Just thought I'd try to start a topic that won't start some kind of flame war. Let's see if it works...

Traditionally archeologists excavate a site and find artifacts that were created in the general area long ago - pottery, tools, carvings, etc - that told a lot about the local culture at the time. It seemed like everything had it's proper place. Nowadays, with international trade, museums stealing stuff and tourists bring back souvenirs (not just junk), if some catastrophe happens and civilisation is wiped out for an extended period of time before regrouping, what would future archeologists think when they dig up artifacts in one location that actually originated from all over the world? Of course, by then the only things remaining might be disposable diapers and plastic bags.

that was my first thought, plastic. I dont think it is possible for me to go for a day without being exposed to plastic. (in my normal day)

I'm sometimes a little sceptical about archeologist's conclusions. They often interpret artifacts from their 20th century, Western viewpoint...."This little statuette of a pregnant woman is a fertility godess"....whereas the statuette was more likely that of a fat wife, carved to celebrate 3 years of good hunting.

If the archeologists spent 10 years as hunter gatherers, they may be better qualified to make assumptions about the people whose artifacts they are digging up.

My little take on archeology.

I reckon the OP brings up some good points.....The future archeologists will find nappies and tyres, yes, but also amorphous homogenous cuture from which few true conclusions about actual distinct cultures could be drawn.,

Plastic... yes, probably lots of it, but also vast quantities of fragments of electric appliances which they will try to fit together and make sense of.... and computers. I just looked round my room and couldn't see much else that would survive very long. I think they would probably rate Thailand a pretty backward country because of the lack of stone (or steel) buildings; broken bits of cement wouldn't look like much.

DVDs?

Wonder how long the information within will stay there.

DVDs?

Wonder how long the information within will stay there.

Home made ones about 5 years.

I'm sometimes a little sceptical about archeologist's conclusions. They often interpret artifacts from their 20th century, Western viewpoint...."This little statuette of a pregnant woman is a fertility godess"....whereas the statuette was more likely that of a fat wife, carved to celebrate 3 years of good hunting.

If the archeologists spent 10 years as hunter gatherers, they may be better qualified to make assumptions about the people whose artifacts they are digging up.

My little take on archeology.

I reckon the OP brings up some good points.....The future archeologists will find nappies and tyres, yes, but also amorphous homogenous cuture from which few true conclusions about actual distinct cultures could be drawn.,

Well observed, Harcourt.

Before we concern ourself as to the perspectives of future archaeologists, a sound retrospective of today's scientists needs to be addressed.

If you're in Phitsanulok, go to the Folk Museum established by Dr Thawee. He set out to collect the things in Thai homes which were going out of use, mostly made of wood... and I think most of us would be hard put to it to imagine what on earth they were used for. I went there with a Thai lady in her 50s who kept exclaiming, "We had those when I was a girl!" 'Those' included a most elegant little cache-sexe! All the things in this museum have become obsolete in the last 50, or at most 100, years.

This set me thinking about things which have become obsolete in my lifetime, or nearly so. How often these days do you see hand-operated calculators (except the abacus, which seems to have outlasted the Western versions), fountain pens, sodawater syphons, even typewriters? Who has a wireless with valves, not transistors? Do you remember the solid irons which you had to heat on the fire (or stove) before ironing your clothes? Trouser-presses?

No wonder archaeologists have trouble deciding what things thousands of years old were used for!

A couple of literary references....

Macaulay's New Zealander standing amid the ruins of St Paul's.

An article by Stephen Leacock (I think) about the great corridor tombs of kings of the Circus dynasty, notably Kings Oxford and Piccadilly.

If you're in Phitsanulok, go to the Folk Museum established by Dr Thawee. He set out to collect the things in Thai homes which were going out of use, mostly made of wood... and I think most of us would be hard put to it to imagine what on earth they were used for. I went there with a Thai lady in her 50s who kept exclaiming, "We had those when I was a girl!" 'Those' included a most elegant little cache-sexe! All the things in this museum have become obsolete in the last 50, or at most 100, years.

