Saturday, January 12, 2008

Antiquity

In my personal studies and work on my knowledge base, from time to time I go back to the prehistoric period and wondering at how little we really know of what went on before the keeping of written records. In my recent studies, I've run across an essay on the antiquity of man that discusses, among other things, how the world-view of the archaeologist, or the historian, influences what is selected and seen as important. That sets me to wondering how much of prehistoric archaeology is influenced by modern biases. I found some particularly notable, (and contradictory) claims in a timeline of ancient history, ssome details of which appear to contradict yet another timeline. All I can tell for certain is that from the scattered clues, it's hard for anyone to say with confidence what was going on.

In my review of stuff I look at on the internet, I didn't see anything that really stood out as notworthy, although I can't say what will happen if I let it stew a while.

I did stay up a bit late trying to trach down the answer to a technical question in astronomy. I learned a lot about the subject, but didn't find the answer I was looking for.

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