What is the oldest city in the worlds

[MangoPete]

I was disagreeing with someone who sincerely believes Jerihco is the oldest city in the world.
I said Bolox
he said that wasn't a city
But Iam sure Machu whotsit or even Babylon must be older and what about the ruins they have found to be neolithic in Zimbabwe?Thew oldest "men " either Near Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya
Any thoughts

[bernardo]

Jericho is right - it's c.10,000 years old. Machu Picchu is probably only 1000 or so.

[jake-the-peg]

I think Jericho's claim is to be the oldedst continually inhabited city but Damascus also claims this. Excavations here date 8,000-10,000BC which would predate Jericho.

If you google "oldest city" Damascus you get 849 hits if you google "oldest city" Jericho you get 842

You get the picture!

[morbidstorm]

what you have to be sure on here is which is the oldest city and which is the oldest recorded city surely. But my bet is on Morecambe (OK OK its not a city, but have you seen the ages of its inhabitants!! true neolithic peoples!!!)

[jno]

Jericho is really only a town (though I suppose its currrent population would have seemed comparatively huge 10,000 years ago). Damascus remains a growing city. Machu Picchu and Great Zimbabwe are just ruins - once cities perhaps, but no longer so. If the requirements are city size, age, and continuous existence, I vote Damascus.

(Remember that 'neolithic' or 'new stone age' describes a period of development, not a particular time - Zimbabwe was at the neolithic stage centuries after Europe.)

[MangoPete]

thanks folks
Morbidstorm obviously hasn't experienced the colourless throwbacks in the Welsh Valleys

[MangoPete]

jno
the civilisations who lived in Zambia and Zimbabwe developed long before the European. They were designing aircraft at least 3000 yrs bc and had amazing citadels which poeple still don't understand how they built.
East Africa were trading with China pre Ramases 1st

[SKCOLL]

Machu Picchu is only around 550 years old. It's a stunning location but the stonework is mostly small stones and not the perfect lines you see connected with the Incas (that's more eveident in the nearby Sacred Valley). The Incas also didn't rule for that long (100 years maybe) before the Spanish ended their reign. Other cultures in Peru go back thousands of years but all anyone seems to be interested in is the short period of Inca rule.

[spudqueen]

If you mean continually inhabited city then yeah, Jericho or Damascus, but Tiahuanaco in Bolivia was originally built so long ago that there are stone carvings of long extinct animals see here.

[jno]

dunno about that link spudqueen - most archaeologists date the sphinx and great pyramid to somewhere around 2,500BC; it says 10,500BC, which seems pretty far out.

Do you have a link for Zimbabwean aircraft, MangoPete? I've seen Great Zimbabwe and it's rather beautiful (early European settlers insisted it must have been created by white men, because they couldn't believe blacks could have done it), but I don't think there's really anything very mysterious about how it was built.

[MangoPete]

I have no links , I know a Doctor of A was in a team who went to study it.
Also pottery from Chinese dynasties , I am told have reference to it. Seen the photos but it was interpreted for me.
I will try to secure something for you in the next few days.

[MangoPete]

Doctor of Anthropology who was in a team from South Africa who studied the site.
I beleive that because the cradle of civilisation if in the Rift valley area from Jordan down through Africa I would susspect the oldest civilisation would be there.
Note
The Maasai believe they came down a vine from Venus which dropped them off in the Nile Valley. They used to visit but one time some warriors killed some animals to eat and the gods cut the vine stranding them here

[jno]

some people think the Maasai are descended from a lost Roman legion - the cloaks and spears and sandals, the military ethos. The legion would presumably have been a local one from north Africa or even Palestine, that disbanded at the end of the empire and turned pastoralist, and drifted south. Quite plausible theory, possibly even more than the Venus one.

[MangoPete]

I work with the Samburu Maasai in Northern Kenya , the vine is their story they tell.
They have very similar links with the scot celts, they wear short swords and kilts of a tartan and have a clan system
http://www.scottish-history-genealogy-true-identity.co.u k/chapter1.htm

They originate from the same region as the scots

[jno]

the Scots come from Venus too? I feel the title of a book coming on... The Welsh are from Mars...

[MangoPete]

No originally dads side was middle east Sythia then crete and mum ws an Egyptian princess. They lived in South Egypt and thats where the mix of culture came in. The original Welsh tend towards trogs

[spudqueen]

jno - did you read the bits about Tiahuanaco? Also I'm not sure that most archaeologists actually think for themselves and not just follow the herd. Stones cannot be scientifically dated to when they were put together, for example most standard Egyptology books state that the Great Pyramid was built by Khufu yet I believe that it is written (by Egyptians!) that he restored it. Also there is considerable rainwater erosion on the Sphinx which would suggest that it was around when the climate in Egypt was a lot different than it is today and for this we are talking quite a long time ago. Anyway, I digress, it was Tiahuanaco I was talking about which apart from the stone carvings of long extinct animals has been proved to be a port on a shore line which has not existed for at least 5000 years.

[Peter Pedant]

My turn ! My turn !

and you're all wrong _ I am surprised no-=one has mentioned catal huyuk

but that is clearly the oldest..da daaah city.

Or was in the 1970s for the anthropologists