This set me thinking about things which have become obsolete in my lifetime, or nearly so. How often these days do you see hand-operated calculators (except the abacus, which seems to have outlasted the Western versions), fountain pens, sodawater syphons, even typewriters? Who has a wireless with valves, not transistors? Do you remember the solid irons which you had to heat on the fire (or stove) before ironing your clothes? Trouser-presses?

No wonder archaeologists have trouble deciding what things thousands of years old were used for!

Funnily enough, I'm not old enough to have ever seen soda fountains in use except in Laurel and Hardy movies, yet I have seperated the cream from the milk with a hand turned spinning thing (I don't know what it's called...we just had to use it every day), and we built our house with only hand tools and from timber we pit-sawed ourselves....same as all the neighbours.

If you're in Phitsanulok, go to the Folk Museum established by Dr Thawee. He set out to collect the things in Thai homes which were going out of use, mostly made of wood... and I think most of us would be hard put to it to imagine what on earth they were used for. I went there with a Thai lady in her 50s who kept exclaiming, "We had those when I was a girl!" 'Those' included a most elegant little cache-sexe! All the things in this museum have become obsolete in the last 50, or at most 100, years.

This set me thinking about things which have become obsolete in my lifetime, or nearly so. How often these days do you see hand-operated calculators (except the abacus, which seems to have outlasted the Western versions), fountain pens, sodawater syphons, even typewriters? Who has a wireless with valves, not transistors? Do you remember the solid irons which you had to heat on the fire (or stove) before ironing your clothes? Trouser-presses?

No wonder archaeologists have trouble deciding what things thousands of years old were used for!

Funnily enough, I'm not old enough to have ever seen soda fountains in use except in Laurel and Hardy movies, yet I have seperated the cream from the milk with a hand turned spinning thing (I don't know what it's called...we just had to use it every day), and we built our house with only hand tools and from timber we pit-sawed ourselves....same as all the neighbours.

Is a soda fountain the same thing as a sodawater syphon? (We had the latter at home, but then we were very English, not American) Certainly it would be good for L and H films. The cream thing is called a separator, I think.

If you're in Phitsanulok, go to the Folk Museum established by Dr Thawee. He set out to collect the things in Thai homes which were going out of use, mostly made of wood... and I think most of us would be hard put to it to imagine what on earth they were used for. I went there with a Thai lady in her 50s who kept exclaiming, "We had those when I was a girl!" 'Those' included a most elegant little cache-sexe! All the things in this museum have become obsolete in the last 50, or at most 100, years.

This set me thinking about things which have become obsolete in my lifetime, or nearly so. How often these days do you see hand-operated calculators (except the abacus, which seems to have outlasted the Western versions), fountain pens, sodawater syphons, even typewriters? Who has a wireless with valves, not transistors? Do you remember the solid irons which you had to heat on the fire (or stove) before ironing your clothes? Trouser-presses?

No wonder archaeologists have trouble deciding what things thousands of years old were used for!

Funnily enough, I'm not old enough to have ever seen soda fountains in use except in Laurel and Hardy movies, yet I have seperated the cream from the milk with a hand turned spinning thing (I don't know what it's called...we just had to use it every day), and we built our house with only hand tools and from timber we pit-sawed ourselves....same as all the neighbours.

Is a soda fountain the same thing as a sodawater syphon? (We had the latter at home, but then we were very English, not American) Certainly it would be good for L and H films. The cream thing is called a separator, I think.

Maybe I should have said sodawater fountains.....the glass bottles with wire mesh surround and the tap thingy at the top.

As I said...before my time.

The rise of the machines:

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html

What we should know or have learned is that the cycles are in order, withstanding outside inflences. The universal order doesn't find itself in need of political identities or social conscript - it just is.

More often than not, the cycles come around again....having another go.