This Blog
DeconstructingTimeIs 11 Years Old
DeconstructingTime
This post is an overview
of what was accomplished
during those 11 years
Eleven years ago, in December 2012, I began this blog to investigate and examine the human experience and understanding of time.
9,000-Year-Old Neolithic Statue
It Utilized A "Woven Reed Core Wrapped Tightly With Twine"
"Human statue from Ain Ghazal city, in the outskirts of Amman, Jordan. Pre-pottery Neolithic period B, 8th millennium BCE."
The latest dating indicates that this figure was made 3000 years before the beginning of the Sumerian civilization, This means that basket weaving technology with reeds was quite advanced by the Neolithic Pre-Pottery B time period. (Ben-Nissan, Advances in Calcium Phosphate Biomaterials)
THE BASIC IDEA
The basic idea for this blog is quite simple. It is now clear that our sense of time evolved from the immediacy of animal existence to our modern sense of linear time with a past, present, future, and duration. But it is my contention that this may have taken millions of years to evolve and that it went through a number of stages.
In addition, I think that early and late hominins, i.e., pre-Homo sapiens, were much smarter and cleverer than previously thought. And further, that early Homo sapiens were much smarter than previously thought. For example, I think that many Neolithic cultures were technologically advanced.
One of the principal barriers to understanding earlier people has been our modern point of view. We need to imagine the past from the point of view of a past culture and free ourselves from modern assumptions.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Our sense of time is a key reason that we became the dominant species on the planet with our ability to plan and design. So we need to understand it. Furthermore, our understanding of time is critical as we deal with global warming. For example, if it happens quickly we are in deep trouble; if it happens slowly we can probably plan and adjust.
SOME STATISTICS
I have written over 120 fully illustrated blog-articles which are often 3000 - 7000 words long with footnotes, links to supporting documents, and notes about the research. I spent at least 40 hours writing each blog. In total all of these blogs are equivalent to more than 1000 pages.
Currently, this site averages 3700 views a month and on the three academic sites, where these articles are reprinted, another 1500 views and downloads per month are indicated. On the academic site, Academia.edu, my work is usually in the top 1% of papers viewed. On that same site, I have more than 1080 followers. Altogether articles from this blog and those that have been reprinted on the academic sites have been viewed and downloaded more than 300,000 times.
WHAT WAS DISCUSSED AND DISCOVERED
It has been a wild ride. Never did I imagine that I would end up writing articles about the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, the Neolithic, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the geocentric theory of the Earth, the brain, the evolution of language, basket weaving, and right angle construction.
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Baskets/containers made by pre-Neolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers
found in the dry 'Bat Cave' in Spain. These baskets have been newly dated and found to be 2,000 years older than previously thought. They were made by hunter-gatherers and not made by Neolithic people.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg
found in the dry 'Bat Cave' in Spain. These baskets have been newly dated and found to be 2,000 years older than previously thought. They were made by hunter-gatherers and not made by Neolithic people.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg
NEW DISCOVERIES
To my surprise and delight recent discoveries of artifacts, new dating, and microscopic direct evidence have supported many of my ideas in this blog.
To summarize the new findings: direct evidence of rope made by Neanderthals was found using microscopic techniques, new dating showed that sophisticated baskets were made by hunter-gatherers which for a hundred years had been dismissed as impossible, and half a million years ago pre-Homo sapiens hominins made a sophisticated wooden structure with a notched right angle part which again was thought to be impossible. All three of these discoveries were consistent with my ideas and predictions of early hominin technology. All three indicate significant cognitive abilities which required planning and a sense of time.
MRI of the human brain. (commons.wikimedia.org)
THE HUMAN BRAIN
I was one of the first people to write about the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and how it may be a key part of our brain that gives us a sense of time, an actual sense like smell or taste. The PFC appears, for example, to allow basic thinking about time and the future such as considering several chess moves.
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A male weaverbird building a nest.
