Simultaneous appearance of written language and common man

and yet, if it has a date inscribed, you could just look at the date

If you trust the date in the written record, and the carbon dating agrees with the date in the written record, does that not give cause to trust carbon dating?

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Don't do that Dave.

Suppose we discovered a new find. A scroll which is purported to have been written by Jesus himself.Do you have any ideas on how we might try to date that scroll to see if it's the real thing?It could be a fake from the 13th century, or maybe it dates from 20AD.What would you do?

Dates appear on later written records, yes, but they do not appear on the earliest written records. And even where dates do appear, you cannot simply work from the calender to the date in most cases because each calender uses differing fixed points, and we need to date these points in order to accurately calibrate the calender.

I'm not sure if you're trying to make a distinction between hard archeology and the written language or talking about the hard archeology of written language. The study of ancient writings is paleography, which is one part of the topic we're discussing. As for the transition from pictures to symbols that convey abstract thought, my studies show there is no hard line between the two, just a continuous increase in sophisticated drawings. Your position that God created Adam with the ability to write where that ability did not exist does not mesh well with the evidence we see. I'm asking you to explain why we should see what we see instead of caveman drawings suddenly ending at about the same date Noah started his diary. Yeah, I thought the Flood was about 4,600 years ago..which would make 3,000 BCE pre-flood wouldn't it? If you'd read your link you'd also note we have a pretty convincing progression of Sumerian writings that flow smoothly from a pre-writing tally-based form of record keeping (about 4,000 BCE) through fully developed cuneiform. Looks like we need to move your flood back a while. Huh? Care to explain the logic behind this statement. We see several writing methods evolve simultaneously at different times in different places from their local proto-writing methods. We do not see their proto-writing stopped to be replaced by a new God given writing system; nor do we see all systems developing from a single master system distributed by the wandering nations after Babel (post flood right? That does push your date up some doesn't it?)...or maybe you do see this somewhere. If so, you haven't pointed it out to me. Er...but you said that writing was fully developed before Babel didn't you? Are you telling us that everyone at Babel forgot how to write and after they'd wandered they developed written languages all on their own? Paleographers study not only how to read ancient writings but also the relationship between writing systems. Here's a hint: not all writing systems are unrelated, and many times you'll find different writing systems used with the same language.As for your links, could you please reference something a little more advanced that actually supports your assertions rather than says the same things I've said all along. I'm asking you to explain exactly what we should see if what you are saying is true and I'm asking you to show a correlation between writing systems and the appearance of modern man...without simply defining modern man as someone who can write.

Hey Peg, Hard archeological evidence shows the existence of modern Homo sapiens, also known as Cro-Magnons, as early as 36,000 years ago:

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Cro-Magnon ...is one of the main types of Homo sapiens of the European Upper Paleolithic, living approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. It is named after the cave of Cr-Magnon in southwest France, where the first specimen was found. The term falls outside the usual naming conventions for early humans and is used in a general sense to describe the oldest modern people in Europe, though also a specific (but very frequent) subtype among their fossil remains. In recent scientific literature the term "early modern humans" is used instead.
The oldest definitely dated specimen of is from 34,000-36,000 years ago[1].

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The geologist Louis Lartet discovered the first five skeletons in March 1868 in the Cro-Magnon rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France. The rock shelter contained a large cavity which protected the fossils. The type specimen from this find is Cro-Magnon 1. The skeletons showed the same high forehead, upright posture and slender (gracile) skeleton as modern humans.

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This is at the time of the first city states, while documentation of things by oral history is common for smaller groups of humans. There are also examples of many ways to record events that we may not recognize as language: the knotted strings of the Incas, for example, or the pictographs used by indians on leather as well as stone, pictographs used to record events.You are mistaking artifacts we can find and understand for the beginning point, when obviously the language did not suddenly appear fully formed in the first document. Except that it is totally at ODDS with the evidence for the spread of people through africa, the middle east, asia, europe, and even Visit Australia - Travel & Tour Information - Tourism Australia ...

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The earliest evidence of human habitation found to date are that of Mungo Man which have been dated at about 40,000 years old, but the time of arrival of the ancestors of indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers, with estimates ranging as high as 125,000 years ago.[3]

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... and the americas:

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Scholars who follow the Bering Strait theory agree that most indigenous peoples of the Americas descended from people who probably migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, anywhere between 9,000 and 50,000 years ago.

