Increasingly, archaeology is under attack. You may think this a little far fetched, but there is a growing online movement that seeks to actively undermine well researched and peer reviewed knowledge.
In place of the incredible achievements of our distant ancestors, aliens and other forces for which we have no irrefutable proof are supposed to be responsible for some of humanity’s greatest achievements.
I suspect that some of these opinions are held through a simple lack of understanding of what effort, endurance, social organisation, ingenuity and basic fundamental laws can achieve. We live in a world where, increasingly, traditional – labour intensive tasks are now achieved through mechanisation and the push of a button. We are, in general losing perspective on what humans are intellectually and practically capable of in traditional or ancient settings.
The idea of spending several hours, days, weeks or even months to make something ‘simple’ happen is increasingly seen as ‘impossible’ in the past – and therefore only explicable by the introduction of other, off-world technologies.
As an experimental archaeologist of 30 years experience I have engaged in countless experiments covering a broad range of questions and requiring any number of solutions. Whether it be moving heavy objects, making technically advanced glues, producing sophisticated tools or constructing archaeologically evidenced buildings, it has become clear to me that there is very little humans cannot achieve with the application of people, ‘simple’ methods, huge reserves of effort and stamina and most importantly, extensive periods of time.
My ongoing experiments reaffirm time and time again that we are a remarkable, problem solving species and that our potential ‘ace in the hand’ is our imagination. We are capable of imagining something the world has never seen before and then pursuing that idea with huge volumes of effort to make it happen.
My most recent and ongoing experiments have focussed on the drilling of holes through stone. Increasingly, the ability of our ancestors to achieve such actions is questioned by some ill-informed people. My experiments continue, but initially I have been pleasantly surprised to see success using a range of drill types (seasoned woods and copper) and the simple abrasive of sand. There are several YouTube videos that show the effort involved (see links in the menu).
My hope is that more experiments will follow to test various methods and to affirm that, given enough physical effort, time and fundamental knowledge of material properties, our ancestors were more than capable of drilling holes through very hard materials.