The Internet is Important: Archaeologists Have No Credibility

I have an intense distrust of archeologists. These earth dusters enter a cave and see a drawing of a man killing a buffalo with a sharp object. Then take detailed notes, analyze the soil content, and then three years later they write a thesis paper stating that people who lived in caves, referred to as “cavemen,” killed their prey with a primitive weapon known as a spear. I guess I’m selling these scholars a bit short. The work they do is probably a little more complicated- I just didn’t want to do any research. Anyway, for the sake of this article, we are going to leave it at that.

My point is that while analyzing drawings is simple enough, how do we know that these drawings are indicative of what was actually happening. When I was younger I liked the Ninja Turtles so much that I used to draw myself as a one every time we were asked to sketch a self portrait; I even went as far as changing my name. It was a very awkward experience to walk around high school with a letter jacket that said Leonardo on the front. But imagine a couple thousand years down the road, an archeologist unearths a painting of a Ninja Turtle approaching a girl at the lunch line. They might think that, in the past, turtles could talk, as well as learn various types of martial arts and they were very unsuccessful with women.

Now the counter argument is that these drawings are verified by stories that have been inscribed and passed down through the generations. But again, I call into question the reliability of these narrations. I’m sure you’ve played the proverbial “telephone” before. A rumor is started, and then you end up finding out that what you were told is mostly fabricated. But imagine that this version is the only one that makes it through the centuries and suddenly it’s on record as being the accurate portrayal.

Additionally, most of these stories have been translated by many people over the course of many years. I was working in a restaurant this summer and I had to carry a large amount of lemons and limes from the kitchen to the bar. The head cook, a very redoubtable man, saw me carrying them very negligently and he instructed me to put them in a bucket so the customers didn’t get a bad impression of the place. The problem was that he was a Mexican and had a Spanish tongue and I thought he told me to put them in my pocket because I am extremely awful at understanding accents. I ambled out of the kitchen with a mass of fruit in my pants, and this guy was speaking English. I’m not saying that everyone is as impaired as I am, I’m just saying that mistakes could have been made.

Haters will reason that many artifacts are found that help piece together history. Many of these pieces corroborate with the ancient accounts to form an almost certain record. But just think about how many dainty little trinkets are found that archaeologists have to use scattered knowledge to determine their functions. And then think about how much artwork is churned out by our pre-schools- they are like little useless craft sweatshops. Now fast forward to the distant future where Al Gore is somehow wrong and we still have a planet. An archeologist beams down from his space pod and his telekinesis tells him that there is some sort of artifact buried under a certain hover-craft race course. This young scholar digs up a macaroni necklace and after analyzing it he sells it for a billion dollars (I’m adjusting for inflation). Now some 60-year old Jewish woman is walking around wearing it like it is some sort of garish priceless piece of jewelry when it really was made by some three-year old, attached to a refrigerator until he forgot about it and then tossed into the receptacle for burying.

In reality I’m not trying to knock archaeologists, although I basically just did, I’m just trying to illustrate the fact that there is an element of uncertainty regarding the fellows who have previously walked this globe. The interesting aspect about all these scenarios is that, starting with the internet age, there will never be this kind of ambiguity. This handy little invention stores everything, and I mean everything. If you take an embarrassing photo and it’s posted on the web, it’s going to be there forever. If you make a song about your pick up truck and it is posted on a file sharing network, students at your former University will be able to download it and enjoy its lyrical quality for years to come.

Now this is going to have good and bad consequences depending on how you look at it. Some job applicants have been hurt by the fact that companies can pay to look back at the last three years of their Facebook profile. Interviewers can see the picture of the botched keg stand you did freshman year and discern that you do not follow through on projects.

On the flip side, we will now have a permanent record of current events. No more disintegrating newspapers or indecipherable tablets of stone. The accuracy of an account can be verified by checking the many different sources available. Thousands of years from now our posterity will be able to sit down in front of a computer, or most likely, put on a headset, and tell the voice commanded motherboard to pull up pictures of their great-great-great grandparents. They will be able to see what their ancestors looked like, what their activities were and even their favorite movies. They will have such a wealth of knowledge regarding our lives. The scariest part is that they will be able to find a column written by their ancestor 3,000 years ago and realize that they descended from some sort of weirdo that thinks about very odd things.

(You might have found this article amusing but the most amusing part to me were the comments it recieved when it ran in The Daily Campus, UConn's student newspaper. Here's the link to the article on the papers site, comments are at the bottom:
http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2007/10/05/Commentary/Archaeologists.Have.No.Credibility-3014796.shtml)