DID EARLY HUMANS LEARN COMPLEX WEAVING FROM WEAVERBIRDS?
I believe I was the first researcher to suggest the following. I was able to show that early hominins, more than a million years ago, lived in close association with weaverbirds who made complex intricate tightly woven nests that looked like containers. I can say this because fossil skeletons of weaverbirds were found in the same layer as Oldowan stone tools at Olduvai Gorge. Also in my research, I found that virtually all anthropologists believe early hominins lived around baobab trees, ate their fruit, and often found honey there. And weaverbirds also made their nests in baobab trees.
Early hominins would have been able to observe these birds making nests which often took more than a day and the birds used a variety of knots and weaving techniques. Abandoned nests fell to the ground where hominins could have examined them closely. So I believe it is possible that early hominins learned complex basket weaving from these birds.
"Structural unit formed by two overlapping logs
The underlying log passes through a central notch cut into the upper log ...and extends into the section. Plan view of the unit (left) and during excavation (right). The numbers refer to the distance in centimetres."
(Open access.) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9
RIGHT-ANGLE STRUCTURES
I wrote two articles about the importance of right-angle construction and how it was a key element in structural design from small baskets to large structures. My hypothesis is that this structural idea was already part of early hominin thinking and engineering about 300,000 years ago.
As I said earlier, a structure made half a million years ago by pre-Homo sapiens was recently identified. It had clearly used a notched right-angle piece of wood as part of its design. This finding has added support to my hypothesis.
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"Basket, Apache people, Arizona, ca. 1900,
coiled willow and devil's claw - Chazen Museum of Art."
coiled willow and devil's claw - Chazen Museum of Art."
From the Apache nomadic hunter-gatherers tradition.
BASKET WEAVING (WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY) DURING THE PALEOLITHIC ERA
In September 2019, I wrote the following article:
I made the point that considerable indirect evidence suggests that basket weaving and related weaving existed in the Paleolithic era, especially the Upper Paleolithic, and this technology was capable of making a wide variety of items from small baskets to houses and boats. While indirect evidence of impressions in clay proved that basket weaving existed in the Upper Paleolithic era, there was no direct evidence.
But now in a report dated November 2023, new radiocarbon dating of complete baskets found in a cave in Spain has shown that hunter-gatherers had mastered this technology contrary to assumptions that had prevailed for over 100 years which maintained this was impossible.
And more, the implications of this discovery are large. If these societies could make these well-woven baskets, they probably could have made many other things with woven-fiber technology such as small boats, temporary houses, mats, and a variety of food-related items such as plates, bowls, water-carrying baskets both large and small and even baskets for cooking (really). What I just mentioned are items that hunter-gatherer Native American Indians were able to make with weaving technology.
This means the Upper Paleolithic cultures might have been much more advanced and developed than previously thought. And this is what my article suggested.
Diagram of the Newgrange passage and solstice light from the side. (Irish Art History Section, Professional Development Service for Teachers, P.D.S.T., Ireland)
A PRECISE NEOLITHIC INSTRUMENT AT NEWGRANGE
I wrote a detailed study of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland. It is now proven that, around the time of the winter solstice, light comes directly down the passageway and only around that time. But I have suggested it could be taken one step further. I believe the configuration could determine the actual day of the solstice in real-time, an idea that others have suggested but which I have covered in much more detail. Furthermore, if I am right, the Greeks and Romans, 2500 years later, could not determine the day of the solstice in real-time according to my research. So this would mean that the science of the Neolithic culture at Newgrange was more advanced than Greek and Roman science in some respects.
The very slight change in the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice combined with atmospheric conditions has made it virtually impossible to pinpoint the actual day of the solstice in real-time. However, I believe that the Neolithic scientists at Newgrange found a way to do just that. I have been a professional photographer for 30 years which often involved lighting. My art photographs, which are different from my commercial work, are often pictures of landscapes with low-angled lighting or abstracts with unusual lighting. This means I understand how light works and how a slight change in an angle from a light source can make a difference. For example, the shadows can be different.
