Talk:List of oldest continuously inhabited cities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Contradictions? 2 from brittanica 3 Oldes Cities 4 Improvements Necessary 5 Rename 6 Article for deletion 7 Byblos 8 Locations 9 Delhi 10 Susa 11 Varanasi 12 Yerevan 13 Halstatt 14 Gaziantep 15 Tirunelveli 16 continuous habitation 17 Damascus listed twice 18 Jericho 19 Mexico 20 Peru 21 Sigh... Israel again 22 additions

[edit] Contradictions?

this article contradicts, as i see it, this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_European_cities —Preceding unsigned comment added by Camilorojas (talk • contribs) 16:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] from brittanica

brittanica lists varanasi as the oldest city in the world. your views on this.

nids 05:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont have a view on it - do you have the source? The online article doesnt seem to say that [1] stating instead that it is "one of the oldest continually-inhabited cities in the world" (the Damascus source - also from Britannica - states that it is "believed to be the oldest continually-inhabited city", by the way). If you're using a hard-copy of Britannica, can we have the edition? Of course, there's nothing to stop you just changing it, it wouldnt be the first time someone has just done that - things like this do tend to be particularly prone to petty nationalism and religious bigotry from all sides (not that I am suggesting you are a nationalist or a bigot) which is one of the reasons I wanted this article deleting in the first place.

--Si42 18:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

well the answer to question, why i havent changed this lies in your answer. that if i had done it, it would have seemed out of extreme nationalistic views and bigotism or even worse a spam.

if it is such a big problem to verify the authenticity of informations given in this article, i would also support the removal of such article from wikipedia. or we can have an disclaimer on top of the page, where it shall say that the contents of this page cannot be verified.

nids 08:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, that makes sense - please excuse my attitude there. I have already requested that it be deleted and was defeated in the resulting debate as the rest of the AfD crew felt that the table could be verified (I felt that the archaeology was more than a little 'fuzzy', as well as the definition of the 'urban life'). However, I won't be requesting it again (at least not for a while) as I dont want this to appear to be a chip on my shoulder. I did write a pretty long disclaimer at the top (above the table!) although I doubt most people bother reading it. To be honest, I am really, really sick of this page and am far from satisfied with it (Personally, I doubt Byblos is 'older' than Damascus but can't face a revert war) - perhaps a fresh contribution might help? (Hint hint) --Si42 10:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I have moved Varanasi back down the table again because the source that it is linked to uses the words "more than 3,000 years. If people are going to accept nationalistic propaganda, and attempt to push it here, they should at least be bothered enough to find an article that supports what they are saying. Sigh. --Si42 15:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oldes Cities

Here is my contribution to the article that some all knowing guy DBachmann constantly deletes without informing himself. If he actually was competent enough to make any contributions to Wikipedia, he would at least inform himself first. This kind of intrusion makes me think that Wikipedia is not the quality, free source of information that everybody thinks that it is. According to him it seems that there are just 12 handful ancient cities and all of the in the Middle East, which is ridiculous. I wonder who has given the moral right to such incompetent people as him to edit Wikipedia. Please read books or at least check online!!! It seems that contributing to here is a complete waste of time.

BTW Plovdiv was mentioned and described in the works by historical authors such as Herodotus, Lukian, Ammianus Marcellinus and many more... and it this should ring a bell in the head of Mr. Dbachmann! Thanks! Thanks for spoiling my belief in Wikipedia.

BTW the information I'm citing is from Wikipedia itself! ;)

|- |Plovdiv | Northern Thrace, present Bulgaria |8,000-7,000 BC |Plovdiv is one of the oldest cities in Europe. It is a contemporary of Troy and Mycenae, and older than Rome, Carthage or Constantinople. Archaeologists have discovered fine pottery^[1] and other objects of everyday life from as early as the Neolithic Age, showing that in the end of the 7th millennium B.C there already was an established settlement there. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Plovdiv's written post-Bronze Age history lists it as a Thracian fortified settlement named Eumolpias. Known also by many names throughout the ages most popular Philippopolis (Greek) , Trimontium (Roman), Pulding (Slavonic).

When I read the list of the cities that are allowed to be in it. I do not see any reliable evidence about Hebron, Medinat Al-Fayoum, etc. And read about Jericho "Evidence indicates that the city was abandoned several times, and later expanded and rebuilt several times.[3]" - oh, my Lord, it was not continuously inhabited and it is written but the city is still in the list! I don't think that another proof is needed to display the incompetence, the ignorance and the arrogance of the editors and how biased are they! ;) Thanks for not deleting this critique! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.91.230.179 (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I also support the suggestion that this article should be deleted because it is so bad and misinforming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.91.230.179 (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Arbil (Erbil) in Iraq is considered to be at least 4000 years old. Please add to your list.

