Re:British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on ...
by kingkawn on Sunday July 08, 2018 @09:57AM
(#17483815)
It fascinates me that the idea that we’re missing so much feels revelatory, but only because the authority figures of these fields presented their theories based on surviving available evidence as definitive and complete. It is a byproduct of how we assert our ideas that the idea that we are working with an incomplete picture seems mind blowing.
A few months ago lidar revealed a lost Purépecha city that had more buildings than Manhattan. The Purépecha were contemporaries of the Aztecs that most people have never even heard of.
Sometimes archaeology makes me feel about humanity the same way a Randall feels about dinosaurs--we know so much and yet it's almost nothing:
https://xkcd.com/1747/
Think about how distinct the 50s, 70s, 90s, and 2010s seem, or how different pre and postwar Japan are, say, over just decades. Then think of the thousands of years since some early wonders were built.
There's got to be so much we're missing.