Oolite Bulletins

Disembodied wrote:

CommRLock78 wrote:

The difficulty is that we only get snapshots from archeology (although placing many "snapshots" does begin to produce a clear "big picture"). It makes me wish I could travel back in time - be an inconspicuous "fly on the wall" (though human origins is just the first thing that would be fascinating to check out, if I had that ability ).

Oh, definitely! I studied archaeology for a couple of years at university, but I gave it up for history because I couldn't stand the frustration of not knowing, of not hearing any voices. For example, I was a wheelbarrow-pusher on a Time Team dig a few years ago, in an early Bronze Age burial ground in Fife: there were several kist burials, all of children, and some small scooped holes containing the cremated remains of very young infants. In the centre was a large boulder, which turned out to be capping a pit. In the pit was a very large kist, about 5' long, which contained a crouched skeleton of an adult male. The bones showed cut-marks, indicating that the body had been at least partially de-fleshed after death.

And that's all we know, or will ever know. There are no names. There are no traces of the obviously complex beliefs of these people. We don't know if the children died before, or after, the big man in the middle. Was he there to protect the children? Were the children there to accompany him? Were they related to him? (The condition of the bones, and the acidity of the soil, meant that DNA recovery was impossible.) Was he being revered, or punished? Was the boulder to mark his grave, or protect it, or to protect the community from him? Where were the other adults? Was the de-fleshing part of a cannibal ritual, or was it to hasten the skeletonisation of the exposed body before the bones were interred? What was the perceived qualitative difference between a dead child and a dead adult (assuming there was one)?

It can be a lot of fun, making up explanations to fit the few facts - just like it's fun making up larger planetary descriptions that expand on the one-line descriptions in Oolite. But it's just guesswork. At least once we get into historical times we can read the words that people wrote down - or at least the words that were written down about them at the time.

CommRLock78 wrote:

... at least when we get to written history there's little guesswork and less mystery

El Viejo wrote:

CommRLock78 wrote:

... at least when we get to written history there's little guesswork and less mystery

Something about that statement causes me to chuckle.

Smivs wrote:

"History is written by the Victors", so while perhaps reducing guesswork and mystery, it is still often not What Really Happened.

Tricky wrote:

Discordians unite. Bring down the Jedi in the next census!

Tricky wrote:

Discordians unite. Bring down the Jedi in the next census!

CaptSolo wrote:

Despite how some feel, perhaps we need a new religion in Scotland to negate the anarchists.

El Viejo wrote:

CaptSolo wrote:

Despite how some feel, perhaps we need a new religion in Scotland to negate the anarchists.

It's okay... there are probably plenty of Pastafarians in Scotland.