Tag: archaeology

Game Archaeology

Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic text computer game “Colossal Cave Adventure”, academic and popular references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. “Adventure” was the first in a series of text-based games (“interactive fiction”) that emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy setting; these games had a significant cultural impact in the late 1970s and a significant commercial presence in the early 1980s. Will Crowther based his program on a real cave in Kentucky; Don Woods expanded this version significantly. The expanded work has been examined as an occasion for narrative encounters (Buckles 1985) and as an aesthetic masterpiece of logic and utility (Knuth 1998); however, previous attempts to assess the significance of “Adventure” remain incomplete without access to Crowther’s original source code and Crowther’s original source cave. Accordingly, this paper analyzes previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods’s student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005. In addition, new interviews with Crowther, Woods, and their associates (particularly members of Crowther’s family) provide new insights on the precise nature of Woods’s significant contributions. Real locations in the cave and several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to their representation in Crowther’s version; however, by May of 1977, Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date Crowther’s original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat, and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded. While Crowther remained largely faithful to the geography of the real cave, his original did introduce subtle changes to the environment in order to improve the gameplay.

digital archaeology as it were

Teaching soldiers archaeology

As a former marine, he was reasonably prepared to “embrace the suck” on this one, assuming that the military would be too busy to guard important sites, his first recommendation. But he did hold out hope for at least a little “cultural awareness training.”

The military has decided to grant his wish by passing out 40K decks of cards to educate troops about archaeology in Iraq. “This site has survived 17 centuries. Will it survive you?”

preserving our history as it were

Before The Dawn

Using genetic anthropology to reconstruct the 90% of modern human history that is unrecorded. The discoveries are coming in fast; no doubt we’ll have a revival of alternative history books soon 🙂 We are beginning to uncover all the near-extinction events in our history that left marks in our mitochondria and Y-chromosomes. more vast and scary than any foundation myth.
2023-04-06: The 0-sum games that held humanity back for 300k years

The default condition of humans is no different from the default condition of other animals: Males fight each other over females. In humans, in apes, in deer, in insects. Despite apes being more intelligent than insects, they live in the same stability. And the same can be said about the human default: Despite being more intelligent than apes, humans are just as stuck in their ecological niches until the powerful among them get incentives to develop.

We are used to seeing human development as a line of progression. Step by step, generation after generation, humans are commonly thought to have added one small invention and observation after another, culminating in big breakthroughs and discoveries. I think it could be more useful to see human history as episodic. On some occasions, humans focused on the things that are possible to develop, that is, technology and teamwork. During most of the time, human males focused on a pursuit with little development potential: How to snatch as many females as possible from other males. However intelligent a species is, it will not develop as long as all its intelligence is used to play a 0-sum game.

Pyramids built with concrete blocks

This makes me wonder if the whole pyramids business was really a japanese-style ploy to bolster the economy 🙂
2022-07-04: Evidence of highly skilled workers

On a summer afternoon 4600 years ago, near the end of the reign of the pharaoh Khufu, a boat crewed by some 40 workers headed downstream on the Nile toward the Giza Plateau. The vessel, whose prow was emblazoned with a uraeus, the stylized image of an upright cobra worn by pharaohs as a head ornament, was laden with large limestone blocks being transported from the Tura quarries on the eastern side of the Nile. Under the direction of their overseer, known as Inspector Merer, the team steered the boat west toward the plateau, passing through a gateway between a pair of raised mounds called the Ro-She Khufu, the Entrance to the Lake of Khufu. This lake was part of a network of artificial waterways and canals that had been dredged to allow boats to bring supplies right up to the plateau’s edge.

Based on the contents of the papyri, at least some workers in the time of Khufu were highly skilled and well rewarded for their labor, contradicting the popular notion that the Great Pyramid was built by masses of oppressed slaves. In several instances, Merer and his team were awarded gifts of textiles. In addition to a diet including poultry, fish, fruit, and a variety of breads, cakes, and beers, the men were also provided with dates and honey, delicacies that were extremely scarce and generally reserved for those within the royal entourage. In fact, the laborers may have been quite close to the royal family. During their several months working at the Giza Plateau, Inspector Merer’s phyle—and possibly other phyles that were part of the same group—appears to have taken turns guarding and helping to provision a royal institution called Ankhu Khufu, which likely referred to Khufu’s valley temple. In the papyri, Merer’s men are called the setep za, “the chosen phyle” or “the elite,” a phrase that can denote a royal guard force. “I think these boatmen were a very special category of workers because their activities were really vital for the royal project. I think the monarchy had an interest in being fair to them because it was essential to have them working well.”

Sagalassos

The last inhabitants finally abandoned the crumbling civic center around the middle of the 7th century AD, when the socio-economic network of the town was shattered by another major earthquake, new epidemics and the first Arab raids. The transition from a farming society to pastoralism, mainly that of goats, eventually resulted in a massive erosion which covered the ruins of the abandoned city. As a result, Sagalassos, which was never looted in later periods, remained one of the best preserved ancient urban sites in the Mediterranean.