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Sure, plenty of historical examples of things that were in wide use and then misunderstood or forgotten. The scale and precision of cities like Angkor Wat or Ti

Sure, plenty of historical examples of things that were in wide use and then misunderstood or forgotten. The scale and precision of cities like Angkor Wat or Tikal including canal systems. Large scale systematic fish trapping and fisheries management in many places including the Salish Sea. Controlled burning and cultivation of a variety of crops across the North American plains. The three sisters planting system. Pacific islander open ocean navigation, especially the stick charts. Persian evaporatively cooled architecture (qanat + wind catcher). Progress is uneven and non-linear and it takes a while to figure out we've gone backwards. For example controlled burns had a purpose but at some point in the US we decided to put out every fire. Turns out that causes problems. People decided to seal buildings up super tight with no ventilation for energy efficiency reasons. Turns out that causes problems too (mostly solvable with more technology in this case). Europeans showed up in the Pacific Northwest and thought it was a bunch of savages living in the wilderness. Turns out it was a structured society with large scale systematic agriculture, just not in a way that was easily understood by outsiders of the time. The Kansas Dust Bowl is a whole microcosm of this. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, etc washed their hands but in the US just 150 years ago it was not considered necessary. It's a meandering path.

ummonk 4y ago
A lot of what you have listed is more about knowledge of local ecosystems - not "civil engineering, surveying, agriculture, navigation, mathematics, etc.". As to some of the more general science knowledge though, subsequent societies could certainly replicate the scale and precision of cities like Angkor Wat or Tikal. Likewise, later ocean navigators had far more sophisticated navigation methods, using such tools as the compass and the kamat. As to qanat and wind-catcher architecture, it wasn't ever really lost... I'll grant you that knowledge of public health has been very uneven, though it has generally been on the upswing in the past couple centuries (as objectively measured by life expectancy and the burden of communicable diseases), nothwithstanding certain missteps (such as adopting droplet theory which was less accurate than miasma theory).

ummonk 4y ago

A lot of what you have listed is more about knowledge of local ecosystems - not "civil engineering, surveying, agriculture, navigation, mathematics, etc.". As to some of the more general science knowledge though, subsequent societies could certainly replicate the scale and precision of cities like Angkor Wat or Tikal. Likewise, later ocean navigators had far more sophisticated navigation methods, using such tools as the compass and the kamat. As to qanat and wind-catcher architecture, it wasn't ever really lost... I'll grant you that knowledge of public health has been very uneven, though it has generally been on the upswing in the past couple centuries (as objectively measured by life expectancy and the burden of communicable diseases), nothwithstanding certain missteps (such as adopting droplet theory which was less accurate than miasma theory).