By Sam Guss We often use the term “Dark Ages” as a metaphor. We think it refers to a lack of books, or a decline in philosophy, or the fall of Rome. We imagine it as a “dimming” of the intellect. But new climate archaeology proves that the darkness wasn’t a metaphor. It was literal….
By Sam Guss We think of history as something written in books or carved into stone. We trust the physical evidence: the pot shard, the arrowhead, the femur bone found in a cave. If we can’t hold it, we assume it didn’t exist. But biology is a stricter historian than archaeology. While the bones dissolve…
By Sam Guss We have a romantic hallucination about the jungle. We imagine it as the “Pristine Wilderness.” We see the dense green canopy of the Yucatán or the Amazon as a place where nature reigns supreme, untouched by the hand of man. When we imagine an archaeologist, we imagine a rugged figure with a…
By Sam Guss We suffer from a chronological arrogance. We believe that “Globalization” was invented in the 20th century. We think the concept of a complex, international supply chain—where a component made in China is assembled in Vietnam and sold in New York—is a uniquely modern miracle enabled by container ships and fiber optics. We…