Cholula, Mexico is the oldest continually inhabited city in the Americas. "From two separate villages settled in 1700 BC, it grew to one of the largest towns in the region." It's not as old as many of the other cities but at 1700 BC it makes the cut.

Source - http://www.geocities.com/atlantis01mx/puebla_tlaxcala/cholula.htm

Put it in then! ;) --Si42 09:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Beograd (Belgrade) should be added. City have had two major name changes: Vinca (dating back to estimated 4800 BC) and than Singidunum since approximately 300 BC. Source:

Quote from the source: "The first chapter of the history of Vinca being preserved in fragments only is insufficiently clear. Based on scarce remains of the oldest settlements discovered at about 10.5 m below the surface, it might be concluded that Vinca was inhabited first at the time of decline of the middle Neolithic Age (the Starcevo culture), around 4800 BC."

"Vinca: Centre of the Neolithic Culture of the Danubian Region" by N.Tasic, D.Srejovic, B.Stojanovic; 1990 Centre for Archaeological Research, University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Also on-line at: http://www.rastko.org.yu/arheologija/vinca/vinca_eng.html

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singidunum

{{editprotected}}

This page is semiprotected; any username more than a few days old can edit it. There is no need for administrator assistance to edit this page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improvements Necessary

Right, since the community unanimously disagrees with me regarding deleting this page, I have taken it upon myself to attempt to get it up to a semi-reasonable, semi-factual standard and adding a load of notes explaining just how un-definitive the whole ranking system is and how fuzzy the archeology is when it comes to dating settlement times.

Things we need to do:

• Define the terms of the list better, and put the definition in the article.
• Get sources for the data, and quote them.
• Write a dsiclaimer pointing out how ridiculous and un-definitive the whole list is.
• Change the name of the file to "List of the Oldest Cities in the world".
• Perhaps add some pictures, to run along the right-hand side, as in the "World Cities" article. Come to think of this, I dont really see the point in doing it.

Updated the table, going mostly on the data that was present on each city's own page - I am hoping that there will be sources cited there although there may well not be. Anyway, I think these ages are relatively correct 'ballpark' figures for serious human habitation and construction in the area - certainly much better than the previous set, which was completely off the wall and in some cases just outright wrong (eg, Cairo 3,000BC (!), Zurich 3,000BC... madness). I also need to go through and look for a source stating continuous occupation for (at least) Byblos, Fayoum and Jericho (I am doubtful of the last one, although I think to remove it will need a citation because so many people will be expecting to see it here). I am also waiting for the "Arbil/Iraq/Kurdistan is the best" brigade to show up and come up with some crazy figure for Arbil (c. 15,000 BC) - perhaps we could put some notes in, pointing out that the site of the present day city possibly has been occupied by people longer than Damascus, although not as a city per se. --Si42 11:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Gaziantep should be here either - I read here [2] that the old city is 12km to the north of the new one. Meaning they are not on the same site and therefore are not the same city of the purposes of this. Related to this, I have accepted cities that have changed names but remained on the same place, although this is of course, perfectly arbitrary. --Si42 14:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to change anything, and I don't have a reliable source article on hand, but Jericho is certainly up there. I'm not sure I quite believe 11,000 BP as a date at which there was a city there, especially since agriculture hasn't been reliably dated to then, but 9,000 BP or so is pretty well confirmed. A bit later that Catalhuyuk, but of course that hasn't been continuously occupied. Of course, I'm not a specialist in the area either. --Ben Mudd, Anthropology, Washington University. 74.140.177.127 22:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the current disclaimer is good. I would support the idea of deleting this page because I think you can find literature that claims that each of the main contenders is the oldest, especially from sources that are published in that location. I would support you in deleting it or making it an unranked list. Shaque 12:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

After the AfD is closed, the article should be moved to the same title in lower-case, per naming guidelines. youngamerican (talk) 01:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Done now, and sorted out the redirect. Sorry about that, this is the first page that I've done any serious editing to. --Si42 11:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article for deletion

Since I was the one who nominated this article for deletion, and not a single other user has come out in favour, I posted the resolution that I do what I can to better the article and remove it from the list. I am therefore removing the AfD tag from the article header. The verification tag should stand (I believe) until all sources are verified. --Si42 00:43, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oldest cities  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  21:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Byblos

The article claims Byblos dates from 3000-4000 BC... From what i know, and have read in other articles on wikipedia, it's actually 5000 BC. I clicked on the link for the source of the numbers in this article, it says "Although its beginnings are lost in time, modern scholars say the site of Byblos goes back at least 7,000 years."... a simple calculation gives us 5000 BC (2000-7000= -5000). The information in the article doesn't even match the one in the source. When "http://www.middleeast.com/byblos.htm" says 3000-4000 BC, it's talking about the Chalcolithic period which is not the first one, as Byblos started during the Neolithic.

