History of the World in 100 Objects (Part 2)

1) Bird shaped pestle - from Papua New Guinea. Artistic not just functional, and shows the beginnings of humans growing and eating new foods. By growing and cooking food that is harder for other animals to digest (they can't grind with pestle and mortar!) helps us move up the food chain and do better than our animal neighbours.

2) Ain Sakri Lovers figurine - found near Bethlehem, showing a couple having sex. Indicates new importance of relationships etc. Can't remember a lot else.

3) Egyptian Clay Model of Cattle - made from Egyptian mud 5,500 years ago, long before the Pharoahs. Cattle then were not initially used for beef as they were too tough and inedible, and human stomachs at the time could not tolerate cow's milk (we had to evolve our stomachs over hundreds of years to tolerate it). Cows were used for carrying things, and people drank their blood for nutrients and protein. This model was buried with its owner, probably an Egyptian of modest means.

4) Maya Maize God Statue - The Mayans believed that everyone was descended from Maize. Maize is the main staple crop in much of South America. It's notoriously difficult to refine for human consumption, and was worshipped as a god for providing food for people.

5) Jomon Pot - The Jomon culture in Japan was a fishing community. This is a 7,000 year old pot, quite decorated, but the Japanese have been making pots for 17,000 years. It's not hard to imagine one day a lump of clay accidentally falling into a fire, becoming set and suddenly people discovered how useful they were. The invention of pots also revolutionised cookery, as people could now cook stews and many other dishes with a mix of ingredients. The Jomon culture obviously weren't very good at washing their dishes because scientists have been able to analyze the remains in the dish from 7,000 years ago and identify some of the ingredients in this early stew!

History of the World in 100 Objects

This is a BBC Radio 4 series I've been listening to (well the podcasts of the episodes to be technically correct). Collaboration between the BBC and the British Museum, it's presented by the Director of the British Museum, who has chosen 100 objects from the museum to tell a history of the world. Each episode covers 1 object and is 15 minutes long. You learn about the object itself, its history, sometimes how it was discovered, and what it has to tell us about history, development of human society etc. The objects are roughly chronolgical but each week has different themes, so it jumps about a bit. I'm a couple of weeks behind, so seen about 3 or 4 weeks worth so far, but it is really fascinating stuff. Here's a summary of the first few:

1) Mummy of Hornejitef - this is out of place chronologically, and seems a strange place to start, but is used to highlight some of the scientific techniques that continute to shed light on objects in the series. It's also the first object the presenter became interested in as a child.

2) Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool - 2 million years old or so, one of the first tools fashioned by humans, used to cut meat off dead animals for food and so on. Found in the Rift Valley in Tanzania, around where mankind first came from.

3) Olduvai Hand Axe - A stone axe roughly hewn, but roughly in the shape of what you would think of as an axe-head. Used for killing animals, cutting meat for food etc. It allowed humans to travel and take the axe with them to be able to start to hunt food. These handaxes were made for a million years or so and have been found all over Africa, Europe, Asia etc.

4) Swimming Reindeer - found in France and dating back 13,000 years, one of the earlist artistic objects. Carved out of bone/antler it shows that humans began to think more than about hunting and survival and started taking an interest in the world around them and wanting to express that through art.

5) Clovis Spear Point - stone spearhead dating to around 11,000 BC, thousands like it found all over the Americas. This is supposedly from around the time people first crossed the land bridge from Asia (Russia to Alaska) and began populating the Americas. The spear allowed them to hunt and spread out all across two continents. I said supposedly before, because I read a book (well half of - it was long and very in depth) called 1491 by Charles Mann (?) which challenged the hypothesis that humans originated in Africa, by positing that they evolved independantly on different continents, giving evidence in this case for the evolution of humans in the Americas. A fascinating book, but presumably Neil MacGregor (museum director/series presenter) either hasn't heard of this (unlikely) or doesn't agree with it.

More soon.

After a long absence...

After nearly two years of quiet I've decided to start blogging again. This is partly because I need an outlet for my verbal chuntering, but it's more because I forget so much that I read or learn. I'm interested in so many different areas that remembering and keeping track is difficult. I often read (or listen to an audiobook of) a really good non-fiction book or article, and a few months later I could summarise in a couple of sentences what I remember. The act of writing about what I've read, seen, listened to etc. helps me remember, and then I've always got the blog to go back to if I want to look at again. I was reading some of my old blog entries yesterday and it surprised me what I'd forgotten and even found it interesting re-reading!

I'm writing this blog mainly for my own benefit, but if anyone is reading this, I hope you find some of this stuff as interesting as I do, and please leave a comment or send me an email. When looking over my old blog posts the other day, I found that someone had actually commented on one of them. Someone was reading! I didn't really understand the comment, but that doesn't matter so much.

This time around I may also do a bit of tweeting, as I've got a twitter account now. You can't say much in a tweet, but if nothing else I can link to blog articles I write and post random links to pages on the internet that interests me.

If my previous blogging efforts are anything to go by, when I say 'will write more shortly' or 'tomorrow I'm going to post about X' as a lot of the time it doesn't happen. Maybe I'll be better this time, I don't know. I do intend to blog a bit about the bbc radio 4 series 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' which I've been listening to recently. Watch this space (hopefully!)