the end of the Great War. The Arabs are a Semitic people, too--although the evidence is that they arose much, much later than the other semitic people of the middle east, probably about the 9th century BCE. They only first appear in historical records in a battle with the Assyrians in the middle of the 9th century BCE.



What makes you think that they didn't? The fact that they didn't promptly write a book about it in English? The Arabs, and other Muslims of the middle east and North Africa (not all Muslims are Arabs, you know) were very familiar with Africa, at least with the coastal region. When Vasco da Gama made his dramatic and courageous voyage from Malindi on the East African coast to Goa on the coast of India in 1498, his navigator was a trader of the region, and very likely an Arab Muslim. Most of what we refer to as "exploration" is a case of Europeans "discovering" places in the world where other humans have lived for thousands, or tens of thousands of years.



You seem to have a strange definition of "explorer." As already noted, primitive people migrate to follow or find food sources. It is highly unlikely that many of them took to the water to do that.

well like animals, im sure the sons would leave their "home" in order to obtain their own territory.(exploration?)

the bible mentions it a few times in genesis, and FYI im trying to stay in the "genesis" time frame, well not that timeframe obviously more around , well around the time of israel/jaacob and joseph etc.

im guessing its around the time uruk and ur lost their prominence, and before rome began.

Oh yeah when i say saudi arabia, i mean just that area in general.not the country. sorry im weird.

i want to stick to the beginning until i understand it as much as possible, when you pass the byzantine i lose focus, races and nations get too complex for right now.

bible = fiction
bible = fiction

Why exactly are you referring to the bible in this thread? The bible never pretends to be a reference book. I thought you were wanting to know factual info about people in history? The Bible is literature based on a romantic view of the world. When you count on it for an historic understanding, you aren't dealing with reality.

you right.