Early City Uncovered in Syria

A complex, stratified society with industry appears to have burst on the scene 4000 to 6000 years ago in northern Syria.  Science Daily reported, “The mound of Tell Zeidan in the Euphrates River Valley near Raqqa, Syria, which had not been built upon or excavated for 6,000 years, is revealing a society rich in trade, copper metallurgy and pottery production.”  They believe the site predates the invention of the wheel, but it shows remarkable complexity, with copper and obsidian production, the use of official seals, and hints of ideology, symbolic communication, and commerce across a broad region.
    According to Gil Stein, the director of the Oriental Institute excavating the site, “This enigmatic period saw the first development of widespread irrigation, agriculture, centralized temples, powerful political leaders and the first emergence of social inequality as communities became divided into wealthy elites and poorer commoners.”
    The article says, “Tell Zeidan dates from between 6000 and 4000 B.C., and immediately preceded the world’s first urban civilizations in the ancient Middle East.  It is one of the largest sites of the Ubaid culture in northern Mesopotamia.”

Why is this called an enigmatic period?  It’s not enigmatic at all if you understand the Table of Nations and Biblical chronology after Babel.  People with complex culture and intelligence spread out and built cities rapidly – and the first were in the fertile crescent, just like this one.  Given how quickly we know humans can migrate, it’s no wonder that other societies sprung up far and wide soon after.  And how do they know these intelligent people did not have wheels?  Maybe they just didn’t find any yet.  Undoubtedly they are not expecting such early people to be that intelligent.
    Evolutionists, by contrast, have a real challenge on their hands.  Civilization just burst on the scene only a few thousands years ago (the dating gets a little questionable back that far).  Yet they tell us that anatomically modern human beings, with fully developed brains and hands and upright posture and evidence of symbolic understanding and social behavior, the ability to organize their habitats, decorate themselves, cook with fire and even play music, lived a million to two million years before the first cities appeared.  Some of them even migrated all the way to Asia.  All they did was hunt and gather and hide out in caves for a time interval orders of magnitude more than all known human history, then bang!  Someone got the idea to plant seeds, and presto! instant cities appeared with irrigation, commerce, metallurgy and stratified society.  If that story makes any sense to you, you’re smoking a controlled substance.  The Bible’s history fits the facts of archaeology – just as the continuing evidence shows.  Breathe in some fresh air and evaluate the sober explanation.