A study in the journal Geoarchaeology that is reported upon by LiveScience reports that ten of twelve major cities that were the core of ancient civilizations were built on major fault lines. The ancient capitals, it is thought, were cities that were occasionally destroyed by earthquakes which allowed major progress to occur in the rebuilding of those cities. Thus, earthquakes allowed the cultures to move forward in great leaps and bounds. What do you think?
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Comments
The summary of the article that the link leads to seems much to sketchy to support any firm conclusions. I was surprised then to see so many commentators accepting the hypothesis as fact on such little evidence and offering their own ideas as to why it was true.
Surely there are simpler answers for the placement of cities like Rome, which is at the first place upstream that the Tiber River can be forded or bridge or Jesusalem, the last fertile spot on the edge of the Judaen desert. I was under-whelmed by the idea.
If I understand the thrust of this article it flies in the face of an article I read after the New Orleans flooding. That article, as I remember was of European origin, was critical of the US in rebuilding what nature says should not be there,i.e.San Francisco and New Orleans. It seemed to say we are stupid to rebuild what nature will destroy and that Europeans are not as stupid as we are.
Actually I see some merit in that attitude. To build on known active faults and on land below sea level is beyond my comprehention.
I do bealive that we humans are so arrogant that we do tha crazy things to prove to whoever is there that we are able to control our enviroment so we are better than .We humans want to control everithing but nature is wiser and eventualy it will earn the upper hand