• unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    Isnt this just because pants dont leave a lot of traces after tens of thousands of years, while a bone flute is much more likely to do so?

    • blargle@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      This is kind of how I feel about the idea of the very first writing being chiseled in stone or engraved on clay tablets. If there was a much older civilization that never did that but invented paper and pencils instead, we’d probably never know it.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        Writing on the ground is probably No. 1 then maybe carving with a stone into wood/bark as No. 2 but yeah, lots of stuff we will never see or know about because they werent preserved.

        • deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Or because it’s not immediately recognizable as writing. I wonder how long it would have taken archeologists to figure out the quipu was actually a knot-based writing system without the Spanish mentioning their use by the Incas in their records of the invasion.

    • driving_crooner
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      2 days ago

      The earliest proof of clothing we have are needles that survive the pass of time, but not the clothes they made.