The criteria I was using was presence of "urban life" rather than "signs of settlement" which is clearly stated at the top. If you want to change the criteria, go ahead, but you will have to rewrite the whole page from scratch and will come up with wildly different, and much more unverifyable results. Nevertheless, going from the source, the age should read 'before 3,000 BCE'. --Si42 14:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I had modified the Damascus entry based on excavations of groups of settlements from 8,000-10,000BC. Not verified whether they were full fletched urban settlements. --User:atif.hussain 07:16, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Locations

Someone changed the locations of Jericho and Gaza to read Palestinian Authority - which I have changed to read "West Bank" and "Gaza Strip" respectively, since these are more correct in a geographical sense, the Palestinian Authority being a political entity, of course. I have also changed the heading "Country" to read "Location", as the broader term might help prevent nice things such as edit wars.

[edit] Delhi

Delhi/ Indraprastha/ Hastinapur in India is continually inhabited since 5000 BC. Please this to your list

Actually, no archaelogical findings support this claim. If there are some, please give the source. You can yourself add Delhi, if you have reliable source for this.nids 16:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Susa

Someone added Susa, but I'm reasonably sure ancient Susa was abandoned, and that the city was destroyed at least once -rendering its inclusion invalid. I will leave it there for now and check up... Comments, anyone? --Si42 14:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Varanasi

The Varanasi article links here, and Varanasi is named as being in the list, but, er, it's not listed. Anyone have any real clue (reference, whatever) about its age? - Somnior 04:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Not really, the same goes for a lot of the cities in here. It's very difficult to define the ages of most of these places with any real accuracy. My own personal opinion is that Varanasi should be somewhere between 3rd and 6th on the list, although there is a lot of conflicting info out there on it. But yes, it should probably be in there somewhere. --Si42 22:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yerevan

Does it go here? Jordan Elder talk 03:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't look like it, at least from the city's own Wiki page --Si42 21:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Halstatt

Does it go here?

Some Hallstatt's oldest archaeological finds, such as a shoe-last celt, date back to around 5000 BC. ... Active trade and thus wealth allowed for the development of a highly-developed culture, which, after findings in the Salzberghochtal, was named Hallstatt culture. This lasted from approximately 800 to 400 BC, and now the town's name is recognised world wide.

So says our article here. But nowhere can be found any indication about continuity of settlement. And there were no roads - boat or narrow trails. So : for the moment, no. -- DLL ^{.. T} 19:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gaziantep

Can anyone rephrase the note? It doesn't make much sense as written: I'm even having trouble discerning what's in dispute. -- bcasterline • talk 18:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tirunelveli

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has confirmed that continually humankind present in Adichanallur - 24 km from the city Tirunelveli since 3,800 BCE.[3],[4],[5]

[edit] continuous habitation

For Jericho...

"Evidence indicates that the city was abandoned several times, and later expanded and rebuilt several times.[3]" Thus not CONTINUOUS, why is it one the list? Arthurian Legend 06:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Damascus listed twice

Instead of having damascus at 1st and 3rd, have jericho/damascus tied for 1st, and then list the rest from there. I would do it myself but I don't know how to work tables. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.230.242.46 (talk) 04:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jericho

The article on Jericho says that this city is the second oldest. Which article is the most accurate? 157.229.217.35 (talk) 22:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mexico

The indigenous peoples began to selectively breed maize plants around 8,000 BC. Evidence shows an explosion of pottery works by 2300 B.C. and the beginning of intensive corn farming between 1800 and 1500 B.C.

[edit] Peru

Can someone add this new find to this page, I found it in yahoo, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080225/sc_nm/peru_archeology_dc, it is supposed to be over 5500 years old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.241.124.150 (talk) 01:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sigh... Israel again

Look, there is simply no way that we can list Jericho and Hebron as being within "Israel." Israel is not some metaphysical ideal, it is a recognized state with recognized boundaries. Anything beyond the Green Line is not in Israel, no country in the world recognizes anything beyond the Green Line as being Israel, the ICJ and even the Israeli Supreme Court recognize that these are occupied territories. I am getting sooo tired of having to argue this point in every WP article you could think of. <eleland/talkedits> 11:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] additions

Can everyone please stop adding their hometown for a minute? Let's be clear what this article is about: continuous habitation. Adding a city and giving a neolithic date because a neolithic settlement was found near the town doesn't cut it. Also, using some random weblink thrown up by google isn't sufficient. We want a WP:RS, ideally academic reference that a given settlement has been continuously inhabited for such and such a period of time. Thanks. dab (𒁳) 07:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)