A temple so old, it's changing our thoughts on how civilization came to be

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I figure if you something very well, and you practice it all your life... The results might be incredible indeed.

Agree completely. A thousand years in the future, archeologists will be amazed by my ability to change channels with a small plastic remote instead of using pure thought like they'll be doing.

That lesson struck home to me when I was working at a roofing company; we were renting a very, very old shipping warehouse on a river. There was a bunch of old tools in there, including a pallet jack from the 1920s sometime. It was still in perfect working order, and I spent, geeze, a good hour fooling around with that thing and figuring out how it worked. It was an incredibly clever design. I was a bit awed at just how much thought and care had gone into it. It's one of the most perfect tools I've ever seen.

I realized, then, that the only difference between us and cavemen is how much we know. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that. Don't ever, ever think that people from, say, 500 years ago were stupid.

And we've all seen what MacGyver can do.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Once, while living in Armenia, I was amazed by an old mason cutting an intricate cross and pomegranate design (hachkar -- a local divination tradition) into a cornerstone of a new building on my block in 30 min flat, using a hammer and a rather crude looking chisel.

There was no template, no onion skin, no preliminary markings -- the design was emerging out of the pink volcanic tuff rock right as he went. The resulting symmetry and precision was extraordinary.

I figure if you something very well, and you practice it all your life... The results might be incredible indeed.

THAT is amazing.

I didn't mean to imply that the people behind Puma Punka were stupid or uncivilized. I just think what they did is damn freaking incredible.

Malor wrote:

I realized, then, that the only difference between us and cavemen is how much we know. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that. Don't ever, ever think that people from, say, 500 years ago were stupid.

I've read some - admittedly speculative - stuff that suggested pre-civilized people were smarter.

Civilization has also made us more gracile, in the same way (if not to the same extent) that domestic pets and livestock are a lot feebler than their wild counterparts.

Malor wrote:

I realized, then, that the only difference between us and cavemen is how much we know. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that. Don't ever, ever think that people from, say, 500 years ago were stupid.

What never really struck me till I was out of college was the school of mockery that exists inherent in every educational institution I was a part of. Whether it was some chinsey "history of government" course in high school, or the plethora of history classes I took in college, the general underlying theme (and this was especially true in my religious studies courses) was one of mockery -- that is, the teacher and students would read about some custom or something, and politely cover their hands while we laughed at the dimwittedness of our ancestors.

Sure, there were always one or two examples to the contrary -- working toilets in Egypt and complex irrigation systems in the fertile crescent -- but those seemed to be the exceptions that "proved" the rule.

And then you look at some of the architectual genius that went into making some medieval churches stand for a thousand years and retain their beauty, and you realize half of your history classes should've been called "Intro to Modern Egotism."

Sure, there were always one or two examples to the contrary -- working toilets in Egypt and complex irrigation systems in the fertile crescent -- but those seemed to be the exceptions that "proved" the rule.

They say that in Pompeii ruins, there are flushable toilets and a sprawling piping system that evidently delivered running hot water from volcanic-heated reservoirs into homes.

It's like, over the last ten posts, everyone suddenly realized that Rousseau was full of sh*t. I'm so proud... *sniff*

Seth wrote:

What never really struck me till I was out of college was the school of mockery that exists inherent in every educational institution I was a part of. Whether it was some chinsey "history of government" course in high school, or the plethora of history classes I took in college, the general underlying theme (and this was especially true in my religious studies courses) was one of mockery -- that is, the teacher and students would read about some custom or something, and politely cover their hands while we laughed at the dimwittedness of our ancestors.

You must have had a bad run of luck. I never came across this in my K-12 classes, and never in a college history class. Maybe it was growing up in the 1970s, but respect for ancient cultures was huge. In fact, the standard historical overlay of European history was that technology hit a high point in Roman times and that Europeans spend more than a thousand or so years just trying to make up lost ground.

They say that in Pompeii ruins, there are flushable toilets and a sprawling piping system that evidently delivered running hot water from volcanic-heated reservoirs into homes.

That's not Pompeii - they had a system of gutters with running water and used one-holers with pots underneath. I think you are thinking of Akrotiri, which did have inside plumbing, hot water and flushable toilets with sewer connections. But, uh... The whole "building a city on a volcano" thing had it's down side.

Remember, the first stone tools are dated at 2.5 million years ago. The bronze age - first use of copper and bronze - started around 6000 years ago at the earliest. That's a loooong time for people to learn how to work stone.

You'd probably be amazed at their textile and knotwork skills, as well.

Robear wrote:

Remember, the first stone tools are dated at 2.5 million years ago. The bronze age - first use of copper and bronze - started around 6000 years ago at the earliest. That's a loooong time for people to learn how to work stone.

You'd probably be amazed at their textile and knotwork skills, as well.

It's less "Wow, how did those idiots do that?", and a lot more the "Okay, they were smart enough to do X, why were they still caught up in Y?". You know, same thing I do with our society constantly.