When I was in college, I volunteered for a dig. Two years later, we uncovered a house that had not seen light in over 10000 years. Those people had not invented pottery or the bow and arrow. But their brains were just as big as ours, they had the same feelings and emotions. It changed my sense of people, of the past, of time and who we are.

We found only technology – stone technology. Everything else had decayed in the acidic soil. But you could see the progress people made through the millenia – better tools, more diversity, better technique. Pottery, smaller projectile points for lances then arrows. Drills and beads, decorations. Art? Sometimes it was hard to tell what it was that had been found, but it was unmistakenly manufactured. 10000 years ago to contact with Europeans. A really different perspective from what I was used to.