What about Previous peak civilizations?

It's said that archeologists far in the future will refer to us as The Plastic People because the sediments from our era will be full of microscopic particles of plastic. Note that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not just hunks of plastic: small bits slough off the surfaces of the objects and float around in the water. I would think that if things as ephemeral as feathers and pollen can survive fossilized for 50 million years, someone should be able to see evidence of our manufactured objects.
 
From a March 3, 2018 article in The Economist, "The Known Unknowns of Plastic Pollution."

Even if the flow of plastic into the sea, totalling perhaps 10m tonnes a year, was instantly stanched, huge quantities would remain. And the flow will not stop. Most of the plastic in the ocean comes not from tidy Europe and America, but from countries in fast-developing East Asia, where waste-collection systems are flawed or non-existent (see map). Last October scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, in Germany, found that ten rivers—two in Africa and the rest in Asia—discharge 90% of all plastic marine debris. The Yangtze alone carries 1.5m tonnes a year.
 
History is only information that is recorded by a biased population....kind of like bad PR !!!

Archeological science is the method of proving something without being there to see it without bias or speculation....

I spent a few years in grad school studying archaeology in the past decade and I have two other degrees in anthropology, which is the same thing, except that archaeology takes material culture as its primary data set.

I would say that bias is unavoidable (in this and any field of study) and while not pure speculation, since findings are constrained by available evidence, archaeology is highly interpretive at best. For any configuration of data, there are multiple valid interpretations. Valid in the sense that these various interpretations are all consistent with the structure of the data.

Whet archeology is really trying to rescue from the material record is culture, and that is not directly inscribed in the archaeological record. We only have hints and suggestions to interpret.

What is missing for me in this discussion is a definition of industrialization. Are we talking about social specialization to organize work for productive tasks or is there some sort of technological baseline implied?

Take the example of Viking swords. When these were forged, they included bones of ancestors in the mix. The resulting steel was excellent, high in vanadium thanks to the good Swedish ore, and loaded with carbon nanotubes thanks to the bones and ash from the coals.

Looking at this as a chemistry problem does not bring us into closer communion with the Viking swordsmiths, but it does tell US, in our own technological/cultural terms, some interesting facts about ancient sword production.

Was it industrial production? I say yes. Do the findings of modern metallurgy make it look more industrial to us? Maybe. Does this layer of interpretation have any relevance to the Vikings and their lives?

The fact is that archaeology has little to do with the past. It is an activity that takes place entirely in the present and answers to contemporary understandings and concerns. In other words, it is a highly-biased enterprise, but what else can it be? This is how we humans work.

I think that a very small portion of what could be legitimately considered industrial work would leave any trace that would persist in the geological record and defining "industrial" in a narrow sense to foreground technology that leaves traces of non-naturally occurring elements is far too restrictive. This is us projecting ourselves and our world onto the past and the way to control, if not eliminate that bias, is to recognize it as such.
 
In order for any beings to become any type of advanced civilization they first need to be able to reproduce and evolve.
 
I spent a few years in grad school studying archaeology in the past decade and I have two other degrees in anthropology, which is the same thing, except that archaeology takes material culture as its primary data set.

I would say that bias is unavoidable (in this and any field of study) and while not pure speculation, since findings are constrained by available evidence, archaeology is highly interpretive at best. For any configuration of data, there are multiple valid interpretations. Valid in the sense that these various interpretations are all consistent with the structure of the data.

Whet archeology is really trying to rescue from the material record is culture, and that is not directly inscribed in the archaeological record. We only have hints and suggestions to interpret.

What is missing for me in this discussion is a definition of industrialization. Are we talking about social specialization to organize work for productive tasks or is there some sort of technological baseline implied?

Take the example of Viking swords. When these were forged, they included bones of ancestors in the mix. The resulting steel was excellent, high in vanadium thanks to the good Swedish ore, and loaded with carbon nanotubes thanks to the bones and ash from the coals.

Looking at this as a chemistry problem does not bring us into closer communion with the Viking swordsmiths, but it does tell US, in our own technological/cultural terms, some interesting facts about ancient sword production.

Was it industrial production? I say yes. Do the findings of modern metallurgy make it look more industrial to us? Maybe. Does this layer of interpretation have any relevance to the Vikings and their lives?

