History. That is the thing that came before. That minute that just passed us by when we ate that bologna sandwich with American cheese? Just now? That is history.
But. When I consider history, I think of the “big things” that have happened in the past.
You know. Abraham Lincoln takes his seat at The Ford Theatre. Joan of Arc gets tied to the stake. But those events are single-person events.
Some history encompasses entire eras and civilizations. The ancient Egyptians built those pyramids. The ancient Romans had their aqueducts. The bloodthirsty Vikings rowed their longships.
Some historical civilizations are so well-known, most of us would be able to talk about their basic backstory and list of traits.
It’s not such a good thing, really. I mean, those people with only a “brief” understanding of history may think that the history of the world is made up of only a few powerful empires. It also leads them to think that everyone else is unimportant.
But we all know that nothing could be further from the truth. Many civilizations have contributed greatly to our world. They have been incredibly influential and important. But these societies don’t get a lot of discussion, because oftentimes, their history is lost. These societies just “disappeared” from existence.
These vanished ancient societies leave large gaps in our understanding. Most of them probably have some of the most interesting stories to tell. Instead, we’ll never know. So, our minds are full of curiosity and wonder.
Maybe the most famous of the “lost information” societies is The Maya.
Weirdly, we don’t know too much about them. The South American jungle can be blamed for that. Their culture, or the evidence of their culture that was left behind? Well. It has been reclaimed by nature. People have searched are continue to search. The things we do know are these: The Mayans constructed some architectural wonders for their time. Heck, for any time. And, they also created a truly impressive calendar. But. We don’t know where they all disappeared to. The Mayan Empire appears to have collapsed about 1,000 years ago, leaving behind a veritable ghost town. Some scientists believe that climate change was the culprit. And so it went. In 2018, a team of researchers assessed the environmental conditions during the culture’s decline. They confirmed this hypothesis. A group of Ph.D. candidates at the University of Cambridge published their study in Science Magazine. (I won’t go into all the details of the experiments. But. Good on them.)
At any rate, they were an amazing people who disappeared way too soon.
There are many other lost civilizations.
Some of these include”
Clovis People
Easter Island
Nabta Playa
The Olmecs
The Silla
The Sanxingdui
People Of Punt
Bell-Beaker Culture
Indus Valley Civilization
The Sea Peoples
Gobekli Tepe
They are all very interesting in their own right. One that I am particularly fond of is the Clovis people.
The word “Clovis” is now nearly synonymous with one type of archeological artifact, and that comes in the way of arrowheads.
This is because the Clovis people scattered so many of them across our entire continent.
The Clovis people appear to be North America’s first truly dominant civilization. Unfortunately very little is known about them.
They spread across the majority of North America (and parts of Central America) within a few thousand years after humans first came to the continent.
They left behind their trademark weapons — mostly arrowheads — but very few other clues. No one is sure exactly what happened to this culture, whether it died out or simply assimilated into future civilizations.
So. The parts of history that fade away.
History is an interesting thing in this way.
All of things happened. But we only know about the ones that people took the time to write about. And we can only hope they wrote about them honestly.
But we are finding that this is not always the case.
As for the rest. It existed. Maybe someday, we will know more.
Because? It is always good to seek more knowing.
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“History is written by the victors.” – Winston Churchill
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“History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.” – Lord Acton
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“Every man is a history, a book in a particular chapter of the world’s existence.” – David Brooks
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