5 ms·

Really underscores the validity of the maxim "pots are not people"; looking back we tend to over-emphasize the centrality of the material artifacts we have. So,

Really underscores the validity of the maxim "pots are not people"; looking back we tend to over-emphasize the centrality of the material artifacts we have. So, ceramics and metalwork, etc. And from that draw outsized conclusions about cultures and their boundaries and patterns and migrations, even assuming languages and polities. But there's so much complexity to human culture that's simply lost to time and decay, that we will never see. EDIT: Consider hypothetically, what would happen if far-future archaeologists were to dig up material culture from Quebec, but also hypothetically did not have any language (written, or recorded) or historical knowledge? They'd look at the material culture -- and even maybe genetics -- and be mostly unable to tell the difference between the Quebecois and the surrounding North American cultures. In most respects this is just standard North American material culture. But it's a totally different culture, speaking French etc, with its own distinct history, politics, etc.

softwaredoug 4y ago
Also that the recent work studying genetics in fossil remains are not a panacea for understanding human prehistory.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Absolutely agree. It's just more information, and there's plenty of cases where you can have multiple cultures with the same or similar material culture, similar genetics, but different e.g. spoken language or political arrangements. (Like Quebec in Canada, e.g.) Need that time machine.
cm2187 4y ago
The archeologists are struggling with cultures that have left no record. We know lots of stuff about, say, the Roman empire. I think future archeologists will struggle with the opposite, with us leaving a gigantic amount of data behind. Just think of what the gmail account of the next Hitler can teach you. I see no reason to think that we won’t be able to preserve that data as the cost of data storage keeps shrinking.
- Eumenes 4y ago
  We'll see what an EMP will do about that .. I, for one, think a fresh start would be good for our planet.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    A population under a billion would admittedly make environment management much easier.
- simiones 4y ago
  Given that vast amounts of data have already been lost, even ones still considered valuable (e.g. the source code of some popular early games), I honestly see no chance that digital data will survive anything close to how well books survive, let alone comparisons with stone tablets. I'll be honestly surprised if I can still access all my pictures stored today in the cloud by the time I'm in my seventies, 40 years from now. All it takes is a banned account, a forgotten password, one too many lost MFA factors, and bye bye data.
- jl6 4y ago
  Perhaps today's oversized data legacy is the dirt and rubble through which future archaeologists will have to dig, to find relevant information.
- layer8 4y ago
  If there’s ever a breakdown of civilization, or even just a worldwide dictatorship for long enough, that data could easily be destroyed and lost forever.
- farnsworth 4y ago
  I don't think so- everything will be encrypted, lost, deleted, or on degraded unreadable drives. And what access do biographers have to the email accounts of people today? People used to leave behind a lifetime of paper notes and correspondence, read any biography and you will see this. After the 90s, I think that will just stop being available.
- nosianu 4y ago
tinco 4y ago
This idea struck me with the recent article about the Danish girl that was reconstructed with her newborn baby. The baby was resting on a swan's wing, and the girl was buried with 200 reindeer's teeth. All sorts of symbolism and mysticism was attributed to the artefacts that were buried with the unfortunate pair. But if you would consider really objectively, how would such a pair be buried today and what would our thoughts be? I feel it would be fitting to bury the baby in the crib she was received in, a swan wing being a pretty convenient object to receive a newborn in. And the girl might be buried with her most prized collection, the reindeer teeth that her dad would gift her every time he returned from a successful hunt. Just basic human things, not even much to do with culture, just these individuals and their circumstances.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  The feeling I get when I hear of these things is a kind of longing to see and feel their life for a while. Not that I want to live their lifestyle, because it would be hard; but there's just something about the paleolithic time that feels like an almost eternal substratum to the human existence that was then lost. The way people lived for a couple hundred thousand years, a tradition broken only in the last few millennia. Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad.
  - farnsworth 4y ago
    So many societal issues can be explained by the fact that the conditions that we're living in now are so different than the conditions under which we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. And also the fact that we were naturally selected for survival, not happiness. Civilization is all about denying your nature in order to build a better way of life based on stacks of technology. This isn't a bad thing, I would also rather live in a modern society, it's just really confusing unless you work out the ways in which your brain is not actually suited for it and how to cope with this.
  - riskable 4y ago
    > Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad. It's not sad! We have much better ways to make tools these days. It's like lamenting the lost art of (incredibly tediously) drawing out circuit boards or drafting blueprints by hand. Will people of the future be sad about having lost the art of finding things to do while a progressive JPEG (porn) loaded over a dialup connection?
concordDance 4y ago
> But it's a totally different culture, speaking French etc, with its own distinct history, politics, etc. That "totaly" seems just wrong to me. The cultures are incredibly similar in how they live, which is why they leave the same artefacts. A pair of truly different cultures would be something like pre-colonisation Maori and the ancient Hittites.
- mritchie712 4y ago
  Agreed. I'm from the US, I don't feel out of place or uncomfortable at all in Quebec, but I'd have a hard time operating in pre-colonisation Maori.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Stereotype: American tourists don't feel out of place anywhere :-) As a Canadian, I love Quebec but it feels distinctly quite different. And the point of my comparison here not to compare situations like Maori and now, but that two cultures can be side by side and have a 90% same material (and even genetic) make-up, while still having entirely different linguistic, political and historical aspects. That would not be observable in a purely material analysis, a few thousand years down the line.

