Showing posts with label Ptolemy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ptolemy. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2023

Follow Your Hunches in Scientific Research on the Internet

How to Follow Your Hunches
When Doing Scientific Research
on the Internet

"Picture of a Peruvian boat at the Floating Islands, on Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru."
The boats, the houses, and even the floating island itself are made from local fiber, showing both the versatility and sophistication of woven-fiber technology (also called basketry). I was not aware of these communities when I started my research into this subject. So this is a good example of following a hunch to discover things that you did not know when you started.
Photo_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru).jpg

TAKING A LEAP

There comes a point where the mind takes a leap — call it intuition or what you will — and comes out upon a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.
~ Albert Einstein ~

Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.
~ Robert Graves ~

The man who arrives at the doors of artistic [or scientific] creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist... what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings.
~ Plato ~

An intuitive educated guess is one that has taken into account current knowledge and then sees that it points in a direction that has not yet been explored.
~ Rick Doble ~

DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS

INTUITION
-- the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
-- a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning
---- GOOGLE DEFINITION ----

-- the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference
-- quick and ready insight
-- immediate apprehension or cognition without reasoning or inferring
---- MERRIAM-WEBSTER ----

ETYMOLOGY
Middle English "intuycyon," from Late Latin "intuitio" (the act of contemplating) from Latin  "in-" + "tueri" or "intuEri" (to look at)
You can observe a lot by just watching. 
Yogi Berra 
_________________________________
INTRODUCTION

The Internet has now made it possible to follow an idea, a hunch, an intuitive thought, an educated guess -- call it what you will -- so that you can often prove its correctness or not.

Intuition can be both a clear thought and a strong feeling at the same time -- it is a thought that can literally *hit* you with its importance and comes unexpectedly, out of the blue. It is often emotional or appears like a bright light of clarity. But it can come to you in a variety of ways, there is no  'normal' flash of insight.

For creative minds, the Internet can open a door that had not and could not be opened before. 

In the days before the Internet, I spent hours going through dozens of books at the large Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, to research one of my original ideas, often coming up with nothing to show for my efforts.

Now things are quite different. In a couple of hours,  I can nail down a proof and possible evidence or be sure that there is no evidence or support for my idea.

Some have interpreted this etching by Rembrandt
to be a moment of revelation, a moment of sudden knowledge.
Verhaeren - Rembrandt, Laurens p125.jpg

And to be clear, hunches are often wrong. But the more you follow your hunches, the better you will get at it. And testing your hunches is a good way to learn.

And one more thing. Never be afraid to apply logic or reasoning when following your hunch. A mixture of intuition and solid reasoning is often the best approach.
Some personal skills:
As a life long professional photographer, I knew how to quickly skim through hundreds of images to find what I was looking for. I also knew that photographs could often be thought of as direct evidence.
And, since I had done research for a professor when I was in graduate school, I learned how to quickly skim an article, so that I focused on finding the information I was looking for and did not get bogged down with reading the rest of the article which was not relevant to my search.
Here are some examples of hunches that I followed recently in my series of blogs about woven-fiber technology, a technology that I have come to believe was crucial for human survival, human evolution, and the development of technology. And I believe it is much older than previously thought. I also included two sections about hunches relating to ancient science.
For this kind of research, I found that my hunches often had certain characteristics. The most common was to connect things that had not been connected before. Also to believe that something was more important or less important than previously thought. Or to believe that things originated earlier or later or continued longer than previously thought. Or to believe that skills or technology existed earlier or later than previously thought.
If you are familiar with my blog, you may have read some of the following stories before. But in this blog, I want to tell these stories from the point of view of investigation. It is one thing to have an idea, it is quite another to find indirect and direct evidence plus other researchers who provide supporting ideas and opinions. So, in a sense, I am telling a detective story. In this post, I want to describe a hunch or educated guess and then detail and explain the steps involved to finding evidence that added support or proof.

Each of these hunches suggested ideas that were quite different from previously accepted ideas and in many ways if accepted, change the understanding of human development.

I have provided a link to each blog-article that is associated with each section. Please read the full article to see the complete level of research and evidence that I found.


_________________________________
EXAMPLES OF HUNCHES I FOLLOWED

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS 
TO THE ASSOCIATED ARTICLES 
FOR MORE DETAIL AND DOCUMENTATION 

BASKETRY OR WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY

I have learned quite a lot about the qualities of basketry by observing.

In 1950 my Dad drove from Mexico City to Cape Cod Massachusetts with Mexican straw furniture that he had lashed to the top of his car. The furniture had a basic wood frame but the seat and back of the chairs were woven with straw. And tables were done the same way. It has now been seventy years and I still have this furniture, it is still in good condition, and we still use it.
 
My wife has bought a number of baskets over the years, from large to small. One basket could hold or carry a hundred pounds or more. Each basket was woven in a different way and they were often made of different materials. We have had these baskets for years.

Then, on our way to Charleston, South Carolina, she and I stopped at a traditional shop that sold baskets made by the local Indians. And although I already knew this, it reinforced the idea that basketry was a traditional craft. When I looked it up, baskets were made by virtually every culture out of local plant material.

And, as I kept up with science news, I was aware that the explorer Thor Heyerdahl had made a very large reed boat that he had successfully sailed for six months.

And one more thing, when I thought about it I was quite sure that almost every household in the world had several baskets, although today they would be made of plastic.

So when I was working on this blog it came to me that basketry was a worldwide traditional craft, that there were many ways to weave and construct a basket, that baskets were light and strong, and that the weaving could be scaled to just about any size. So when I put all of these ideas together, it was my hunch that basketry or woven-fiber technology was a very old technology that might have taken hundreds of thousands of years to develop.

Until about thirty years ago, it was an accepted fact that basketry and weaving were no older than approx. 8,000 years old. This was based on the oldest baskets that had been found. But, since baskets decay, evidence of their earlier existence was hard to find.

Fortunately, about thirty years ago, it was proven, by impressions in clay, that weaving and basketry were at least 27,000 years old. 

Through my research, I confirmed that basketry and woven-fiber items were found in virtually all cultures and that these were made from local plants. Moreover, all anthropologists agreed that early hominins must have used plant and natural material but the anthropologists had not come to any conclusion about how they used it. And an anthropologist, who had compiled a list of cultural universals (technologies that appear in all cultures worldwide) listed weaving as one of four basic technologies, and another researcher listed containers as a universal. So all of these things suggested that this technology had been part of human existence for a very long time. 

This led to two possible hunches:
#1. That basketry or woven-fiber technology was much more versatile, sophisticated, worldwide, and advanced than previously believed.
#2. Because it was so advanced, it was likely that it had developed over many thousands of years and was much older than previously thought.

I decided that my first task was to find photographs and diagrams that showed the full range of items that were possible with this technology.

So I compiled a list that became much longer than I had first imagined. Then I was able to find publicly available photographs of most things and these photographs provided direct evidence. So in addition to hundreds of basket designs (from very small to very large), I found evidence of sandals, hats, various traps and cages, nets, rain gear, clothing, furniture, fences, roofs, small and large boats, small and large houses, and several types of bridges. 

A traditional rope suspension bridge in South  America.
TOP: "Weaving' a new bridge.
BOTTOM: The finished bridge.

I even found a full range of waterproof baskets used for carrying water and baskets used for cooking. 

