20 Incredible Ancient Civilizations and Cultures That We Know Surprisingly Little About

3. The Nabta Playa were an unknown civilization that lived in the Nubian Desert and were perhaps the first human astronomers

The Nabta Playa was a once internally drained basin in the now dry Nubian Desert, located 800 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo and home to an ancient civilization inhabiting between the 10th and 6th millenniums BCE. Whilst today a desert, it is believed that between 130,000-70,000 years ago the Nubta Playa was a savanna; beginning in the 10th millennium BCE, the region is considered to have experienced an increase in rainfall resulting in the creations of a lake and attracting human settlement to the surrounding area.

By the 7th millennium BCE, these initial settlements had grown to sufficiently large sizes to warrant the creation of technologically advanced deep wells to provide adequate amounts of water to sustain these populations. Town planning was seemingly employed to ensure maximum efficiency given the limited available resources, with houses constructed in straight lines, including both above-ground and below-ground accommodations, and planting was carefully managed to prevent the over-use of underground water; it remains disputed whether the Nabta people were early pastoralists, with evidence both for and against existing for the domestication and farming of animals.

Despite the loss of the civilization’s history and identity, the Nubta Playa people are believed to have been among the earliest known astronomers. Among the methods used by these ancient humans are included stone alignments mapping the trajectory of stars, and a “calendar circle” for the purpose of measuring astronomical distances; it has been alleged that one of the stone compositions is the earliest known depiction of the constellation of Orion, dated to between 6,400-4,900 BCE.

2. The Vinča were an ancient Neolithic culture residing in the Balkans of southeastern Europe, known for advanced farming and the production of ritual figurines

The Vinča culture, also known as the Turdas culture, belonged to an ancient Neolithic civilization, dated to between 5,700-4,500 BCE and located in the Balkans of southeastern Europe. Discovered in 1908 by Miloje Vasić, and so-named for the original archaeological site’s proximity to the city of Vinča, the Vinča occupied an area of land now spanning the modern-day states of Serbia, Kosovo, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece.

Producing some of the largest settlements known to have existed in prehistoric Europe, with an estimated population density of 50-100 people per hectare, the Vinča were proficient subsistence farmers and are believed to have been responsible for the introduction of common wheat, oat, and flax to Europe; one of several cities with populations in excess of 1,000, the settlement of Stubline enjoyed an estimated population in around 4800 BCE of 4,000. Maintaining cultural connections through the exchange of ritual items, the Vinča produced technically impressive artwork, sculptures, and figurines, many of which were inscribed with symbols suggested by some archaeologists to be the earliest form of proto-writing; the exact purpose of these figurines remains unknown, depicting both animals and humans, but it is widely accepted they retained a religious or spiritual purpose within the Vinča culture.

Although the fate of the Vinča remains unclear, archaeological evidence suggests that the lack of firm political unification and a deterioration in regional soil fertility around 4500 BCE resulted in the culture’s decline; an alternative theory proposes that the Vinča was a peaceful and matrifocal civilization, with their disappearance the result of an invasion by Proto-Indo-European tribes from the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

A scene from a relief on the north wall of Medinet Habu, believed to illustrate the Egyptians against the Sea Peoples in the Battle of the Delta. Wikimedia Commons.

1. The Sea People were a seafaring civilization who preyed upon the coastline of the Mediterranean during the late-Bronze Age

The Sea Peoples were a seafaring and warlike civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse, known to have been active between 1200-900 BCE, responsible for frequent attacks upon the ancient Kingdom of Egypt along with other territories of the eastern Mediterranean. The precise origins of the Sea Peoples remains disputed, with various ethnic and regional geneses proposed since the nineteenth century; these theories include more locally sourced peoples from Mediterranean islands or Southern Europe, including numerous lost or unaccounted for Aegean tribes, to the migratory descendants of the ruined city of Troy or as far away as Anatolia and Asia Minor.

All remaining archaeological evidence supporting the existence of this highly aggressive and piratical civilization stems from Egyptian sources – and as a result, their accuracy in detailing the lives and conditions of their mortal enemies cannot be excessively vouched for – in particular, the detailed inscriptions of the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. Nonetheless, their activities have become recognized as a major catalyst behind the Bronze Age collapse itself, with the Sea People responsible for the sacking of the Hittite capital of Hattusa among other critical historical events.

Known by their contemporaries as extremely proficient warriors, with a stela from Tanis during the reign of Ramesses II stating that “no one had ever known how to combat” the sea raiders and that “they came boldly sailing in their warships from the midst of the sea, none being able to withstand them”, the Sea People persistently harassed and pillaged the Mediterranean coastline during this period.

Most notable among these encounters was the Battle of the Delta, believed to have occurred in 1175 BCE, in which the Egyptians under Ramesses III successfully repulsed a major invasion by the Sea People; according to the Medinet Habu inscriptions, thousands of Sea People attempted a coordinated amphibious invasion of mainland Egypt. After emerging victorious on land in Syria, faced with thousands more attempting to land at the Nile Delta the Pharaoh lined the shores with archers, preventing a beach landing and funneling the Sea People’s ships into the Nile wherein he had amassed a fleet in ambush. Unable to retreat, the Sea People were decimated and the battle resulted in the deaths of thousands; the Egyptians rejected the surrenders of their enemies, and those Sea People who made it to land were butchered. It is possible the ancient civilization never recovered from this fight, and hence why scarce information records their actions after this monumental and devastating event.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World”, Lynn Foster, Oxford University Press (2002)

“Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Forest Civilization”, Arthur Demarest, Cambridge University Press (2002)

“A History of Ancient Egypt”, Nicolas-Christophe Grimal, Blackwell (1994)

“The Yuezhi: Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria”, Craig Benjamin, Brepols (2007)

“The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC”, Michael Loewe and Edward Shaughnessy, Cambridge University Press (1999)

“The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World”, J.P. Mallory and Q. Douglas, Oxford University Press (2006)

“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, Jared Diamond, Penguin Books (2005)

“Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui”, B. Peiser, Energy and Environment (July 2005)

“A History of Madagascar”, Mervyn Brown, Markus Wiener Publishers (2000)

“Prehistoric Mesoamerica”, Richard Adams, University of Oklahoma Press (1991)

“America’s First Civilization: Discovering the Olmec”, Michael Coe, The Smithsonian Library (1968)