The fact is that archaeology has little to do with the past. It is an activity that takes place entirely in the present and answers to contemporary understandings and concerns. In other words, it is a highly-biased enterprise, but what else can it be? This is how we humans work.

I think that a very small portion of what could be legitimately considered industrial work would leave any trace that would persist in the geological record and defining "industrial" in a narrow sense to foreground technology that leaves traces of non-naturally occurring elements is far too restrictive. This is us projecting ourselves and our world onto the past and the way to control, if not eliminate that bias, is to recognize it as such.

I'm interested to hear of an example of archaeological bias..
 
I spent a few years in grad school studying archaeology in the past decade and I have two other degrees in anthropology, which is the same thing, except that archaeology takes material culture as its primary data set.

I would say that bias is unavoidable (in this and any field of study) and while not pure speculation, since findings are constrained by available evidence, archaeology is highly interpretive at best. For any configuration of data, there are multiple valid interpretations. Valid in the sense that these various interpretations are all consistent with the structure of the data.

Whet archeology is really trying to rescue from the material record is culture, and that is not directly inscribed in the archaeological record. We only have hints and suggestions to interpret.

What is missing for me in this discussion is a definition of industrialization. Are we talking about social specialization to organize work for productive tasks or is there some sort of technological baseline implied?

Take the example of Viking swords. When these were forged, they included bones of ancestors in the mix. The resulting steel was excellent, high in vanadium thanks to the good Swedish ore, and loaded with carbon nanotubes thanks to the bones and ash from the coals.

Looking at this as a chemistry problem does not bring us into closer communion with the Viking swordsmiths, but it does tell US, in our own technological/cultural terms, some interesting facts about ancient sword production.

Was it industrial production? I say yes. Do the findings of modern metallurgy make it look more industrial to us? Maybe. Does this layer of interpretation have any relevance to the Vikings and their lives?

The fact is that archaeology has little to do with the past. It is an activity that takes place entirely in the present and answers to contemporary understandings and concerns. In other words, it is a highly-biased enterprise, but what else can it be? This is how we humans work.

I think that a very small portion of what could be legitimately considered industrial work would leave any trace that would persist in the geological record and defining "industrial" in a narrow sense to foreground technology that leaves traces of non-naturally occurring elements is far too restrictive. This is us projecting ourselves and our world onto the past and the way to control, if not eliminate that bias, is to recognize it as such.

Maybe...

Archeological finds are a window into the past by combining what is found. Take Stone Henge, they used imaging technology to find the earliest depressions in the ground, finding large deposits of debris in equally measured distance all the way around Stone Henge and walking paths between debris sites. Upon excavation of each site was found many of the same objects but with DNA recovery technology they found a difference in the mineral composition within mammal bones that is dependent on the region the mammal lived because of what it consumed. With that knowledge they checked the mineral composition of the mammal bones at each debris site and found the mammal bones from from each site to be from differing locations from all over England at that time due to the mineral composition of plant matter all over England. Then the carbon dating provided information of the debris sites being used at the same time. Then there was the amount of mammal bones present at each site, pig bones to be exact as a food source that sustained groups of people from different parts of England. So the result of the find was a gathering of the early British people to one location. Then the stones of Stone Henge lined up with different constellations which marked a specific time of year which led to the time of the gathering. Why they were there is just speculation....

I guess how a person looks at anything is based upon perspective, when I look at the Viking civilization I consider all the accomplishments as a whole with exploration being its greatest contribution as a whole and part of a timeline that contributes to other finds at that same time period. So, to be able to ask questions. Like how did the Norman occupation of England have influence over the pacification of the Viking population without resorting to using biased historical information to buttress unbiased information.

Archeology is a view into the past based upon how many details a person can process at one time. Contributing factors in how things are the same, but not the same. Like how Viking swords would have been different had they been forged in Greenland over being forged elsewhere and how life in the Greenland settlement drove them back to Europe during the beginning of the little ice age. It’s what defines what is found and why....the search for knowledge. But the biggest challenge is not to be distracted from seeing the forest by only concentrating on one tree.

Then there is the usual process of disinformation...
 
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I spent a few years in grad school studying archaeology in the past decade and I have two other degrees in anthropology, which is the same thing, except that archaeology takes material culture as its primary data set.

