Random Thought

I have just finished reading a couple of books, one was actually a reread, well really it was a re-re-re-reread, but you get the point and it provoked some random thoughts. What books?  Voices of the Rocks and Fingerprints of the Gods , respectively. The first edition of Fingerprints of the Gods , was the first book that showed me that there were in fact real and serious people asking some of the same questions that I had always wondered and researching some of the same things that interested me. Reading that work opened up a whole new world to me, in terms of research and learning and growing. And I was hooked. I started looking for other such books, but only those that I believed were properly researched and truly passionate intellectual works. Ones that were not looking for proof of their desired whims and wishes, but those that noticed the textbook versions didn't answer all the questions and even seemed to make no sense with the questions they did answer. Serious...

Illustration by Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution When it comes to history and especially archaeology one of the biggest questions is "When did it happen?" In 1940 Martin Kamen introduced the world to Carbon14. Carbon14 (C14) is an isotope of Carbon. If you are not sure why it is Carbon14 as opposed to just Carbon or a different isotope, such as Carbon12 (C12), it has to do with the number of protons and neutrons that each contain. All carbon atoms have 6 protons, but the isotopes C14 and C12 have different numbers of neutrons and thus have differing levels of radioactivity, a C12 isotope has 6 neutrons therefore C14 has 8 neutrons, this difference in numbers of neutrons also changes the mass(weight) of the atoms as well. Willard F. Libby via ACS Seven years later Willard F. Libby presented the world with a method using C14 for radiocarbon dating. The theory of radiocarbon dating is based on the belief that the atmosphere contains a constant amoun...

The last factor that we will discuss that leads to most errors, limits and misunderstanding within the pursuit of historical knowledge is change. What do I mean by change? Maybe another word could be movement. Both change and movement impact where and how we live and settle and grow. Man has not always lived as we do today. Nor has man always lived in just one location, even 'civilized' man, and certainly not the hunter-gather ancestors of the Stone Age. As the title implies we are going to discuss two 'natural' events that have HUGE impact on human location, movement, and lifestyle. The two natural events that we are going to discuss are Plate Tectonics and Ice Ages. Both events have a greater impact on our history than we give them credit for, mainly because we do not believe that modern man has lived through an Ice Age and most of the movement of Plate Tectonics is a very slow and gradual process. Yet, geologists will tell you that we are in an Ice Age, just tha...