Well, the wacky folks over at Kurzgesagt, a German animation studio, production house and design studio that creates elaborate, animated, science videos known for their “optimistic nihilism” (I accidentally learned something!), are at it again. They’re trying to make us think when we want to watch cartoons. As if.
However, this one is really cool, and it gets you pondering and, as we all know, a creative ponder occasionally is a good thing.
This time they’re asking, “Are there lost alien civilizations in our past?” They also wonder if we might perhaps take a break from looking up and spend a little time looking down. Well, more like digging down, than looking down.
Yep, we’re talking stratum.
Get back here! There’s more to it than just running out and digging. I know. I was surprised, too. We also have to look back … over time (read that in echo-y voice, just for fun!).
Turns out, when we look at the evolution of a civilization, of which we have but one sorry example, we can divide the human experience into three categories: hunter/gatherer, farmer and industrialist.
If we look to our own history as a guide, we will see that each of these three categories has a particular set of characteristics that can help us in our search for ancient civilizations. For instance, hunter/gatherers were nomadic. There weren’t many of them, and they didn’t own a lot of stuff so they could travel light. So, we can deduce that there are few artifacts, bones, fossils and what have you from this period, and they are spread over wide swaths of land.
On the other hand, in the farmer phase, people began to settle down, make stuff, invent stuff. So, there’s more of a chance here of finding cool stuff from some lost alien civilization (but we haven’t found anything so far). And in the industrial phase, there’s, well, look around us…
So? What are the chances of finding some lost alien civilization? You’ll have to watch for yourself to see that. Enjoy!
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
