This follows from our recent discussion on deep-time complexity.If sites such as Göbekli Tepe predate widespread agriculture, and symbolic behaviour stretches back tens of thousands of years, perhaps our definition needs refining. Vote, then explain your reasoning.

The conventional story of civilisation is elegant in its clarity and reassuring in its simplicity. For the vast majority of our species’ existence, we are told, Homo sapiens lived in small, mobile bands, operating within the ecological constraints of hunting and gathering, until the Neolithic transition, beginning roughly 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, introduced agriculture, sedentism, and eventually urban life. From this agricultural foundation emerged cities, writing, statecraft, and the recognisable forms of “civilisation” that appear in Mesopotamia around 3,500 BCE and subsequently in Egypt, the Indus Valley, and northern China. This model is not incorrect. However, it is increasingly apparent that it is incomplete. What recent decades of archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, and genetic research have revealed is not a dramatic overthrow of chronology, nor evidence of some forgotten technological super-culture, but rather something more subtle and, in many respects, more profound: that the social, symbolic, and organisational foundations upon which civilisation rests extend far deeper into prehistory than the emergence of cities and writing would suggest. If civilisation is understood not merely as urban density or bureaucratic administration but as sustained, large-scale symbolic cooperation across extended networks of communities, then its origins are not five millennia old. They are tens of millennia deep. The Cognitive Foundations: Symbol Before Stone Any serious reconsideration of civilisation’s origins must begin not with architecture but with cognition, because no monument, however large, can exist without shared systems of meaning capable of organising human effort across time. At Blombos Cave in South Africa, engraved ochre fragments dated to approximately 75,000 BCE exhibit deliberate cross-hatched patterns that cannot be explained as incidental markings. These engravings represent abstraction, and abstraction implies a capacity to encode meaning beyond immediate survival needs. Symbolic thought of this sophistication requires shared conventions, transmission across generations, and social continuity.

A 640-Year-Old Castle Found Beneath a Private Mansion. What Does That Tell Us About Europe? During excavation work in Vannes, in Brittany, archaeologists uncovered the remains of the 14th-century Château de l’Hermine beneath a private mansion. This was not a loose foundation stone or a decorative arch. It was a substantial medieval structure, once associated with the Dukes of Brittany, now sitting buried beneath later layers of private wealth. Pause on that for a moment. A seat of feudal authority.Buried beneath a modern residence.Not destroyed. Not erased. Simply layered over. Europe does not tend to erase its past. It accumulates it. The Château de l’Hermine was originally constructed in the late fourteenth century as a ducal fortress and residence. Over time, political systems changed, regimes shifted, and architectural tastes evolved. But the land remained. Power changed form, not location. This discovery raises several important questions. First, continuity of land control. How often has land remained in elite hands across centuries, simply adapting to new political systems? When we talk about revolutions and reforms, how much truly changes at ground level? Second, ownership of buried history.When medieval architecture is discovered beneath private property, who owns it?The landowner?The state?The public as collective inheritors of cultural memory? European heritage law often protects archaeological remains, but enforcement, preservation, and public access vary widely. Third, urban stratigraphy as memory.Cities such as Rome, Paris, London, and Istanbul are layered vertically. Every regime builds over the last. Yet we rarely think about the psychological effect of living above buried authority structures. Are we walking across forgotten centres of power every day? Finally, archaeology as interruption.Modern development assumes forward momentum. Archaeology interrupts that narrative. Every excavation reminds us that progress sits on foundations we did not build and rarely fully understand.

The idea that the West was “saved” at Marathon or Salamis is so deeply embedded in historical storytelling that it is rarely questioned. We are taught that a Persian victory would have smothered freedom, crushed thought, and extinguished the spark that became modern civilisation. This is comforting. It flatters us. It is also only half true. If the Achaemenid Empire had defeated the Greek city-states decisively in the early fifth century BC, the world would not have descended into darkness. It would have become something more stable, more hierarchical, and less obsessed with the individual voice. In many ways, it might have been a quieter world. Whether it would have been a better one depends on what we value. Persian rule was not built on cultural erasure. Across Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, local customs, religions, and elites were left largely intact so long as taxes were paid and rebellions avoided. Greece would almost certainly have followed the same pattern. Athens might have survived as a wealthy port city. Sparta as a regional military culture. Greek art, language, and religion would have endured. What would not have endured is the idea that ordinary citizens should openly argue about how power is exercised. That loss matters. Athenian democracy was crude, exclusionary, and short-lived, but it normalised something historically radical: the belief that authority could be publicly questioned by non-elites. From that atmosphere came not just political experimentation, but a confrontational style of thinking. Figures like Socrates were not valuable because they offered answers, but because they made disruption respectable. A Persian-dominated Greece would likely still have produced philosophy, but it would have been philosophical instruction rather than philosophical challenge. Wisdom, not argument. The result would have been a world more comfortable with empire as the natural state of affairs. Central authority, layered administration, and managed diversity would have been the norm, not the problem to be solved. Without an independent Greece, there is no obvious route to Alexander the Great, no Hellenistic explosion, and no Greek intellectual framework spreading westward into Rome. Rome would still rise, but into a world shaped by Persian models of governance rather than Greek ideas of citizenship. Law and order would likely trump representation and debate.

Imagine this scenario. Tomorrow, archaeologists uncover a massive stone monument. It’s clearly intentional, clearly engineered, and clearly ancient. But there are no inscriptions, no historical references, no surviving written culture attached to it. You are asked one question only: How old is it? You are allowed to use modern tools, but you must choose where you place your trust. Here are the five types of evidence available to you. You are allowed to rank them, combine them, or reject some entirely. 1. Material science Radiocarbon dating of organic inclusions, mortar analysis, tool marks, stone sourcing. - Strength: measurable, repeatable - Weakness: contamination, reuse, sampling bias 2. Archaeological context Stratigraphy, surrounding settlements, quarrying patterns, infrastructure. - Strength: situates the monument in human systems - Weakness: assumes continuity and correct interpretation 3. Geological processes Erosion, weathering, sedimentation, hydrology. - Strength: long-term natural signals - Weakness: multiple mechanisms can produce similar effects 4. Astronomical alignment Orientation to stars, solstices, celestial cycles. - Strength: intentional design can be long-lasting - Weakness: symbolism does not equal construction date 5. Cultural intuition What you believe humans of a certain period were capable of. - Strength: holistic judgement - Weakness: often wrong, often biased Now the uncomfortable part. You must discard one category entirely. You are not allowed to use it at all. Then you must answer: - Which category do you discard, and why? - Which category do you trust most, and why? - What kind of error worries you more: being thousands of years too early, or thousands of years too late? There is no “correct” answer here.But there are weak and strong justifications.