Ancient does not mean stupid...

We frequently give ancient cultures less credit that they deserve for their engineering and even social accomplishments. For example, I have always assumed large monuments were erected by massive applications of labor.

For proof of the opposite, check my following blog entry from YouTube.com. Also visit the builder's website.

Speaking of Stonehenge, archeologists have unearthed houses near there of surprising size and comfort.

The buildings all had plaster floors and timber frames, and most had a central hearth. Two, including a house possibly inhabited by a community chief or priest, were enclosed by ringed ditches, the largest measuring 131 feet across. Postholes indicate a wooden fence would have surrounded the smaller of the two structures.

"If the structure inside the large ditch was indeed a chief's house, this individual would have been living rather humbly like the rest of the population, since the building itself wouldn't have been elaborate," Thomas said. "It's like a humble house that was meant to be separated and secluded from the outside world." [More]

The more we know about ancient people, the more persistent some human charactersitics seesm to be. Much of what we think of as enlightenment may simply be fashion, not social evolution.

[via Neatorama]