So I am reasonably sure that a slight change in the sun's angle around the time of the winter solstice could be clear when viewed in the passageway at Newgrange. This is because in many ways the passageway at Newgrange behaves like a scientific instrument that magnifies the sun's rays. I believe this magnification reveals the difference between the day of the solstice and the days before and after. I feel this hypothesis could be and should be scientifically tested which I have advocated. With the new science of photogrammetry which can create a precise interactive digital model, this should not be hard to do. The difficult part for a simulation would be to make sure the sun's rays were entering the passageway at just the right angles.
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This grass house (mudhif) was built entirely out of reeds, including the rope and mats. Many archaeologists believe this basic design was older than the first Mesopotamian cities and these types of buildings housed many people after the Sumerian civilizations had risen.
"Iraq's Marsh Arabs use reeds to build vaulted reception halls called mudhifs, such as this one at Albu Hamrah near the ancient Sumerian archaeological site of Lagash."
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REED INDUSTRY
I offer substantial evidence (such as cuneiform receipts and about a hundred weaving-related words) that Mesopotamia had a large critical reed industry which has not been identified by other researchers. Plentiful reeds were used extensively throughout these societies. Sophisticated reed construction was used to make a variety of large and small boats, large and small buildings, a wide variety of baskets for domestic or commercial use, and all-purpose mats.
I did the research to establish this because I think it is possible that the grid structure of reed baskets was a model for Mesopotamian astronomy which divided the night sky into vertical and horizontal sections. Babylonian scientists created our modern system of hours, minutes, and seconds which we still use today. We even use the same math of sixty minutes to an hour and 60 seconds to a minute as the Mesopotamians.
Gears in a pocket watch that use Ptolemy's geometry.
THE GEOCENTRIC SOLAR SYSTEM AND OUR MODERN MACHINE AGE
My last possible "proof" brings my ideas in this blog up to today. It involves the discredited Earth-centered astronomy, known as geocentric astronomy, of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. His system was used to create a yearly calendar, but over time it became clear that the calendar was off. This led to the more accurate sun-centered, heliocentric system, that we use today. Once this older system had been discarded, many knowledgeable people, such as my college history teacher, made fun of its epicycles or wheels within wheels, considering them absurd and cumbersome.
But they had missed a basic point. While the calendar was off, it was only off by one day every hundred years! This meant that the basic geometry and math were quite accurate. They were so accurate that starting around 1400 CE, many medieval clocks were made based on this system and its "absurd" gearing -- and they worked very well. Some are still working today after about 600 years.
Clocks based on the Ptolemaic geometry were constructed up to the time of the Industrial Revolution which used the same geocentric gearing for the invention of numerous machines. Today this engineering of gears and gearing is very much a part of the modern world.
But don't take my word for it. As one of the acknowledged experts on the subject of clocks said, Clocks were the "key machine of the modern industrial age."
Strandh, Sigvard (1979). A History of the Machine.
When the industrial age began expert clockmakers were in high demand. This is because many machines were like a clock that must operate in a specific order and then repeat.
OTHER IMPORTANT IDEAS
I believe the immediacy of time that animals experience changed slowly during the Paleolithic era. It developed into an understanding that some things such as processes required a sense of linear time. A process must be planned and executed in a certain order, for example, and the end result must be imagined at the start of the process. Next, in the Neolithic era, I believe that time was seen as cyclical with repeating yearly seasons. However, within the cyclical seasons, long-term yearly linear planning could be implemented. So preparing ground for planting, planting, harvesting, and storing grain would have required a linear way of thinking but within a world that was believed to be cyclical. Finally, linear time became the principal concept that we use today. Time is seen as a commodity that can be managed and planned. "Time is money," as the saying goes.
A Piraha group in the Amazon.
LANGUAGE
A hunter-gatherer tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, uses a language that speaks of time in immediate terms. This could be an example of an earlier culture which works with time as being immediate.
