Rime of the Pleistocene Mariner (and Other Oddities in Cognitive Evolution)

The patterns of social behavior are predicated upon biological patterns which are themselves driven by environmental and physical patterns. Sometimes though, Nature throws us for a loop and things are discovered which seem to defy our perceptions of evolution.  Examples of ideas, organisms and phenomena that stand out as temporal oddities are all around us.

Many technologies and skilled arts have been invented numerous times. Lost and forgotten… and then remembered again! The evidence of such cycles in thinking are not uncommon. And also not uncommon to be debated. Behold, three examples of undisputed forgotten art, risen again from the depth of human creativity: the pottery of Maria Martinez of San Illdefonso recalled in fire, the cast Roman glass windows once again transparent, the Antikythera mechanism spins around again.

The feeling of looking into the face of ancient wisdom is romantic and the further back it goes and the more technologically advanced it is, the better. Perhaps that’s why last week’s New York Times article on a 130,000 year old seafaring people on Crete inspired me to search for forgotten knowledge. Looking further into that time period we discover that such sailors, if they existed, may have been part of the fresh batch of people to rise again from a time when our population dwindled to a mere 10,000 or so men, women, and children. Artifacts from this chronozone are particularly interesting because they come from a time when the people to which all humans are related spread from Africa after ‘oxygen isotope stage 06‘. To think that all human knowledge was held precariously by such few people.

But all you temporal oddity seekers beware! Ruinous sentiments lay to both sides of these discoveries: first, the underestimation of pre-ancient wisdom (e.g. “Nazca lines are only understood from above so ancient people must have been able to fly.”) and second, the underestimation of modern progress (e.g. “People can fly now so smart people could have flown 1000 years ago.”). I believe that most apparent oddities fall under the sword of evidence. To quote Carl Sagan, “very few require more than passing mention“.

So after much reading I now believe that 130,000 ago is simply too long ago for sea faring capability and the idea will turn out to be wishful thinking. For example could not the tools found on Crete have been found many tens of thousands of years after their construction and brought to Crete in more recent (say 70,000 years ago) times? Rocks seem to work for a very long time after all!

I leave you with perhaps the oldest temporal oddity… 2 billion years ago there were nuclear reactors. Ok, so it’s not cognitive but it is still very odd.

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