Out of Africa
The recent discovery of a village near Stonehenge and the battle over the classification of the "Hobbits" got me back into reading about archaeology. But this recent foray, like all the ones I have done in the past, ended up in disappointment.
"Modern" humans have been around 250,000 years or more.
Yet we only have written records dating back maybe 6-7000 years.
Beyond that, all we have are tools, cave paintings, pottery and bones to try and guess, from scraps, what the most interesting (IMHO) period of human existence was like.
Our earliest ancestors were just as smart and creative as we are now and they conquered the planet. They fought Ice Ages, some rather fierce beasts and even earlier hominids along the way. And then they took to farming and founded empires.
Sad to think that the wisdom of countless Paleolithic Einsteins, Shakespeares and Caesars are probably lost to us forever.
"Modern" humans have been around 250,000 years or more.
Yet we only have written records dating back maybe 6-7000 years.
Beyond that, all we have are tools, cave paintings, pottery and bones to try and guess, from scraps, what the most interesting (IMHO) period of human existence was like.
Our earliest ancestors were just as smart and creative as we are now and they conquered the planet. They fought Ice Ages, some rather fierce beasts and even earlier hominids along the way. And then they took to farming and founded empires.
Sad to think that the wisdom of countless Paleolithic Einsteins, Shakespeares and Caesars are probably lost to us forever.
posted by alphie at 1:27 AM
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