I would say that bias is unavoidable (in this and any field of study) and while not pure speculation, since findings are constrained by available evidence, archaeology is highly interpretive at best. For any configuration of data, there are multiple valid interpretations. Valid in the sense that these various interpretations are all consistent with the structure of the data.

Whet archeology is really trying to rescue from the material record is culture, and that is not directly inscribed in the archaeological record. We only have hints and suggestions to interpret.

What is missing for me in this discussion is a definition of industrialization. Are we talking about social specialization to organize work for productive tasks or is there some sort of technological baseline implied?

Take the example of Viking swords. When these were forged, they included bones of ancestors in the mix. The resulting steel was excellent, high in vanadium thanks to the good Swedish ore, and loaded with carbon nanotubes thanks to the bones and ash from the coals.

Looking at this as a chemistry problem does not bring us into closer communion with the Viking swordsmiths, but it does tell US, in our own technological/cultural terms, some interesting facts about ancient sword production.

Was it industrial production? I say yes. Do the findings of modern metallurgy make it look more industrial to us? Maybe. Does this layer of interpretation have any relevance to the Vikings and their lives?

The fact is that archaeology has little to do with the past. It is an activity that takes place entirely in the present and answers to contemporary understandings and concerns. In other words, it is a highly-biased enterprise, but what else can it be? This is how we humans work.

I think that a very small portion of what could be legitimately considered industrial work would leave any trace that would persist in the geological record and defining "industrial" in a narrow sense to foreground technology that leaves traces of non-naturally occurring elements is far too restrictive. This is us projecting ourselves and our world onto the past and the way to control, if not eliminate that bias, is to recognize it as such.
Absolutely. Even the investigative tools 'we' use are a product of the method we use for exploration, itself being a product of our own reasoning. On such a subject, humility is best... many discoveries come as visions.
 
Absolutely. Even the investigative tools 'we' use are a product of the method we use for exploration, itself being a product of our own reasoning. On such a subject, humility is best... many discoveries come as visions.

Reasoning by way of current standards and assumptions can not define what happened in the past...
 
I'm interested to hear of an example of archaeological bias..

Every archeological study. The first note of bias is that the subject was deemed valuable enough to study.

There is no such thing as "value free" science. That idea was discredited and abandoned long ago.

Archaeology is particularly subject to political bias in various forms, usually taken to have some relevance to current affairs, even if on a tacit level.

Things don't even make sense until some bias is applied. Prejudgement is a precondition for understanding. We can adjust our direction based on evidence, but the directions we take are strongly influenced by cultural biases, as are the meanings attributed to empirical evidence.

Reasoning by way of current standards and assumptions can not define what happened in the past...

That is precisely my point. However, this is all we can do.

At best, archaeology is an interpretation or translation of a construction of the past into terms we use and understand in the present day.

Another way to look at it is that the past was no less messy and complex than last week. Will it be easier to understand April 2018 in 1000 years, working through what is left of our material culture alone? Will it be possible at all?

The Stonehenge example is excellent. We can accumulate empirical evidence that greatly helps to control and guide inference. However, beyond the challenges of correspondence to data, there is a vast freedom of interpretation. What Stonehenge meant to whoever it was that built it and used it over the centuries, which might well represent more than one group or culture over the centuries, is lost to time.

To me, what become important in such cases is to try to create a narrative that does the past actors some justice, treats them like humans, not uni-dimensional caricature cutouts. Just because we are alive and studying archaeology these days, does not justify the kind of intellectual arrogance often seen in modern archaeology (20th-21st century).

For many decades, all we knew about American Indians was their stone tools and ceramics. The imaginary cultures archaeologists created out of these technologies largely reduced them to point and pot makers, which is what we knew. And then standard preconceived overlays of economic organization were applied--hunter gather, tribe, pre-state, state, etc. We made up the cultures, the definitions, then fit everything together. Anything that didn't fit was called "ritual item." :p

As archaeological knowledge progresses, and "scientific studies" of artifacts and sites helps with this, we're discovering that the past was very complex and sophisticated indeed. Some of the flint for those points travelled a thousand miles, as did trade pottery. Hopefully, we are moving toward greater uncertainty in our understanding of the past, because we sure have a lot to learn.
 
:cool:
Every archeological study. The first note of bias is that the subject was deemed valuable enough to study.