softwaredoug 4y ago

Also that the recent work studying genetics in fossil remains are not a panacea for understanding human prehistory.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Absolutely agree. It's just more information, and there's plenty of cases where you can have multiple cultures with the same or similar material culture, similar genetics, but different e.g. spoken language or political arrangements. (Like Quebec in Canada, e.g.) Need that time machine.

cm2187 4y ago

The archeologists are struggling with cultures that have left no record. We know lots of stuff about, say, the Roman empire. I think future archeologists will struggle with the opposite, with us leaving a gigantic amount of data behind. Just think of what the gmail account of the next Hitler can teach you. I see no reason to think that we won’t be able to preserve that data as the cost of data storage keeps shrinking.

Eumenes 4y ago
We'll see what an EMP will do about that .. I, for one, think a fresh start would be good for our planet.
- concordDance 4y ago
  A population under a billion would admittedly make environment management much easier.
simiones 4y ago
Given that vast amounts of data have already been lost, even ones still considered valuable (e.g. the source code of some popular early games), I honestly see no chance that digital data will survive anything close to how well books survive, let alone comparisons with stone tablets. I'll be honestly surprised if I can still access all my pictures stored today in the cloud by the time I'm in my seventies, 40 years from now. All it takes is a banned account, a forgotten password, one too many lost MFA factors, and bye bye data.
jl6 4y ago
Perhaps today's oversized data legacy is the dirt and rubble through which future archaeologists will have to dig, to find relevant information.
layer8 4y ago
If there’s ever a breakdown of civilization, or even just a worldwide dictatorship for long enough, that data could easily be destroyed and lost forever.
farnsworth 4y ago
I don't think so- everything will be encrypted, lost, deleted, or on degraded unreadable drives. And what access do biographers have to the email accounts of people today? People used to leave behind a lifetime of paper notes and correspondence, read any biography and you will see this. After the 90s, I think that will just stop being available.
nosianu 4y ago

tinco 4y ago

This idea struck me with the recent article about the Danish girl that was reconstructed with her newborn baby. The baby was resting on a swan's wing, and the girl was buried with 200 reindeer's teeth. All sorts of symbolism and mysticism was attributed to the artefacts that were buried with the unfortunate pair. But if you would consider really objectively, how would such a pair be buried today and what would our thoughts be? I feel it would be fitting to bury the baby in the crib she was received in, a swan wing being a pretty convenient object to receive a newborn in. And the girl might be buried with her most prized collection, the reindeer teeth that her dad would gift her every time he returned from a successful hunt. Just basic human things, not even much to do with culture, just these individuals and their circumstances.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
The feeling I get when I hear of these things is a kind of longing to see and feel their life for a while. Not that I want to live their lifestyle, because it would be hard; but there's just something about the paleolithic time that feels like an almost eternal substratum to the human existence that was then lost. The way people lived for a couple hundred thousand years, a tradition broken only in the last few millennia. Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad.
- farnsworth 4y ago
  So many societal issues can be explained by the fact that the conditions that we're living in now are so different than the conditions under which we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. And also the fact that we were naturally selected for survival, not happiness. Civilization is all about denying your nature in order to build a better way of life based on stacks of technology. This isn't a bad thing, I would also rather live in a modern society, it's just really confusing unless you work out the ways in which your brain is not actually suited for it and how to cope with this.
- riskable 4y ago
  > Take stone tool making -- an art that goes back beyond our species, to the homo genus itself, as a universal hominid skill. Now mostly lost to us. That's kind of sad. It's not sad! We have much better ways to make tools these days. It's like lamenting the lost art of (incredibly tediously) drawing out circuit boards or drafting blueprints by hand. Will people of the future be sad about having lost the art of finding things to do while a progressive JPEG (porn) loaded over a dialup connection?

concordDance 4y ago

> But it's a totally different culture, speaking French etc, with its own distinct history, politics, etc. That "totaly" seems just wrong to me. The cultures are incredibly similar in how they live, which is why they leave the same artefacts. A pair of truly different cultures would be something like pre-colonisation Maori and the ancient Hittites.

mritchie712 4y ago
Agreed. I'm from the US, I don't feel out of place or uncomfortable at all in Quebec, but I'd have a hard time operating in pre-colonisation Maori.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Stereotype: American tourists don't feel out of place anywhere :-) As a Canadian, I love Quebec but it feels distinctly quite different. And the point of my comparison here not to compare situations like Maori and now, but that two cultures can be side by side and have a 90% same material (and even genetic) make-up, while still having entirely different linguistic, political and historical aspects. That would not be observable in a purely material analysis, a few thousand years down the line.