Posted on 07/12/2014 7:04:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The year 1776 saw both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and publication of Gibbon’s "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
Today the United States stands on the top of the podium of world powers: however, does a Roman fate await? A visit to the dramatic Pueblo ruins in the American southwest, former home to a complex civilization that abandoned its settlements in the 12th-13th centuries A.D., warns us that circumstances can change, and dramatically.
Archeology offers an education in patterns, possibilities and challenges that the U.S. should value and exploit for its future.
For the U.S., in particular, our past is a global one: its population has come from all over the world, from the first migrants more than 12-13,000 years ago, to European settlers, to African slaves, to later waves through the present day. Most of the evidence for this long, complex past comes from archaeology.
China invests heavily on research and preservation of its archaeology and history -- sometimes even controversially, such as its massive spending on maritime archaeology as part of the assertion of Chinese control of the South China Sea....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
***China invests heavily on research and preservation of its archaeology and history**
Not during the RED GUARDS period of the late 1960s. Many ancient artifacts were purposely destroyed.
Article I, Sec. 8, under the powers of Congress, lists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..."
This is not nearly as much of a stretch of the original limitations envisioned in the Constitution as most of what Congress and the federal government does nowadays.
Article I, Sec. 8, under the powers of Congress, lists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..."
This is not nearly as much of a stretch of the original limitations envisioned in the Constitution as most of what Congress and the federal government does nowadays.
Oh goody. Another bunch of eggheads with their hands out demanding taxpayer funding for their hobby.
A bogus idea if there ever was one.
1. Nearly all academic work relies on government largess. Archeology, like many disciplines, pushes the meme of inter-dependence and communal fortune. The idea of the group subordinating it’s goals to the rights of the individual (Constitutional rights) is beyond trend thinking.
2. The Chinese just destroyed millions of ancient sites and priceless history in the construction of the ‘Three Gorges Dam Project’ and displaced millions of people in addition to biological pollution that is unheard of in the West.
Petra supported a small number of people. In that same xeritic part of the world, another civilization has already reduced the cost of desalinated water to the point where it can be used agriculturally.
Archeology is fun, interesting, and more and more irrelevant to the issues of technologically based societies.
Both were/are very important works, but the most important of 1776 was a book called Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
PING
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