Remembering Times Past
In the book, A History of Information Storage and Retrieval, the first chapter, The Loss of Knowledge, infuriates me. The author Foster Stockwell, claims that in centuries past, man had no means of recording knowledge, of storing information for future generations because they could not write or understand any type of written language.(History, 3) I don't agree. It might make a good argument that the generations past living in caves had no way to record their daily lives in a regular format, they had cave paintings. They told us of what they did, how they hunted, and what they ate. That was important to them and it is important to us. People often relied on the histories of their people thru scribes, storytellers, and minstrels. It wasn't important to relay a record for posterity because they did not know if there would be a future people to listen to their stories. They lived for the here and know and loved, and worshipped, took care of their children, ate their food, and buried their dead.
Foster Stockwell realized that a cynical mind would dismiss the huge archival of information found in "preliterate" human history. (History, 4) It is true that the lack of written records, and other types of non print material make learning about our ancestors difficult but not impossible. The mastery of stone materials and construction has made the investigation of Stonehenge an ongoing mystery. We have been wondering for centuries how the ancient peoples managed to lift and maneuver such huge monoliths of stone, how did the people of Easter island create such huge heads and what do they mean, and how did Latvian immigrant Ed Leedskalnin build Coral Castle all by himself and why? Just because there might have been a time of written records does not solve all the mysteries nor save the knowledge for the future. Ed Leedskalnin built Coral Castle in Homestead Florida from about 1920-1950 but there is no plausible way to tell how he did what he did. The colony of Roanoke Virginia virtually disappeared from the world with no record of how or why. The fact that all of these mysteries happened after the advent of recorded history does not make them any less an enigma for archaeologists.
Stockwell, F. (2000) A History of Information Storage and Retrieval. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland &Company, Inc.
posted by Honeycat @ 7:53 PM
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