mindstalk: (Default)
mindstalk ([personal profile] mindstalk) wrote2006-06-02 10:51 am
Entry tags:

First Fruit, Deep History

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_sc/ancient_figs_2

Probably domesticated (since seedless mutant) figs found from 11,400 years ago, north of Jericho. Oldest evidence of plant domestication, predating cereals and legumes by 1000 years.

Expanding on the diptych thread: we think of the classical Greeks and Romans as the ancients, thanks to the Renaissance and lack of competition. The classicals in turn were awed by the antiquity of Egypt, and for that matter the Jews: we're 2000 AD, classical Greece was 500 BC, Egyptian records go back to 3000 BC. But domestication goes back to 9000 BC, and the oldest cities might as well. People as we know them are at least 50,000 years old (Australia being settled and cut off about 40,000 years ago) with art and musical instruments and beads to match.

So "Ancient history" (Egyptians, Sumerians) only covers the last 10%, at most, of the real history of Homo sapiens. There's 45,000 (maybe 70,000, maybe more) years of technological, cultural, and religious development behind us, with no more traces than tools, food middens, art, and maybe tally sticks -- which last might suggest astronomy was going on.

[identity profile] lyceum-arabica.livejournal.com 2006-06-02 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
ok, what i wonder about is the internet... which seems to be one of the cleanest dividing lines between us and everything before us. if we've been forming civilizations and making our way through life in just the way you would expect *us* to do, for thousands of years...

then thousands of years ago was there a drive for something like live journal or a BBS? or google for that matter... beyond just the diptych, what about distributing and sharing information? ...people always talk about wandering bards and such, but a bard seems like it would come closer to replacing CNN than blogging.

or is the need for blogging/bbs discussions only the result of modern forces...?