Evidence for a Basket Weaving Technology in the Paleolithic Era

NOTE: I wrote the above blog-article 3 1/2 years ago. Since then I have found many more products that have been made with woven-fiber (basket weaving) technology, such as soft bags, backpacks, saddles for horses, belts, canteens, rugs, and fans. I would also add mats as a major product because mats were used for many different purposes. And although I was concentrating on basket weaving technology in my first article, I would now add a wide variety of rope, twine, and thread (cordage) as these would have had many different uses in Paleolithic times. Direct evidence of cordage has now been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, cordage that was made by Neanderthals. 

LEFT: "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.
"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." This is a quote and a colorized b&w photo from American Indians: first families of the Southwest by Huckel.
RIGHT: From small to very large, baskets can be scaled.
Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1902)

The level of sophistication indicated that this technology must have begun long ago. This got me thinking that maybe I could find a way to show that this technology could have begun hundreds of thousands of years ago. But, how I would do that, I did not know.

But when I was researching this blog post, there was a hint about the possible origins of basketry and weaving.
"The idea of interlacing materials together to create a weave was probably inspired by nature; by observing birds’ nests, spider webs and various animal constructions..."
The History of Weaving. Wild Tussah, September 2014. https://wildtussah.com/history-weaving-2/.
Based on this idea, I began to look at birds' nests to see if I could discover a possible link. I went on the Internet and came across a weaverbird nest which was my next 'Aha' moment. These nests were well-made and intricate and contained the basic techniques required for basket weaving. 


LEFT: Example of weaverbird knots.
I was surprised to learn that birds could make a variety of complicated knots.
Friedmann, Herbert. "The Weaving of the Red-Billed Weaver Bird in Captivity." Zoologica:. Scientific Contribution of the New York Zoological Society,
Volume II, Number 16, page 363. The Society, The Zoological Park,, New York, 1922.
RIGHT: A weaverbird in a partially completed nest.

Discovering this felt like a bolt of lightning; I had the strong feeling I was onto something.

I can remember the night that I discovered this. I immediately looked up where weaverbirds lived and found it was in Africa. And when I looked further I found that it was in the same area, Oldowan Gorge, where the Leakeys had found early human bones and stone tools. But there was a problem: just because weaverbirds were in that area today did not mean they were in that area hundreds of thousands of years ago.

And then came the major hunch. I decided to search for documents that might tell me if weaverbird remains were in Oldowan Gorge in the same layers where evidence for early hominins was found.

So I searched for "Oldowan Gorge Ploceidae" (using the scientific name for weaverbirds) and voila in a matter of seconds a PDF file came up which I downloaded and searched and there it was. Fossils of weaverbirds were found in the same layers as evidence of hominin activity, specifically Lower Paleolithic stone tools. And this layer was more than a million years old, much older than my hunch. 

Paleolithic Evidence Shows
That Homo Habilis 
Could Have Learned Weaving
From Weaverbirds (Ploceidae)

So I had shown that hominins had lived in the same area as weaverbirds and as a result, it was likely that hominins were aware of their nests. 

This, of course, was not proof that hominins copied or learned to make baskets from these birds, but it made it possible and worth researching. 

And so this led to my further research. I found that weaverbirds often abandoned their nests which would fall to the ground. So hominins could have gathered and studied them. The weaverbird nests contained many of the fundamentals needed for basketry: a basic sturdy skeleton structure that was then filled in with opposing strands made of more flexible material that was woven over and under to create strength. The birds also made elaborate knots in these nests. 

Next, I discovered most anthropologists agreed that early hominins in this part of Africa lived close to Baobab trees where they could gather fruit from the trees and also where honey was often found. And Baobab trees were also a favorite environment for weaverbirds. So if hominins and weaverbirds lived in close association, this added to the idea that hominins learned basketry and weaving from weaverbirds. In addition, hominins could have observed how the birds made their nests which could take two days to two weeks.

A weaverbird starting to build a nest. He starts with a basic skeleton and then adds strands of different thicknesses, widths, and strengths to complete the nest.

Homo Habilis Learned Basket Making from Weaverbirds

What I had uncovered altogether showed that there was an extensive woven-fiber technology and that some of its skills were practiced at least by 27kya in the Paleolithic era but its sophistication suggested it was much older. And its origins could have begun more than a million years ago when early hominins could have learned to weave from weaverbirds.

None of this was conclusive proof, but it did make it a theory that was worth exploring.



WERE SOME NEOLITHIC CULTURES
MORE ADVANCED THAN
GREEK OR ROMAN CULTURES?

My second hunch that I will describe in this post was a little different. I needed to prove a negative. I needed to prove that something had not happened. 

This hunch was about the Neolithic era. I have always thought that Neolithic cultures had never been given the respect they deserved. Because they did not have writing and used stone tools, they were seen as vastly inferior to later civilizations such as Rome and Greece. 

As Lewis H. Morgan wrote about 1870, he believed the evolution of humanity went from savagery to barbarism to civilization, meaning that the Neolithic cultures were barbaric. And even though the Neolithic period has now been seen as revolutionary (the Neolithic Revolution) this attitude has remained. 

My point of view was quite different. Neolithic cultures were able to create sophisticated structures, for example, because they had a compelling need. These societies did not have writing because they were not large and so did not need it. And while they used stone tools, the tools were well made, well designed, and did the job. Metal tools, often seen as a dividing line between Neolithic and early civilizations, were rare and expensive, although many researchers have missed this point. While not well known, early civilizations continued to use stone tools for thousands of years.

My study of the passage tomb at Newgrange brought all of these ideas to a head. The passageway at Newgrange has lasted about 5200 years and when it was built, according to NASA it was perfectly aligned with the sunrise of the winter solstice sun. Constructing a building that could indicate the exact time of the winter solstice in real time was a monumental achievement, almost equivalent to building a space telescope today. The reason that it is so difficult is due to the fact that the sun barely moves for almost a week. The word solstice comes from Latin and means solar standstill. 


While this looks crude to our modern eyes, the alignment and placement of the stones were exact and could determine the day of the solstice in real-time, which was very hard to measure through direct observation.
TOP LEFT: "A section of the passage leading towards the chamber
of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."
TOP RIGHT: The light of the solstice in the passageway in 2013.
BOTTOM: Overview of the stone passageway at Newgrange.
Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: The Dolmens of Ireland,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).

But, and this is the key point, my hunch was that Greek and Roman technology could not determine the time of the solstice in real-time. So my task was to find a way to prove this. After much digging around on the Internet, I found the following:
It is most likely, then, that equinoxes and solstices were determined by observing noon solar altitudes for a series of days before and after the events. [ED: my emphasis] When the Sun is crossing the meridian at noon, it is relatively easy to measure its altitude, and then knowing the geographical latitude, to compute the declination. From the declination, it is easy to compute the Sun’s position on the ecliptic (the longitude), and we know that Hipparchus knew how to do it. But it is only at noon that such an easy determination is possible. It is then fairly straightforward to estimate the time that the Sun’s declination reaches some specific targeted value: 0° for an equinox, and maximum or minimum for a solstice.That series of daily altitude measurements were used to determine the time of cardinal events can hardly be doubted, even though no surviving ancient source has documented such an episode. Especially for the solstices, it is essentially the only viable option... [ED: my emphasis] 
Dr. Dennis Duke, Four Lost Episodes in Ancient Solar Theory, Journal for the History of Astronomy, (2008)
In other words, the Greeks and Romans could calculate the day of the solstice by interpolating various astronomical measurements around the time of the solstice, but they could not do it in real-time. If true, this meant that Neolithic Newgrange was more advanced in this regard. 

This idea turns many widely held views of cultural evolution, upside down. How could stone age cultures be more advanced than civilizations? 

This means we need to rethink our ideas of human development and not assume that development always happens in an orderly fashion. The people at Newgrange did the observations, the science, the math, the engineering, and the architecture because these agrarian societies needed to know exactly when the sun had reached its lowest point. When they knew this, they could make an accurate calendar that would guide them in their agriculture. 

The people at Newgrange felt the need to build such an "instrument," as I have called it, because the winter day was very short at that northern latitude. It was about seven and a half hours  on the day of the solstice while the shortest day in Rome was about nine hours. 

Newgrange is much farther north than Rome or Greece, so knowing the time of the solstice was critical for this largely agricultural society. As I said earlier they had a compelling need and so they used their intelligence to meet that need.

But Newgrange was not the only Neolithic society that had a compelling need. Northern Neolithic societies in Germany, whose shortest day was about seven hours and fifty minutes, also built wooden circular structures that indicated the time of the solstice. The most famous of these is the Goseck Circle but it is estimated that there were over a hundred. They have only just been discovered from post-hole impressions that showed up in aerial survey photographs.

Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange:
Was Neolithic Science Equal To or Better
Than Ancient Greek or Roman Science?



THE REED INDUSTRY IN MESOPOTAMIA

There is considerable evidence that shows there was a large reed industry in the first civilizations in Mesopotamia, an industry and technology that had started thousands of years before in the Neolithic era. However, scholarly writing barely mentions its overall importance and instead focuses on brick-making, bronze and copper smelting, wooden ships, and mass-produced pottery. 

While the inner city in Mesopotamia (see two artists' conceptions above) was composed of buildings made of sun-fired bricks and looked like a modern city, it is likely that the buildings in the outlying areas were 'grass huts' made of reeds. It may be due to our modern conception of cities that it was assumed that rectangular brick-type buildings were dominant. However, these were expensive and so only the wealthy and the government could afford to build them.

TOP: A fanciful depiction of early civilized life in the Assyrian city of Nimrud ca. 1350 BCE.
From Myths and Legends of Babylonia & Assyria by Lewis Spence, 1910.
BOTTOM: A central ziggurat in Babylon.
In the distance can be seen two other ziggurats as well.
Entitled "Babylon and its three towers."

Nevertheless, I found extensive research that detailed a wide variety of important products that were part of the Mesopotamian cultures. One researcher found that comfortable grass huts (as they were called), that were made entirely out of reeds, were more common than homes made out of bricks. Another scholar stated that there was a large fleet of small and large reed boats which was crucial to the navigation of the marshes and croplands. 

Even today traditional grass huts and large buildings are still being made entirely out of reeds including rope made from reeds. Many experts believe this technology began in the Neolithic. Furthermore traditional round coracle boats, known as basket boats made of reeds, are still being made in Iraq today.

TOP: Technical description and edifications for making a mudhif.
Sophisticated reed housing began in the Neolithic.
"A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds. The Marsh Arabs live a lifestyle that dates back 5,000 years." Quoted from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg
BOTTOM: Mudhif Reception Hall

Evidence of large Neolithic sea-going reed ships has been found along with evidence of commerce in the Persian Gulf. Ubaid Neolithic pottery made in one location was found throughout the Persian Gulf indicating that it was probably brought by boat. 

Reeds were a primary resource because high-quality reeds grew wild in the mashes and the supply was unlimited. In addition, high-quality bitumen bubbled naturally from the ground. Boats, houses, irrigation buckets, and parts of levees used reeds coated or soaked in bitumen for waterproofing. 

So to prove my point I needed direct evidence from Mesopotamia itself. And there was plenty of that such as a copper relief of soldiers in reed boats, and a picture of a house made of reeds. There were, in addition, multiple references in Mesopotamian myths and writings about sturdy reed baskets that were used to dredge the marshes and carry clay to make bricks. 

The problem was to overcome the accepted perception that reeds and baskets were minor and not important to these cultures, while I believed the reed industry was crucial.

So my third major hunch was that I could find solid evidence that supported my ideas.

Again, with the Internet, I was able to do this. To begin I found a lexicon of Mesopotamian words that listed over 100 words relating to the craft of working with reeds. As anthropologists know, words and phrases, especially ones that repeat, are an indication of their importance.

But next came the proof I had been looking for. Two different websites had translations of cuneiform tablet receipts of "economic content" deliveries. In one case bundled reeds was the largest product that was delivered. On the other website, cuneiform tablets showed that a large number of reed bundles were delivered but did not list the numbers. Both listed these deliveries 500 years after the beginning of bronze smelting and also when large amounts of wood were being imported, showing that the reed industry continued to be essential.
 
To be strictly scientific, it is important to say that the total number of cuneiform receipt tablets was not large, about 1600 altogether. For definitive proof we may have to wait for the translation of more commerce receipts. Yet this is a good start and suggests that this line of inquiry would be worth exploring.

The Crucial Importance 
of Basket Weaving Technology
for the World's First Civilizations

MESOPOTAMIAN MISCONCEPTIONS:
Incorrect Assumptions and



HOW A REJECTED ANCIENT IDEA
HELPED CREATE OUR MODERN MACHINES

My fourth major hunch was played out over decades. 

As a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was taking the required Modern Civilization course. When we got to the part about the Copernican revolution and the new idea that the Earth went around the Sun (heliocentric) rather than the Sun went around the Earth (geocentric), the teacher projected a slide of astronomer Ptolemy's geocentric conception of the solar system, a specific geometry that had been accepted for over a thousand years. 

Ptolemy had mapped out a series of epicycles, or circles within circles. So the planets did not just circle the Earth, they rotated around a point as they moved. The teacher began to make fun of this concept and told us how ridiculous it was compared to the simple orbits of the Copernican universe. 

For some reason, this made me very angry. Ptolemy had made a system that worked well and that later science would be built upon. To ridicule this meant that the teacher did not understand how science developed and progressed. But something else jumped out. When I looked at the diagram, it reminded me of gears I had seen. I think it was the open back side of a pocket watch.

In any case, I did not think about this until I began to write this blog when it suddenly hit me. I had a hunch that Ptolemy's system was the basis for gearing and gearing was a key component of the industrial revolution.

And this turned out to be fairly easy to prove. First of all, Ptolemy's system was quite accurate. When I researched it, I found it was only off by one day every one hundred years. So his system worked. Then, when I began to investigate, I found that dozens of large clocks were made during the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries whose gearing was based on Ptolemy's model. I can say that for certain because the Copernican model did not exist or had been accepted during those time periods. 
The first documented astrarium clock was completed in 1364 by Giovanni de' Dondi (1318–1388)... The original clock, consisting of 107 wheels and pinions, was lost..., but de' Dondi left detailed descriptions which have survived, enabling the reconstruction of the clock. It displays the mean time, sidereal, or star, time and the motions of the Sun, moon and the five then known planets Venus, Mars, Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter. It was conceived according to a Ptolemaic conception of the solar system.[ED: my emphasis] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrarium
Two clocks built on the Ptolemy model, the geocentric model, of the solar system, about 300 years before the Copernican model was accepted. Both clocks are still working today.
RUGHT: "The Prague Astronomical Clock is the world's oldest working one of its kind. Installed in 1410..." Quoted from:
Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg
RIGHT: Early 15th century (i.e. around 1400) clock in Bern 
Zytglogge_Bern_Astronomical_Clock_1.jpg

What Ptolemy achieved with his circles within circles was an advanced design of gears and gearing -- gearing that worked well and was quite reliable -- as had been shown in the creation of clocks. The ability to create such gears was not only critical to the construction of clocks but later to the design of engines and machines such as the early Watt steam engine -- the mechanical device that kick-started the industrial age and the Industrial Revolution.

"A simple illustration showing the basic elements of Ptolemaic astronomy. It shows a planet rotating on an epicycle which is itself rotating around a deferent inside a crystalline sphere."
Picture and quote from:


Then I came across this quote from one of the acknowledged experts on the history of the machine.

Clocks were the
"key machine of the modern industrial age."
Strandh, Sigvard (1979). A History of the Machine.

Clockwork in the "Zytglogge", Bern's clock tower
which shows how Ptolemy's geometry was translated into gear movement.

Sigvard pointed out that clockmakers were in high demand because they understood the necessary gearing in machines as they became part of the industrial age.

So my hunch had been correct. This discredited system was a key component of our modern age. The car you drive probably has gearing based on Ptolemy's system.

How the Discredited Geocentric Cosmos
Was a Critical Component of the Scientific Revolution
OR 
How Ptolemy's Geocentric Astronomy
Helped Build the Modern World


_____________________________________________
HUNCHES I'M WORKING ON

THE PRECISION OF THE NEWGRANGE SOLSTICE INSTRUMENT
While it is now generally agreed that Newgrange was a major achievement, there is still a discussion about how accurate it was. I believe the Newgrange "instrument" as I have called it, could determine the actual day of the solstice in real-time and if the sky was cloudy it could indicate the day of the solstice by calculating from an earlier or later day when light came down the passageway. In other words, it was remarkably precise. But this level of precision has yet to be proven. I think a computer simulation could show this, but it has not yet been done.

There is a key point about the Newgrange "instrument" (as I have called it since it is like a scientific instrument) that has been missed. This instrument *magnified* the movement of the sun and amplified the effect of the sun's angle when light came into the passageway. As modern science knows, magnification can reveal detail that can make major distinctions between two different states. In this case, the magnified light would be different on different days before and after the winter solstice. And there would be enough of a difference to distinguish one day from another. I am the only researcher that I know of, who has mentioned the term 'magnification' in connection with Newgrange and its importance.

THAT THE BABYLONIAN GRID MAP OF THE SKY WAS BASED ON BASKETRY
My hunch is that the Babylonian grid map of the night sky (which is still used today) was derived in part from basketry since a basket can be made with horizontal and vertical strands just like the declination and right-ascension coordinates in the Babylonian map. There is plenty of evidence that Babylonians gave weaving and baskets a high value -- such as in their creation story. But I think there could be direct evidence, such as a Babylonian statement about astronomy, that stated the "sky is like a basket."

But we may have to wait for the hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets to be translated if such a statement exists.

The Babylonian grid was mapped out in hours, minutes, and seconds which became the basis for today's time-keeping. This basic grid was accepted by Ptolemy in the West around 150 CE. Then his ideas and geometry lead directly to our modern system of time-keeping (as I showed earlier in this blog post). So if Babylonian astronomy was based in part on basketry, it suggests that the long history of making baskets and basketry had a lot to do with time concepts and the development of time as I have suggested in my years of writing this blog.


LEFT: A Neolithic basket from the Cueva de los Murciélagos in Spain.
RIGHT: "Map of the night sky: star positions
from the Bright Stars Catalog, 5th Edition. Rasterized." 2006.
This modern map of the stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere
is based on the Babylonian model. The white curved line is the zodiac. Notice the faint horizontal and vertical grid lines which are very similar to the way a basket can be constructed as shown on the left. 


_____________________________________________
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT HUNCHES

From my research a number of possible conclusions have emerged:

#1. Prehistoric people, going back millions of years, were much smarter (within the limits of their brain size) than we have believed. 

#2. Developing a technology from scratch, a technology that had never existed, with a limited brain size, a struggle for survival, and a short life span took a very long time.

#3. Remarkable breakthroughs by early cultures were achieved when there was a compelling need -- such as the passageway at Newgrange.

#4. Technology and cultures do not necessarily progress in an orderly fashion -- inventions, processes, and skills could have happened earlier or at different times even though these things have been associated with a specific time period.

#5. It is important to question commonly held assumptions. Please note I said 'question' not reject. The problem with assumptions is that they prevent investigating ideas that disagree. And in many cases, this has choked off a full line of inquiry that could have been fruitful. Assumptions are particularly difficult to deal with as they are taken for granted and people usually accept their truth without question.

I made a list of such assumptions in this blog:
HUT ARTICLE
Rick Doble's Theory About 
The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)

A good example is that it was assumed Upper Paleolithic people could not have made baskets because it was too time-consuming. Yet my research into hunter-gatherers who lived a stone age lifestyle in North America, i.e., North American Indians, (it is agreed this was similar to a Paleolithic lifestyle) revealed that they made a wide variety of woven-fiber items, from small baskets to huge burden baskets worn on the back, snow shoes, fish traps, bowls, plates, and even baskets for cooking and carrying water plus strong twine and rope. They developed sophisticated basketry because of a compelling need. Nomadic hunter-gatherers needed a technology that could create a variety of designs and was strong and light and could be made of local plants. But, because of assumptions, research in this vein was discouraged.


_____________________________________ 
CONCLUSION

WHAT DID I PROVE OR DID I PROVE ANYTHING?

There are many levels of proof
-- Not proven
-- Evidence cited indicates that this idea may be possible
-- Evidence cited = idea is probable
-- Evidence cited = idea is likely true
-- Evidence cited = definitive proof, the idea appears to be true 

The various proofs I found range from possible to definitive. 

-- I feel I proved that woven-fiber technology was able to create a wide variety of items. I found photographs of each item so these were direct evidence: from small to large, from sandals to boats, from hats to houses, from fences to bridges. So I think this was a definitive proof.

-- I feel that I showed early hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds. So their nests could have been a model for early baskets and containers but this is speculation. I feel this proof falls under the possible category, the lowest level of proof.

-- It is hard to prove a negative. But I did show that the Romans probably did not have a way to indicate the day of the winter solstice in real-time. So I put this in the probable level of proof.

-- I was able to show that there were a variety of important products that were necessary for the functioning of Mesopotamian societies, products that relied on woven-fiber technology, specifically reed technology. Next, I was able to find over 100 words that referred to reed items or skills. And then I was able to find receipts from commerce deliveries that indicated that bundled reeds were a major commodity. So I believe I gave credence to the idea that the reed industry and technology were crucial. So I put this in the highly probable level of proof category.

-- Finally, it was fairly simple to show that Ptolemy's geometry of the stars was used to make clocks long before the Copernican revolution was accepted. And then clocks became the key machine for the Industrial Age. So I consider this to be definitive proof that Ptolemy's discredited astronomy was a key to the Industrial Revolution.


___________________________________________
AFTERWORD

IDEA-INCUBATION 

Another related idea is called: idea-incubation 
This is a term coined by the poet T.S. Eliot. This is similar to the Aha moment (see below). In this scenario, you work hard and probably logically to find an answer but finally give up and do something else. Then out of nowhere, when you least expect it, the answer appears to you.
 
The best example is Mendeleev's discovery of the periodic table, the table of elements. He ordered them in a way that scientifically expressed their relation to each other. Mendeleev put together the first working chart of the elements that make up all matter. 

To begin he had put each element and what he knew about it, such as its atomic weight, on a card and then laid out these cards as though he was playing a kind of solitaire. He did this for a number of years until one night, exhausted he fell asleep and then had a dream where he saw all the elements almost perfectly arranged. 

"I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."
Dmitri Mendeleev
When Mendeleev completed his chart, he made it public but with little response. Scientists started paying attention when they realized that his chart had blank spots in his arrangement which predicted elements that had not been found and then were found. It was only then that scientists realized he had found the long-sought key to an understanding of matter. 

This is considered one of the greatest discoveries in scientific thought, as he had now made a grand overview of all matter.

BE AWARE OF OTHER SOURCES

When I decided it was likely that early humans had made baskets based on bird nests, I then wondered what kind of baskets they could have made. The idea of a random weave came to me and it turned out that there were baskets made with a random structure. The only problem was that I could not find any pictures, which was very important to making a case for this idea. 

Then, out of the blue, a friend of mine, Nan Bowles, told me that she had been inspired to make some baskets out of vines that happened to be lying around after doing some cutting at her house in the country. The vines when green were quite flexible and wove well together in an opposing over and under construction. And when they dried the basket was both light and sturdy. Moreover, it was strong as a small basket could carry several kilos.

LEFT: Weaverbird nests are well-designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs (trees where hominins often camped) which early hominins could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"
RIGHT: A random weave basket made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with green flexible vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)


So in this case, I kept my eyes open for confirmation from other sources and as luck would have it, there it was. 

______________________________
POSTSCRIPT

YOUR IMAGINATION

One of your greatest assets when following your hunches will be your imagination.
Einstein engaged in 'thought experiments' as did Galileo hundreds of years before. 

Einstein imagined riding or chasing a beam of light when he was a teenager. He thought about this for years. Then, one night in Bern, Switzerland, he heard the ancient clock chime the hour and it triggered a thought experiment with light and time that led to
the Special Theory of Relativity.

Einstein's Clocks 
 OR 
 A Flight Of Imagination  
 That Revealed The Real World
 In 1905 

 About Einstein's thought experiment
 and his ability to imagine in the moment 


 Late one night 
 after struggling with the physics of light, 
 Albert heard the distinctive ring 
 of Bern's Zytglogge clock tower, (left)
 with its 500-year-old bell 
 struck by a figure 
 representing Chronos, the Greek god of time. (right)

 In a flash 
 he was riding a streetcar 
 at the speed of light 
 and looking back at the time 
 on the Bern clock 
 which froze 
 because the light from its later time 
 could never catch him. 
 Yet he could see the minutes 
 on his pocket watch were 
 continuing. 

 And then he knew 
 time was relative.


MORE BLOGS BY RICK DOBLE ABOUT INTUITION 

How To Be Intuitive: Intuition, Imagination, and Discovery 
https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-be-intuitive-intuition.html

The AHA Moment: My Personal Story



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Sunday, October 9, 2022

HUT THEORY: Human Understanding of Time

Rick Doble's Theory About 
The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)

AN OVERVIEW
A complete theory
From about 3 million years ago to the present day
From 10 years of this blog about the human experience of time

Lucy (Australopithecus) 3.2 mya, related to and possibly one of our early ancestors. Image compiled by Peter Schmid courtesy of Lee R. Berger, University of the Witwatersrand.
The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)

HUT is a comprehensive theory about how the human understanding of time came about and how it developed.

The reason we are the dominant species on this planet is due, in large part, to our ability to plan, organize, manage, and predict -- which all require a sophisticated understanding of time.

Homo sapiens is the only animal on the planet that conceives and works with time in a linear fashion, time with a past, present, and future plus duration. This did not happen quickly but, I believe, took millions of years, beginning with early hominins.

In past articles over the last ten years, I have gone into detail about different aspects ranging from millions of years ago, to the emerging civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the consumer culture and photography of today. In this article I want to put the pieces together, to look at a grand view, to look at the forest, and not concentrate on the trees. In brief, I want to paint a BIG PICTURE.

The HUT theory involves many aspects: 
* the addition of the pre-frontal cortex to the hominin brain, a part of the brain that allowed hominins to consider possible future actions and eventually to conceive of linear time with a past, present, and future 
* the development of the brain with the increased ability to remember and to imagine
* the early and continuing development of plant and fiber technology, a technology that all agree must have existed but until now has been ignored due to a lack of direct evidence; new indirect and some direct evidence points to woven-fiber technology (basket making) as an important early technology
* the survival benefits of woven-fiber technology (basket making) which allowed hominins to gather and carry much more food and materials 
* the possible influence of woven-fiber technology on evolution itself due to increased food supplies and better access to important materials 
* concepts of time related to basket making which took planning and then time-consuming work to make
* the development of culture based on concepts of time
* the development of languages all of which include time references
* the development of time concepts such as: coordination, management, planning, design, imagination, memory, prediction, and the use and development of processes

ABOUT DOCUMENTATION
Since this article is an overview I will not provide a list of sources for my statements, but if you look at my timeline article (next link) and the specific articles referenced, you will find extensive documentation.

Please see my previous article,
 A Historic Timeline About Human Concepts of Time,
 for documentation about statements made in this article.

EARLIER INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS

A major reason that this type of theory did not exist until now is because many assumptions were incorrect. In particular, the old assumed timeline of human development that existed for about 150 years had many flaws, flaws in part due to an inability to properly date archaeological finds. Now, however, this has been largely solved due to advanced dating techniques. So, for example, modern dating was able to confirm that the ceiling cave paintings at the Cave of Altamira in Spain were about 14,000 years old and not fraudulent as originally claimed by experts.

But the timeline was also incorrect because of many unfounded assumptions.

To perhaps over-generalize, in the past, it was assumed that early hominins were not very intelligent or sophisticated. It was only with the much later rise of civilization that humans finally emerged from primitive and brutish conditions. The entire prehistoric past (meaning before written records) and stone age technology, including advanced Neolithic technology, was seen as crude and unrefined at best.

The thinking now is almost the opposite. It is my opinion, and that of many others, that even the earliest hominins with small brains such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus accomplished remarkable things and that they were very smart with the brain power they did have. For example, they invented technologies that had never existed before, such as the making of stone tools, which they continued to develop and refine.

But even when considering more recent time periods such as the Neolithic era, the bias of modern thinking is evident. For example, using written history as a key dividing point in human history is and was a mistake. Before written history, i.e., in prehistoric times, extremely sophisticated cultures and societies were established. They were so sophisticated that some of the Neolithic processes, for example, are still used today or until recently.

The Neolithic time period is a good example of how modern thinking stood as a barrier to a clear understanding of Neolithic accomplishments. It was assumed that since it used stone age technology, it was primitive. Not so. In fact, well-designed stone age tools, which were extremely efficient, were used for thousands of years even after the rise of the great civilizations and the invention of bronze, because bronze was rare and expensive. 

This axe looks crude but it was state of the art for thousands of years. It not only could quickly clear a forested site, it and similar stone tools could cut and shape wood better than any tools before it. It led to a new 'wood' technology that had not been possible before in Europe.
"A Neolithic stone axe with a wooden handle. Found at Ehenside Tarn, now in the British Museum."

Incorrect assumptions are a barrier to new discoveries. They prevent research into ideas that disagree with these assumptions, prevent students from exploring new areas, and choke off funding.

I say all of this because many incorrect assumptions need to be put to rest so that the new insights of a comprehensive theory such as HUT can be considered.

I will summarize past incorrect assumptions as follows:
ASSUMPTION: It was assumed that basketry was developed during the Neolithic era and not before. It was also assumed that the hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic did not have the time to make baskets or woven-fiber items nor the sophisticated intelligence and skills to make them.
FACT: Recent studies showed that hunter-gatherers had more time than horticultural farmers. And Native American Indian mobile hunter-gathers (a lifestyle viewed as similar to those in the European Upper Paleolithic) were expert basket makers who preferred light durable fiber containers over heavy and breakable pottery.
ASSUMPTION: If a culture does not use an advanced technology that is available to it, it is primitive.
FACT: Humans use a technology because they need it. For example, the assumption that Native American Indians who did not use pottery but preferred basketry were less sophisticated was incorrect. Mobile hunter-gatherers needed light strong items as they moved. While not well known, they had developed large and small baskets for carrying water and baskets for cooking with hot rocks. Plus they could make just about any additional woven-fiber item from local vegetation as they moved around.
ASSUMPTION: Technological advances happen in a fairly predictable progression.
FACT: Many things that were assumed to be part of the Neolithic have been found in the Paleolithic such as a highly sophisticated ceramic figurine. It can no longer be assumed that technology progressed in an orderly fashion.

It was always assumed that ceramics began in the Neolithic era along with pottery as it required a hot and controlled fire. But this figurine was made about 20,000 years earlier in the Upper Paleolithic era.
Venus of Dolní Vestonice
"Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE [or early Upper Paleolithic]. This figurine...is among the oldest known ceramic articles in the world."

ASSUMPTION: Basket making was women's work and therefore not important.
FACT: Yes, in many cases baskets were made by women, which should have nothing to do with the value of their work. The Native American Indians revered the highly sophisticated processes and creations of their women.
ASSUMPTION: It was assumed that basketry was, in any case, not important and certainly not as important as stone tools.
FACT: Basket making and woven-fiber technology (which includes rope) were critical. The tools made with these technologies could be made anywhere in the world with local materials and used for a wide variety of items from boats to large burden baskets for gathering food or firewood. This technology was also used to make hats, shoes, and even suspension rope bridges. These were versatile tools even though they have not been thought of as tools by researchers until recently.
ASSUMPTION: The birth of civilization, meaning Mesopotamia and Egypt, marks the start of man's highest achievements.
FACT: Most of the processes and technologies that made the great civilizations possible had been highly developed in the Neolithic time period. For example, The Bronze Age, seen as a clear break from the 'primitive' stone age, depended on Neolithic inventions. Neolithic pottery kilns were able to achieve high temperatures which had not been possible before. And this ability led directly to the even higher temperatures necessary for metallurgy. They also built a variety of small and large reed boats which became important for trade. Furthermore, the Neolithic radical change in lifestyle from the previous hunter-gatherer existence depended on agriculture, a selection of basic crops (founder crops), a method for storing and preserving the crops over months or years, sedentary villages, textiles, and pottery. All of the above formed the foundation for the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. 
ASSUMPTION: Writing is the dividing technology that separates advanced societies from earlier crude cultures.
FACT: Neolithic societies did not require writing as the Neolithic cities were not big enough to need it. However, the much larger later civilizations did need it.
ASSUMPTION: The scientific achievements of civilizations show a clear superiority over Neolithic and earlier cultures.
FACT: Some Neolithic science was as advanced or even more advanced than those of later civilizations. For example, the passageway at Newgrange, which was aligned with the winter solstice sun and used to determine the day of the solstice, was more precise than methods used by the Romans or the Greeks.

Newgrange
LEFT: Close-up of the gate to the passageway (bottom) and the roof-box (top).
RIGHT: Close-up of the roof-box and the funnel stones. The solstice light comes through this specially designed roof-box and then into the passageway. The light does not come through the passageway doorway.
"For 17 minutes, therefore, at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct sunlight can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit that lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof."
(O'Kelly et al., Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend.)

While this looks crude to our modern eyes, the alignment and placement of the stones were exact and could determine the day of the solstice in real time, which was (and still is) very hard to determine through direct observation.
Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: The Dolmens of Ireland,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).

While we have no written records, the many Neolithic monuments that are astronomically aligned indicate the ability of Neolithic science to mark and measure time and also the importance of time.

Writing about Neolithic monuments and megaliths, Michael Gantley of National Geographic wrote,
"The incorporation of astronomical alignments suggests that Neolithic ceremonies were closely bound with the changing seasons. These cycles were critical to agrarian communities..."
(Gantley, Europe’s Mighty Megaliths "Rock" the Winter Solstice)
_______________________________

A NEW STORY OF 
HUMAN, CULTURAL, & TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Once these incorrect assumptions are pushed aside, a new story of human, technological, and cultural evolution becomes possible.

In particular, the human understanding of time is critical. It took a long time to develop and once developed it went through many versions. Yet this idea has not taken center stage until now. Without an understanding of time, none of the great achievements of humankind would have been possible. 

Why a study of the human understanding of time has not been explored is a mystery. I believe it was again due to another incorrect assumption: many believe that time is what it is and our perception of it has always been the same. Before I started writing my blog, I could only find a few discussions of different possible conceptions of time as humankind developed.


THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX (PFC)

Millions of years ago (no one is sure when) some primates acquired a unique part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex which, among many other things, allowed some creatures to consider different future outcomes and then choose which action to take. It is very likely that over time, and with increased memory and imagination due to a much larger brain, hominins were able to conceive of time in a linear fashion, with a past, present, and future, but this did not happen quickly. It took millions of years. 

Early developing technologies such as basket making and the demands of woven-fiber technology may have affected how this part of the brain evolved. While other primate brains have the prefrontal cortex, the one that Homo sapiens have is much larger and unique to our species. Studies of the PFC are ongoing as modern science is still learning about this part of the brain.


THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSE OF TIME 
IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA

"It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present."
"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."
Whitrow, Gerald. Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.

As members of the animal kingdom, I believe hominins emerged from a sense of time that was immediate to a very different sense of time that could be imagined and worked with.

To begin my search for evidence, I focused on basketry because I felt that basket making and woven-fiber items were closely related to concepts of time and would have been familiar to everyone in a tribe. I also knew that containers and weaving were found in all cultures around the world, so there was a good chance that basketry was an ancient technology.

A basket must be imagined first and then created in a grid pattern which takes time and also represents time. So a basket becomes, in a way, a symbol for time itself.

In my work, I pushed back the beginning of woven-fiber technology and basket making to about 2 million years ago when it can be proved with fossil evidence that early hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds who made sophisticated basket-like nests. Oldowan tools from early hominins were found in the same layers as skeletons of weaverbirds at Olduvai Gorge in Africa. So it is likely that early humans learned a type of basket making from these birds. For example, random weave baskets made from flexible green vines are easy to make and can be quite strong once the vines have dried out. 

LEFT: Weaverbird nests are well-designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs (trees where hominins often camped) which early hominins could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"
RIGHT: A random weave basket made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with green flexible vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)

I was then able to show indirectly that baskets and woven-fiber items probably continued to be developed by Homo erectus about 300,000 years ago with a much more advanced right-angle design. 

I believe that after more than a million years, random weave technology began to develop into a technology that used a regular design and right angle or opposing strand construction. This was a crucial breakthrough. This technology allowed the creation of an endless number of woven-fiber items plus it was scalable, meaning that large products were possible such as reed boats. It was with this basic model that shoes, hats, containers, huts, and boats in a wide variety of configurations could be constructed.

At some point, probably hundreds of thousands of years ago, a system of vertical spokes and horizontal weaver strands (or a system of opposing strands) developed. Eventually, this system was capable of creating a wide variety of durable items from sandals to large houses using local materials. Some such baskets lasted generations and were passed down in a family.

RIGHT: The stiff vertical spokes and the right-angled horizontal flexible weaver strands are clearly visible in this basket that has almost been completed. 

This idea was based on the discovery of an A-frame-like building at Terra Amata in France constructed by Homo erectus, which included many of the elements required for right-angle basketry and woven-fiber technology, such as the use of even regular opposing poles. 

A museum recreation of a building (Terra Amata, Nice, France) probably made by Homo erectus and is considered the oldest known human building.

Then I was able to find new direct evidence. Microscopic evidence of basic cordage (rope) made by Neanderthals was discovered dating to the Middle Paleolithic. And impressions in clay of sophisticated basket and textile weaving were dated to the Upper Paleolithic. Plus Native American Indian hunter-gathers (a lifestyle viewed as similar to those in the European Upper Paleolithic) were shown to be expert basket makers.

These last discoveries of direct evidence revealed technologies that were already highly developed. Therefore experts believe that the early stages of these must have begun much sooner. 

TOP: This realistic painting of a bison is about 14,000 years old and was painted by a Paleolithic 'caveman' in the Cave of Altamira in Spain. This work was done from memory with a multi-colored spray-paint technique in the darkness of the cave. This demonstrates the remarkable skills, powers of observation, and memory humans had in Paleolithic times.(NOTE: This photo was taken of an accurate reproduction of this bison painted on the ceiling at Altamira as visitors are no longer allowed in the cave.)
BOTTOM: A photograph of a European bison today (a somewhat different bison species), shows the accuracy of the cave painting on the top.


PROCESSES

It seems clear that early on a sense of time began to develop since it can be shown that processes were invented to make stone tools and that these processes continued to be developed and refined over millions of years.

Definition: Process (Oxford Language):
A series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.

Technology involves processes that require steps that must be done in a certain chronological order and require a duration of time to achieve a specific future result. Processes involve the past, present, and future plus duration -- the essential elements of linear time. 

Moreover, processes almost inevitably become more complicated. For example, with "the major [stone tool] industries [that] include (in chronological order) the Oldowan, Acheulean, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian industries" (Britannica) each stone age industry was more complex than the one before it. For example, 18 different types of stone implements have been discovered from the Acheulean industry (starting with Homo erectus 1.75 mya) such as chisels, awls and anvils but by the late Upper Paleolithic (ending about 10 kya) the tool kit was up to 80 different implements. (Britannica)

As the complexity increased, so did an understanding of time because more planning and preparation were involved, more stone shaping was required, teaching the young these skills took time, and imagining the final result from the initial raw stone required a linear sense of progression. In addition processes such as making baskets required a sense of math, geometry, and a concept of the basket to be made. Teaching this did not initially require language as it could be learned by imitation. In one study I referenced, a woman was shown how to make baskets by imitation without a word being spoken. A native girl in a contemporary tribe sat next to her and led her through the steps involved.

LEFT: Paleolithic 'flake tools'.
RICHT: Neolithic polished tools.
Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition (1885-1890).

So I believe a complex unspoken sense of time did develop before language began.


SURVIVAL AND EVOLUTION

Basketry and other woven-fiber items would have allowed hominins to gather more food and materials. For example, big "backpack" type baskets known as "burden baskets" would have allowed hominins to gather large quantities of goods from distant locations. This would have increased their chances of survival. And this ability to provide more food would have affected their evolution. 

Known as burden baskets, these baskets were used worldwide in just about every society even today, and were widely used by hunter-gatherer Native American Indians on a daily basis, and probably during the Neolithic time period for harvesting crops.
LEFT: Carrying Basket, Paiute Indians, Utah.
(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 185, p. 494)
RIGHT: "Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak" on her back, Arizona, ca.1880."
(University of Southern California, ca.1880, Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak")


LANGUAGE

For words are to thought
what tools are to work;
the product depends largely on the growth of the tools. 
Will Durant, History of Civilization: Volume 1, Chapter 5, The Mental Elements of Civilization.

Time reference is a universal property of language...
Jacqueline Lecarme, Ph.D., Linguistics

No one knows exactly when, but possibly at some point in the Middle Paleolithic or early Upper Paleolithic era, an initial full language began to emerge although there may have been a rudimentary proto-language long before that. I believe that language then became the main tool for working with time. 

With early languages, it is my contention that the sense of time was immediate. Time was understood in terms of a couple of days, no more. There is evidence for this with the hunter-gatherer Piraha tribe in the Amazon who think this way but also have an extremely complex language that expresses their time concepts. 

A Piraha community. The Pirahas are hunter-gatherers who live in the Amazon.


NEOLITHIC LINEAR TIME WITHIN CYCLICAL TIME

Eventually in the Neolithic era there began to be an understanding of long-term linear time. This sense of time made it possible to plan, harvest and store crops over a year's time. But again it is my contention, that the Neolithic people conceived of time as primarily cyclical year to year, season to season, and day to day but within that cycle linear time could exist. 

When the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt emerged they used a range of woven-fiber items that employed technology passed down from Neolithic societies who had continued to develop and expand the woven-fiber technology. 

This woven bowl is an example of the fine workmanship
that had been achieved in the Neolithic era.
LEFT: Bowl  
RIGHT: Detail of bowl
Baskets, basket bowls, sandals, textiles, and mats from
the Neolithic Era (5200-4600 BCE or 7200-6600 BP)
were found in Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, Province Of Granada, Andalusia, Spain.

Sophisticated reed housing began in the Neolithic as well.
"A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds. The Marsh Arabs live a lifestyle that dates back 5,000 years." Quoted from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg
Mudhif Reception Hall

Known as mudhifs, these buildings were (and still are) made entirely from reeds. Buildings can be quite large and are used for ceremonial purposes. Small ones, called rabas, are used as family homes. Weaving technology once mastered can be scaled up to make quite large structures such as these traditional mudhif reed buildings that have been made for thousands of years by the Mudan people in the marshes of southern Iraq.

LEFT: Local contractors begin the job of building a mudhif. "The reeds are gathered from marshlands near the Euphrates River." 
MIDDLE: "Local contractors construct the main reed arches of a marsh Arab mudhif."
RIGHT: Almost completed, the mudhif exterior.

It is very likely that many if not most houses in Mesopotamian cities, at least in the beginning, were these mudhif/raba-type grass huts since high-quality reeds grew wild in the marshes. These were quite nice comfortable homes. Homes made out of bricks came later and were expensive, so their use may have been limited.


ANCIENT CULTURES

Basketry was a key element of Mesopotamian societies and a central part of their mythology, so much so that in one myth an important god declared, "The pickax and the basket build cities." Baskets sealed with bitumen were used to hold water to irrigate the fields and other baskets were used to manage and dredge the canals. There were over 100 words altogether in Mesopotamia that dealt with basket weaving, baskets, woven mats, reed craftsmanship, reed constructions, and weaving with palm leaves.

Cuneiform shipping receipts in Mesopotamia show that there was a key reed industry since high-quality reeds grew naturally in the marshes. Writing had also begun. Scribes wrote with reed styluses to record sales on clay tablets which were then filed in reed baskets. Reeds were used to build large and small boats and a variety of containers. So woven-fiber technology which had been developing for perhaps several million years was a critical part of early civilizations.

This reed ship in Mesopotamia illustrates the sophistication of the reed industry. This painting depicts a large ship made of reeds in early Mesopotamia. The existence of similar large reed boats has been well documented. <LINK>

Both Egypt and the Mesopotamian cities adopted the Neolithic sense of linear time within cyclical time. And it was this sense of time, which was so different from hunter-gathers just ten or twenty thousand years earlier, that gave them the power to manage their societies based on extensive agriculture. 

While often overlooked, both the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians depended on huge numbers of woven-fiber sacks for holding and transporting grain
along with baskets carried by pack animals. 
LEFT: Picture from the Sumerian Standard of Ur.
of a person carrying a sack, circa 2600 BCE.
RIGHT: Picture of an Egyptian carrying a sack
from Tombe d'Oumsou, circa 1450 BCE.

The oldest Egyptian mathematical document, known as "The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus" which is dated to the 13th dynasty (approx. 1800 BCE), contains a geometry problem (Problem 10) relating to basketry, which shows the importance of basket making to this early civilization. 
This picture is of Problem 14 in the Moscow Papyrus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moskou-papyrus.jpg

Egyptian paintings show a wide range of baskets that were used in agriculture along with sacks to carry and store grain. In addition, woven papyrus boats and sandals were common.

Baskets were critical tools for Egyptian agriculture.
TOP: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg
BOTTOM:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg

While astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, it is also a study of time. At night, for example, the sky moves every second and starts at a different point from night to night. Over a year the star patterns repeat and indicate a precise way of determining the time of year.

"Map of the night sky: star positions
from the Bright Stars Catalog, 5th Edition. Rasterized." 2006.
This modern map of the stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere
is based on the Babylonian model. The white curved line is the zodiac. 
Notice the faint horizontal and vertical grid lines and the 360-degree indicators.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky.png

The later Babylonian culture (Neo-Babylonian) conceived of the sky as a circle and then divided the sky into 12 sections, 30 degrees apart making a yearly total of 360 degrees (still used today for degrees in a circle) that repeated yearly. Each 30-degree section was a constellation in the Zodiac which was a concept they invented. They also mapped out the ecliptic, the path that the sun, moon, and planets all followed. Each degree was subdivided into 60 arcminutes and each minute into 60 arcseconds (the same numbers we use today). Finally, the sky in a circle was divided into a grid pattern of declination and right-ascension which can be thought of today as latitude and longitude on Earth projected into the sky. And with these two coordinates, any star or planet could be pinpointed. The Babylonian map of the sky with this grid right-angle pattern looked very much like an upside-down basket.  While I cannot yet confirm that this grid pattern was derived from basketry, it is an intriguing idea that should be researched.


CLASSICAL, MEDIEVAL, & MODERN TIME

It was assumed until about 400 years ago that the sun went around the Earth. Around 150 CE, Claudius Ptolemy devised an accurate system that was only off by one day every hundred years based on this assumption. His system required epicycles or circles within circles. For about 1500 years his science was the accepted astronomy. His system also included a grid and coordinates for star and planet positions, which he adopted from the Babylonians.

"A simple illustration showing the basic elements of Ptolemaic astronomy.
It shows a planet rotating on an epicycle which is itself rotating around
a deferent inside a crystalline sphere." Quoted from:

While the geocentric system of Ptolemy is no longer believed and has been replaced with the heliocentric system (the Earth revolves around the sun), his accurate system of wheels within wheels (epicycles) created a sophisticated way of gearing which led directly to the Industrial Revolution and machines.

Gears based on Ptolemy's epicycles in a pocket watch.


"The Prague astronomical clock [above] was installed in 1410...and is the oldest functioning Astronomical clock in the world." Photo and quote from:
Medieval clocks were built using the epicycle gearing of Ptolemy's geocentric astronomy. Ptolemy's astronomy and geography also used a vertical and horizontal 'grid' system probably inherited from the Babylonians. Ptolemy's gearing geometry would lead directly to the construction of machines and the Industrial Revolution. 


CONTEMPORARY TIME

Clocks were the "key machine of the modern industrial age."
Strandh, Sigvard, A History of the Machine.

In a sense, all machines are clocks. A geared clock is simply a machine whose product is the movement of clock hands on a clock face. A car motor is a machine that produces speed. Both have to proceed in a specific orderly manner to function properly. A misfiring car engine is a good example of a timing problem because the engine is firing when the pistons are not in the right position.

Today virtually all computers have a clock at their center that handles data according to its clock speed. For example, a CPU with 3700 megahertz clock speed (MHz) handles three billion seven hundred million cycles per second. So the clock continues to be at the heart of our technology.

For thousands of years time continued to be thought of as cyclical but eventually with the Scientific Revolution around 1700 and the work of Isaac Newton, cosmological time was seen as linear.

In the modern world, we think of time as primarily linear although our days and weeks, and seasons are cyclical. Time is seen as a commodity so we spend and save time. We are constantly aware of time because clocks and schedules are ever-present. We are to some extent imprisoned by time as we can rarely step outside the grid. 

It is clear from my research that much of what we think of as time has been molded by the culture. Time is not something that can be seen or felt in the physical world. Much of it exists in our collective imagination that we have been conditioned to accept. This is as true today as it was for Homo sapiens in the Paleolithic. Today, for example, Aboriginal Australians have a very different concept of time and have expressed great difficulty when dealing with Western linear time.

See my article about time being the most important subject
in schools in industrialized societies.
School's Most Important Subject: Time


FUTURE TIME

But thinking about time does not stop with a study of history. Understanding time today is just as important. 

Global warming will require a response that takes into account the speed of sea level rise, for example, and how quickly to respond to it. But the effects of the Industrial Revolution (which came about partly due to the Scientific Revolution) are not just limited to global warming. These effects will require an understanding of their possible damage and also may require a timely response. For example, 380 million tons of plastic are entering the oceans every year.

CATHEDRAL THINKING

Perhaps the most important contribution of the Middle Ages to our current age is the concept of Cathedral Thinking. This concept has now become relevant as we face the consequences of industrial development which may lead to climate change and yet may not be felt for a hundred years. 

Cathedral thinking is about the work and the time required to build a great cathedral. In the past, many of the workers never saw their work completed and did not expect to. Nevertheless, they were committed to the grand vision of building a magnificent cathedral which became a source of pride to the local community and provided an experience of reverence for the faithful. The work of the builders was seen as an expression of devotion to their spiritual beliefs. 

An example is the York Minster Cathedral in England which was built from 1220 to 1472 or over more than 250 years. While other cathedrals did not take this long to build, a hundred years or so for their construction was not unusual. 


CONCLUSION 

So my Theory About The Human Understanding of Time (HUT) attempts to explain how humans developed a sense and concept of linear time from its earliest beginnings right up to today. Since time is so important, a deeper understanding should help us as a species.

Today, in our digital age, even clocks depict time as linear, 
with numbers always going forward rather than the implied repeating cycle 
of earlier round circular clocks. 



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