There is no such thing as "value free" science. That idea was discredited and abandoned long ago.

Archaeology is particularly subject to political bias in various forms, usually taken to have some relevance to current affairs, even if on a tacit level.

Things don't even make sense until some bias is applied. Prejudgement is a precondition for understanding. We can adjust our direction based on evidence, but the directions we take are strongly influenced by cultural biases, as are the meanings attributed to empirical evidence.



That is precisely my point. However, this is all we can do.

At best, archaeology is an interpretation or translation of a construction of the past into terms we use and understand in the present day.

Another way to look at it is that the past was no less messy and complex than last week. Will it be easier to understand April 2018 in 1000 years, working through what is left of our material culture alone? Will it be possible at all?

The Stonehenge example is excellent. We can accumulate empirical evidence that greatly helps to control and guide inference. However, beyond the challenges of correspondence to data, there is a vast freedom of interpretation. What Stonehenge meant to whoever it was that built it and used it over the centuries, which might well represent more than one group or culture over the centuries, is lost to time.

To me, what become important in such cases is to try to create a narrative that does the past actors some justice, treats them like humans, not uni-dimensional caricature cutouts. Just because we are alive and studying archaeology these days, does not justify the kind of intellectual arrogance often seen in modern archaeology (20th-21st century).

For many decades, all we knew about American Indians was their stone tools and ceramics. The imaginary cultures archaeologists created out of these technologies largely reduced them to point and pot makers, which is what we knew. And then standard preconceived overlays of economic organization were applied--hunter gather, tribe, pre-state, state, etc. We made up the cultures, the definitions, then fit everything together. Anything that didn't fit was called "ritual item." :p

As archaeological knowledge progresses, and "scientific studies" of artifacts and sites helps with this, we're discovering that the past was very complex and sophisticated indeed. Some of the flint for those points travelled a thousand miles, as did trade pottery. Hopefully, we are moving toward greater uncertainty in our understanding of the past, because we sure have a lot to learn.

Data is based upon where it was found and where it originated and dna evidence found embedded, anything more is conjecture and a hypocrisy of facts. Present day social disintegration interjects unfounded opinions as to the sentimental reasoning behind why people gathered at Stone Henge. Data can not be defined by present day social sentimentality which is based upon an agenda shared by supposed academic experts. To get a bigger picture of what happened a thousand years ago more accurate data must be compiled during the same timeline in the same region and other regions at the same time. Like doing digs in the differing locations in England where those that traveled to Stone Henge originated and looking for shared artifacts to substantiate common behavioral traits. To interject why is an hypocrisy....!!!

Which violates my core beliefs.....

What you propose is the result of disinformation based upon those that wish to take credit and earn a larger paycheck...and to believe this is a discredit to the acquiring of actual.....factual information.

The same reason why present day civilization has digressed.....:cool:
 
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@Djcoolray

You have to dig one level deeper, so to speak, to recognize that the means ascribed to so called "brute empirical data" are defined by us in culturally-informed ways.

We don't have access to ancient understandings. We have to work with what we know.

So, even if we have, as you propose, a cross-site accumulation of data, that we somehow choose to believe is informed by some common set of understandings, which is a question not an answer, WE understand it in light of what we know.

If that violates your core beliefs, then I want to know what they are.

My tire belief as regards archaeological interpretation is that I have to try to do the people right. That may include not going too far with my interpretation and not stopping too soon, making them a lot less complex and interesting than they surely were.

What I am saying overall, from a position of 17 years in college studying this stuff at the best schools*, is largely in agreement with you that we should not impose our own interpretations without recognizing them for what they are.



*Finally got my AA degree! Whew!
 
If we are talking about civilizations creating the equivalent of an industrial age, I would look for landfill debris . I would also look for brain capacity and opposing thumbs in the fossil record. Since most of the dino's had brains not much bigger than a walnut, and appendages designed more for food harvesting rather than tool making and spear throwing it is unlikely that any civilization could have existed unless they somehow developed spaceflight and left this planet, but that is even more unlikely.. Even with that there would be something left behind.

I think climate indicators would be inconclusive considering the huge changes the earth has gone through the past 200 million and will continue for the next. Also much of the earth's surface has been swallowed up in that time by plate tectonics, lava flows, glaciers, advancing and retreating oceans, erosion of other sorts. We mostly don't have the imagination to get the full impact of geo timeline changes. Even the past 20K years seems to give us trouble!
 
