Do you ever think of us as people of ancient times?

[sharptoothlemonshark]

I love history and love picturing and imagining people hundreds or thousands of years ago, going about their lives, enjoying fun and love, and coping with fear and danger. I have some roman/ viking/tudor/victorian artifacts, and feel like these bring me really close to people of the past, touching what they touched and made, and knowing how the same we are really, in spite of the distances between us.

Then I think of us as ancient people, from the point of view of people hundreds or thousands of years in the future, and I can almost feel their curiosity and concern about us that they will almost certainly be sending our way in the future. I look at my keyboard I am on right now, for example, and wonder if maybe the f key, or similar might eventually find its way into the hand of a history lover in the year 3024, and they might hold it with the fascination and reverence that I feel for my viking comb, and use it to feel that he or she can almost form a connection to me.

Anyone else get these feelings?

Honestly, I think about artefacts we have from distant times about which we have little or no further information that I wonder what distant future archaeologists would make of us if all they had to go on was a bust laptop keyboard, part of a Babyliss Big Hair, a few graveyards and the remains of the MI. (Thinking of all those objects labelled ‘ritual or ludic use’ in 19thc museums before people worked out they were ancient Egyptian eyelash curlers.)

Have you read Russell Hoban’s 1980 novel Riddley Walker?

It’s set in Kent 2500 years after a nuclear war has devastated civilisation and the survivors have arrived at an approximate Iron Age level of civilisation, hunter-gatherers living in semi-nomadic groups menaced by wild dogs, where a 12 year old is middle-aged, and with a religion based on a misinterpretation of a single pre-apocalypse artefact.

Yes I do! A very strong connection to, and curiosity about, people in the past, imagining their lives, the similarities and differences to ours now. Once in my old house built around 1865, for a moment I ‘ heard’ the first family who lived in the house. It was just my imagination, I’m sure, but very vivid. About the future, yes I do wonder, but I don’t assume people will look back as we do now. At the moment, I think that thinking about earlier times and people is needed by many to root ourselves. In say 5000 years time, who knows what people will need or have the resources for?

That sounds like an interesting book- Ill see if I can find it

Will Self’s “The Book of Dave” is similar - a post-apocalyptic society is built on the childcare rhythms and tensions of a divorced London cabbie, his diary - having been committed to steel sheets as part of his paranoia / mental condition during his life - becomes the bible for the new civilisation which follows

I doubt we will survive for long enough as a species for this.

I'm interested in the lives and psychology of humans as hunter gatherers. How the transition to farming may have altered our beliefs, attitudes and even brains. As hunter gatherers, did memory work differently to retain journey maps over longer distances. Rather than controlling the environment, was it more important to adapt and respond to it. How did that affect ideas of property, ownership and relationships. How did it affect ideas of self and other. If I could time travel, this is the period I'd like to go back to and visit.

I don't think future generations will see us or our artefacts in the same way as we see past things, mainly because of the masses of evidence we have for things. Part of the fascination for things from even 200 years ago is that we have little evidence of things being used. We can imagine the people things belonged to, how they lived, how they used things. These days everything is documented so there's little imagination required.

I don't actually think that is true, most of our documentation is electronic, and wont last 100 years.

All the time due to my job (clue is in my nickname)

One of my favourite things to do when I have to change the bulbs in the display cases, is to ever so slightly touch the ancient objects, which I'm not supposed to do but it does somehow make me feel closer to those who lived centuries ago.

That sounds really interesting, might have to look that up!

Have you read Earths Children series? That is the periodic of history where the anthropology fascinates me the most. Post farming, I lose all interest and it just seems to me to be the point at which history becomes one long timeline of war over land ownership from then onwards.

It’s documented, but whether the tech on which it’s documented survives is a much chancier thing.

I constantly think about ancient man... but more from a biological point of view. Like, considering what our human instinct is and how it evolved to suit the life we lived at the time (and often not the one we're living now). Since I had children, I try to be guided by my human instinct, and not current trends. So I'll think 'what would ancient man have done?' Because that's the correct way to do it, as far as I'm concerned. So I did things like so called 'extended breastfeeding' (nope, that's just natural term) and 'co-sleeping' (nope, that's just normal, natural sleeping). And more generally in my parenting I try to think about how the human animal would naturally behave.

Will people be able to open image files or word documents in the far future?

Digital archiving is fine - if the technology exists to open it.

I can just see MN threads being discussed in history lessons!

I wonder if there were archeologists in Roman times who were interested in studying life a long time before that?

Have there always been archeologists?

Another book on this kind of thing is the Prince in Waiting by John Christopher

England has devolved into a superstitious state of warring cities, Christians are banned, technology is banned, use of "science" will get you burned at the stake. It's a bit YA and of it's time probably but some of the stuff they explore is cool

The idea is that tech will be constantly updated, like a lifelong work in progress.

Of course this will depend on funding and staffing in so many areas.

When l watch a period drama or something like a Catherine Cookson or Grandchester.. l often think l wonder what the people who went through that period of time ..would now think of today's time..
Then yes l think one day we will be history and what will future people think of us.

@User373433 I have not read it, but will have a look, thank you. Like you, i'm less interested in the point at which humanity began to use regulating systems, though I actually love history generally. I suppose there was so much more freedom to roam before the earth became more populated. You might travel days before seeing someone. The need to be more settled and fighting over resources might be linked to an increase in people generally.

Yes, I often wonder about things like this - probably because I'm interested in history and how people would have felt back in their eras.

As 'naturally' living humans I think we were designed to go into semi hibernation during the winter months as everyone seems so sleepy and less motivated over the dark weeks but we're forced to keep moving at the same pace in our jobs.

It’s a standard joke of DP’s that any object we own that has relatively niche purpose will one day end up in a museum with a label saying either “thought to be for ceremonial use” or, if it’s something very small, “gaming piece”.

I'll think 'what would ancient man have done?'

Although ancient man had a life expectancy of about 32 and a really casual attitude to murder, so it wasn’t all extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping and baby wearing.

Or you have a harsh winter one year, your slash and burn went to shit and you have to go kill the next village and steal their oats

Love this, yes I think especially about the abundance of written, visual, video content they will be left to immerse themselves in. So much of what we thought, discussed, created shared will be preserved in a way that’s totally unprecedented. I think memes are going to be especially interesting as a medium for connecting personal experiences with universal experiences and ripe for study and analysis, with their own conventions, humour and logic.

It’s funny as a millennial seeing the younger generation harvesting the culture and fashions of the late 90s and Y2K, and seeing it all overlain with a modern interpretation – really illustrates how difficult (impossible?) it is to really understand the zeitgeist of a time without actually being there.

@KreedKafer How do we know they had a casual attitude to murder? Burial practises are interesting. The spreading of bones to important different sites, the incorporation of bones (possibly for skill) into hunting weapons, the mixing of skeletal remains with important animal bones etc. But I've not read anything on attitudes to murder, I don't think. I suppose there was no justice system, but we don't know whether people avoided killing each other and whether killing was disapproved of, as far as I know.

I often think about the fact that we’re the first generation that has electronically documented our lives in minute detail. In the future there will undoubtedly be Facebook archaeologists who study our photos, likes and comments. Imagine you could look back at an ancestor from a couple of hundred years ago and see what they did on a daily basis, what they cared about, who they were friends with, places they went - it would be amazing. That’s what we’re creating for our descendants.

Long life isn't a modern phenomenon

The 32 misconception comes about because of birth and infant deaths bringing the average down, if you survived childhood you could live a long life