Soooo much of human history is unaccounted for

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For example how do historians explain the sunken ruins off the coast of India? It had been dated to over 9000 years old....far older than Sumeria or Egypt. There were sunken ruins off the coast of Japan also. Why cant historians grasp the fact that much evidence simpley deteriorated or got buried deep with time to the point of no return? These examples are stone structures so they remain, albeit underwater but nevertheless they exist and testify to something. If science is correct humans are 200,000 years old. Civilization supposedly started in Sumeria, Egypt and China roughly 4000 BC- 3000BC, at least recorded history. Theres thousands and thousands of unrecorded human history....wars between forgotten kingdoms, amazing stories such as what survives today as the Biblical deluge + Noahs Arc, the Garden of Eden, the Land of Nod, prehistoric migrations, wars between human settlements/groups and Neanderthals and other sub-human species....its so facisinating and it kills me to have it shrouded in mystery. What do you guys think happened in the other 180,000 something years of unrecorded human history?

I definietly agree. I've got to add this African proverb too:
“Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter”
Lots of human history is one sided, like the tales of the hunt. As humans, we do tend to glorify the victor over the loser. Have you ever heard a hunter tell a story that makes him sound weaker than his prey? History is written by the winners. I don't even like to think about what information we are missing from the "losers".

Not surprising, since alot of human history is covered up because it is too dangerous to the powers that be.

We don't know much about human history before writing was invented, because there are no written records.

They can and do grasp that but there isn't anything they can about it. They can only report on what they have evidence of. They can't speculate on theoretical civilizations that may have existed but for which there is no evidence. At least they shouldn't if they are good historians and not merely storytellers.

However, archeology marches on. Things that are a mystery now may become known when evidence surfaces from future archeological finds. So keep your eyes on archeology. Also keep your eyes on anthropology. New techniques in mitochondrial DNA tracking are letting us trace..via our own current DNA!....the migrations of our ancestors. Some of the mysteries of our past that have left no outward evidence have nevertheless left evidence in our DNA and you may learn things that way too.

hmm

I always wanted to trace my own DNA, I heard you can now find out what parts of the world and in what order your ancestors migrated from by comparing your DNA to current populatiions of parts of the world. its fascinating

How about the things in modern history that never got recorded, because people were focused on the big events.

Link, please.

Link, please. I'm curious now.

They're very aware of that. If you dug up an old skeleton, would you expect it to be wearing intact clothes?

That's not quite how it works; "anatomically modern" does not mean "modern." I'd suggest the end of the last glacial period as a good point for "modern" which gives us about 7,000 years of "missing history" between then and Sumer. Given that technology generally doesn't get forgotten once invented we can rule out anything more than small towns and basic farming so no Aquilonian chivalry. (chiz!)
Best candidate for the Flood myths as far as I know is the connection opening between the Black Sea and Meditteranean.

They discovered the ruins of a city off the coast of India actually during the Tsunami, when the water receded before the wave, the structures were visible at the horizon. Later an investigation was made that showed the ruins to be contemporaneous with the ancient architecture sections of the city on the shoreline (the name escapes me). I don't think this was 9000 years old. Perhaps we are thinking of two different things though.
One of the main problems with the idea that there are civilizations pre-8000 is the lack of evidence in soil strata. When looking through the past you must look in the dirt. For 180,000 years tool evolution was relatively slow and Humans lived an excellent lifestyle working perhaps 20 hours a week (why the hell did we give all that up?) and not rotting their teeth with grain sugars. This is another piece of evidence as tooth decay from meat and gathering is different from that of sedentary agriculture and city life. However, there are many places that used to be above the water that aren't any more, and it's not enough to just look at the sea floor, there has to be undersea archaeology analogous to that of the surface. This is very difficult to do as digging underwater invariably leads to clouds of dust. It is also much more expensive and required archaeologists to also be expert divers. Recently they have begun mapping extensive sections of the sea floor. One day we might have a very good map and might be able to deduce logical places where there could have been cities. Until then though I don't think we'll ever know for sure, and the archaeology points to cities in Turkey such as Catal Huyuk as the earliest vestiges of civilization

Surplus production corrupts; excessive surplus production corrupts excessively... though seriously, it'll have been on the nasty, brutish and short side of paradise.

I recommend Michael Scott Rohan's The Anvil of Ice to you all - it's a much better take on the prehistory genre than Conan.

I've seen that stuff about india and japan on TV. interesting indeed, personally i dont think humans have a grasp on anything. let alone the factual truth

Early Death, debilitating disease, inability to understand anything about the world...

I don't know how the economy was so fantastic in america in the 1960's, with only the man in a relationship having to work to afford two cars and a house. Now everyone has to work like a slave to afford less, or so it seems

This is one of the big reasons I'm going for an archeology masters ... and I'm a lifelong scuba diver.

In the field it is well known that much archeological evidence is under the waters due to the rising sea levels after the ice age and afterward. Every civilization begins near a big body of fresh water and most of them have the sea a short distance away (unless the freshwater source itself provides ample food supply) . Because of this and rising water levels, many of the potentially earliest human settlements are under water.

Take a look at this animation: http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/cryo/cryosph ... ce_age.mov

Keeping in mind that the earliest human civilizations found so far exist in a horizontal line in either direction from the northern parts of the middle east and does not go too far south or too far north (as early humans migrated quicker over terrain that shared the same climate they were used to.. (see image below.. follow the yellow temperature markers).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... re_Map.jpg

you see that the pre-civilization humans spread quickly into areas that for them would have been ideal locations to settle down in. Again, refer to the ice age animation and look at:

The large area between Japan and Korea and China.. that landmass disappeared and became the East China Sea. That region is littered with fresh water rivers emptying into the Sea today.. and this means that very likely these rivers met into a large river in ancient times... a perfect location for a nomadic people to become sedentary.

The sea between Thailand and Malaysia. This is another region that was above water and had a huge amount of fresh water rivers flowing through it and ocean in practically every direction but North.

And again, the area between kuwait and Oman that is now seawater was once above water.. we know the earliest civilizations found so far emerged here and they depended on the river and ocean to sustain their growth... there's bound to be quite a few cities submerged there that are much older than those above water today. Perhaps even those of the civilizations that rose and fell before Sumer.

We can fill in the gaps with our imaginations.

I'd say they had a pretty good understanding of the world.. people were even studying astronomy long before the telescope was invented.

http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/pre20th_ancients.html

Understanding of the world does not necessarily come from capturing it under a microscope. I'd say that 'uncivilized' people had a rich understanding of the cycles of nature, and probably suffered less from loneliness and crises of identity than we do now . Native Americans taught the colonists who emigrated to a new continent the skills of fishing and fertilizing.

As for early death, I'd much rather die at 50 years of age than spend the last ten? twenty? years of my life wasting away in a nursing home prolonging death with heavy medication, possibly suffering from dementia (though I already feel 'demented' most days!)

agreed on the last point, but frankly I'm just not an advocate of the idea of going back to a Golden Age I don't think ever existed.