Great discussion. Joe, I get what you are saying about bias and the impossibility of interpretation without any influence from our own present experiences. Obviously there is a difference between simple data and ascribed meaning. We have changed many of our interpretations based on new data and new understanding, just during my lifetime. I am not so naïve (or arrogant) to think that we have it all down. In 20 or 50 years they will look back on the status of science and think how primitive it was. It would be silly of us to think otherwise.

Re the above post about the earth's crust, I wonder how much of the fossil record we've actually observed. There were enormous lava flows at different times - just in the Pacific NW, there are places where it's 17 miles thick! If a civilization grew up in one area and was buried by that, well, it's gone. Food for thought. I do agree on the brain size and all that though.

Interesting thread!

BTW the trace minerals analysis in Stonehenge ash was simple analytical chemistry using (probably) neutron activation analysis to measure metals, and had nothing to do with DNA. Very cool bit of research though.
 
A lot of us seem to be making the assumption that any "civilized society" would have to leave a distinguishable trail of pollutants. Is it possible that such a civilization could have figured out the "green" thing a lot faster than us and come up with workable biodegradable alternatives?

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@Djcoolray

You have to dig one level deeper, so to speak, to recognize that the means ascribed to so called "brute empirical data" are defined by us in culturally-informed ways.

We don't have access to ancient understandings. We have to work with what we know.

So, even if we have, as you propose, a cross-site accumulation of data, that we somehow choose to believe is informed by some common set of understandings, which is a question not an answer, WE understand it in light of what we know.

If that violates your core beliefs, then I want to know what they are.

My tire belief as regards archaeological interpretation is that I have to try to do the people right. That may include not going too far with my interpretation and not stopping too soon, making them a lot less complex and interesting than they surely were.

What I am saying overall, from a position of 17 years in college studying this stuff at the best schools*, is largely in agreement with you that we should not impose our own interpretations without recognizing them for what they are.



*Finally got my AA degree! Whew!

I’m sorry but I don’t see the reasoning behind doing the people right by making things interesting to the masses that interpret things based upon personal entertainment. Then what does culturally informed ways have anything to do with anything besides popularity and fads? Then only the amount of factual data can bring an understanding to ancient understanding. Because it’s one thing to compile knowledge, it’s another thing to make a movie based upon compiled knowledge. If your getting ready to write a book that sells I can see your point, anything else is a betrayal of the facts because adding fiction will only distort the combined effect when adding new data. Adding conjecture to an abstract of a journal does not shed light on what actually happened. Then there is the ability to pay attention to minute details creating insight which most can not do. Like the old saying....everyone has an opinion and only facts distinguish the truth.

The destruction of early archeological concepts that were a time honored tradition is a crime and proof that people of this declining global civilization is defined by social interpretations and not technical knowledge put into practice. Which prevents civilization from a continuum of progressive improvement!

So, I must regrettably make the proposition to agree to disagree......
 
Great discussion. Joe, I get what you are saying about bias and the impossibility of interpretation without any influence from our own present experiences. Obviously there is a difference between simple data and ascribed meaning. We have changed many of our interpretations based on new data and new understanding, just during my lifetime. I am not so naïve (or arrogant) to think that we have it all down. In 20 or 50 years they will look back on the status of science and think how primitive it was. It would be silly of us to think otherwise.

Re the above post about the earth's crust, I wonder how much of the fossil record we've actually observed. There were enormous lava flows at different times - just in the Pacific NW, there are places where it's 17 miles thick! If a civilization grew up in one area and was buried by that, well, it's gone. Food for thought. I do agree on the brain size and all that though.

Interesting thread!

BTW the trace minerals analysis in Stonehenge ash was simple analytical chemistry using (probably) neutron activation analysis to measure metals, and had nothing to do with DNA. Very cool bit of research though.

Evidently you did not read all the journals through the years on Stone Henge...
 
Does anyone alive today in all reality know just what our Great Great Grandparents lives were like to them? Let alone those five hundred, a thousand ten or one hundred thousand? My feeling is they would have a different plausible explanation as to the who what where when and why as to their lives.

We are those with modern experiences looking back at societies some with little to no written histories giving a guess as to what was going on.


Barney
 
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