BASKETRY AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY
I believe that basket weaving or woven-fiber technology was a plant material technology that existed along with stone tool-making for perhaps millions of years. Furthermore, I think that baskets and other woven-fiber items should be considered tools, although, for some odd reason, they have not been given the status of 'tools' in the past. I also think that weaving with its regular grid-like patterns may have become one of the models for time.
MODERN ASSUMPTIONS, BIASES, AND MISCONCEPTIONS
In my research, it became clear that one of the biggest obstacles to discovering the truth about early technologies and early societies was our modern point of view. In particular, I found that the art of basket weaving had been subjected to a range of incorrect assumptions that prevented it from being given the status it deserved. Here are some of those mistakes.
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"The [basket that this] grandmother is weaving about herself
is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."
This storage basket is very similar to an early Neolithic basket that was just found.
is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."
This storage basket is very similar to an early Neolithic basket that was just found.
This is a colorized B&W photo from
American Indians: first families of the Southwest by Huckel.
American Indians: first families of the Southwest by Huckel.
"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver." Quote from the above.
6 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BASKETRY
#1. A basket is a tool! For some odd reason, basketry has not been valued for its functions and usefulness and has rarely been given the status of a tool. Yet even simple container baskets fit the definition of a tool and other more complex products made with a woven-fiber technology do as well.
#2. It was assumed for over 100 years that basket weaving must have begun in the Neolithic era because it was labor-intensive. It was assumed that Paleolithic people did not have the time or the skill to make baskets while Neolithic people did. However recent studies showed that hunter-gatherers have more free time and horticultural farmers less free time.
#3. It was assumed that pottery was an advance over basket weaving and that cultures that used pottery were more advanced than those that made baskets. But basketry was quite sophisticated when it became fully developed and it was more appropriate for nomadic societies because it was light, strong, and could be made from local plants in just about any environment. In other words, it worked better for nomadic people and may have been a sophisticated technology.
#4. The huge variety of items that could be made with woven-fiber technology was not recognized. I put together a list of things that could be made, from sandals to huge buildings and sea-going reed ships, to show the versatility of this technology. It included clothing, roofs for houses, fences, heavy-duty baskets for dredging canals, and even levy construction. I believe this versatility made it a key technology for Neolithic societies and the later Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations as well. I believe these civilizations could not have functioned without it.
#5. In the 1800s and most of the 1900s, the work of women was not valued. So when anthropologists looked at the basketry of Native American Indians in North America it was often seen as "women's work." Many of the best baskets and woven-fiber items WERE made by women but their skill was highly valued by Indian men who understood the complexity of the craft. These baskets were so well made that many of them lasted for generations and were passed down as family treasures.
#6. We all know the joke about the incredibly easy college course, "Underwater Basket Weaving." This joke reflects the lack of respect that basketry has received. As a result, I have suggested that the technology be renamed "woven-fiber technology" since basket weaving "can't get no respect!"
ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF A MODERN BIAS -- NEWGRANGE
Archaeologists knew about the Newgrange passage tomb for over 250 years but assumed that it was just another crude stone Neolithic building. Because it looked crude to their eyes they were incapable of understanding that it was built with great precision not only in its construction but in its orientation as it was exactly placed to capture the sunrise around the time of the winter solstice -- a fact which today is no longer in dispute.
CONCLUSION
I hope I have added to the conversation about the importance of time and added to an understanding of how we humans developed a sense of time and how we perceive and use time. I feel that this is the most important thing I could do: to contribute to the conversation and to ask good questions.
At the same time, I did try to make a complete narrative from the earliest beginnings of human-like creatures right up to today. I have written at least one article about each important time period. So I have made an attempt to tell a full story which you may or may not agree with but at least it is an attempt at such a story.
And in the future, I will try to find evidence or ideas that will fill gaps in my narrative.
Most of the full articles are available as PDFs
which you can download or read online.
which you can download or read online.
the most recent are here:
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