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A 2006 study (to be published in Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology[when?]) reports new DNA-based research that links DNA retrieved from a 10,000-year-old fossilized tooth from an Alaskan island, with specific coastal tribes in Tierra del Fuego, Ecuador, Mexico, and California.[4]

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Hard archeological evidence shows that modern humans covered the earth long before the first clay tablets were imprinted in Mesopotamia. Hard archeological evidence also shows that there is no gap in the habitation of these continents, no discontinuity in the various cultures in the areas, as would necessarily be the case if one set were wiped out by a flood and replaced by later migrants from the middle east.Not one of the native American Indian tribes are genetically descended from the Assyrians that inhabited Mesopotamia at the time the clay tablets were first used to record events, nor are the aboriginals in Australia. Hard genetic evidence refutes the indigenous peoples of these areas being descended from the genetic pool of clay tablet writers. Genetic evidence also shows no gap in the continuous habitation of these areas, no discontinuity in the various lineages of descent in these areas, as would necessarily be the case if one set were wiped out by a flood and replaced by later migrants from the middle east.See The Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves
and the map Tracing Human History Through Genetic Mutations
Also http://www.duerinck.com/migrate.html

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The Seven European Daughters of Eve matriarchal groups correspond to Dr. Wallace's lineages above, and were given names by Prof. Sykes:
Helena: This clan lived in the ice-capped Pyrenees. As the climate warmed, Helena’s descendants trekked northward to what is now England, some 12,000 years ago. Members of this group are now present in all European countries.
Jasmine: Her people had a relatively happy life in Syria, where they farmed wheat and raised domestic animals. Jasmine’s descendants traveled throughout Europe, spreading their agricultural innovations with them.
Katrine: Members of this group lived in Venice 10,000 years ago. Today most of Katrine’s clan lives in the Alps.
Tara: Sykes’ maternal ancestry goes back to this group, which settled in Tuscany 17,000 years ago. Descendants ventured across northern Europe and eventually crossed the English Channel.
Ursula: Users of stone tools, Ursula’s clan members drifted across all of Europe.
Valda: Originally from Spain, Valda and her immediate descendants lived 17,000 years ago. Later relatives moved into northern Finland and Norway.
Xenia: Her people lived in the Caucasus Mountains 25,000 years ago. Just before the Ice Age, this clan spread across Europe, and even reached the Americas. (As Dr. Wallace discovered, the X pattern is a rare European lineage and is also among the northern Native Americans such as the Ojibwa and Sioux.)

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"Xenia" does not descend from "Jasmine" ... and they are the earliest branch on the mitochrondial tree.And hard archeological evidence shows that written language did not appear suddenly fully developed "around 3,000BCE which places them at the time after the flood" as one of your links points out:

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The early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BC are not considered a sudden invention. Rather, they were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly reminiscent of writing. These systems may be described as proto-writing. They used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols to convey information yet were probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC.

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Which places them well out of your "time of the flood" by 4,000 years. So we now have a time for "Babel" then -- before anatomically modern humans emigrated to the far corners of the earth -- and a place: Africa. That would be somewhere between 160kyr and 40kyr ago ... based on hard archeological evidence.Open minded skepticism looks at all the evidence, not just what is comfortable or convenient for a set of beliefs.Enjoy.

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Sure, trust the documents that place a continent the size of Asia and northern Africa betwixt the New World and the Old. Here is a question for you:Based on written records, in which year was built Machu Picchu? The answer's all over the Internet”should be an easy one. Jon

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You've been Gremled!

not if carbon dating is flawed to begin withthere are other methods of dating they can use...type of material, style of writing for examplethe writings of historians who may have recorded certain events, they can look at other artifacts collected from the sitehow did they date things before carbon dating was invented?

they can scientifically test the material to find out what type of material was used, where it is found and the era that the particular materials were used...they can also cross check with similar materials etcfor example, the shroud of turin was found to be a fake long before it was carbon dated. The new catholic encyclopedia says “There is no evidence of a shroud during the first centuries of the Christian era,” so, if it was around then, there would have been evidence of it among the early christians and those who actually handled the body of christthey could also compare the writings with other writings to see if they are all in agreement... the writings of 'St Thomas' was checked this way and it was found that the ideas of this supposed gospel was in contradiction to the teachings of Christ and so it was excluded from the biblical cannon.

Poorly. It is not.There is a thread that has been dusted off just for you to discuss your problems with C14 dating. Several of us have posted good information there for your perusal. See you there?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

i agree with you there, we would definitely need to know how any such calendars workedabout the dates though, the jews kept the dates of their history meticulously...so meticulously in fact that we know the exact year of the flood, of Adams creation, of the exodus from egypt ectit stands to reason that if the jews kept dates and worked from a clander, other nations also did this

yes thats rightwe do see that because when the languages became confused, each group went off in their own direction and formulated their own writing systemshence why the sudden appearance of various types and styles of writting.

until we understand what Incan written language was, we may never knowbut i see what you are saying

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about the dates though, the jews kept the dates of their history meticulously...so meticulously in fact that we know the exact year of the flood, of Adams creation, of the exodus from egypt ect

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That isn't true. It is possible to use the Bible to work out dates. However we DON'T know if the dates are at all accurate. Not one of those dates can be confirmed from any other source at all, and in fact it is entirely possible that none of the events listed happened at all.

Great! Now 'we' can finally know what the exact year of the flood, of Adams creation, and of the Exodus from Egypt as no one seems willing to provide an exact date.I am going to hold you to this statement, the longer you bob and weave, the worse it will get.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza