tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post7373475012252261444..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: The 11,000-Year-Old Shigir IdolJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-57305595104833109902015-08-31T10:12:14.674-04:002015-08-31T10:12:14.674-04:00It always boggles my mind when I think that we hav...It always boggles my mind when I think that we have organic materials which are still extant after even just a few hundred years. To look at a carved hunk of wood and be told that it is 11,000 years old just blows my mind.<br /><br />Sure, it was in a peat bog, so decomposition couldn't really happen. But to think that the bog was left undisturbed for 11,000 years, without drying out from drought or being churned up by flooding, or suffering any of countless natural catastrophes which might have changed conditions enough to cause the object to become exposed and rapidly begin decaying is ming boggling.<br /><br />And yet, geologically speaking it's barely a blip on the chart! And in trying to wrap my head around such timescales, it throws human development into such an absurd contrast of speed!<br /><br />All of written history played out in the single, relatively short period of time in which this hunk of wood was stuck in the deoxygenated muck at the bottom of a bog. Every single major technological advance from metalworking to nuclear energy was invented within that timeframe. Untold billions have lived and died, civilizations have risen and fallen, cultures have been born and gone extinct, and this totem sat through it all in statis.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com