Our long ago ancestors were very smart

[Chuckanut]

Here’s an example of human ingenuity that gives me hope for our species.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places...utm_medium=atlas-page&utm_source=facebook.com

“Giardini Panteschi are perfectly circular and are precisely calibrated to have walls of a specific height: tall enough to catch the fog and block the wind, but short enough to allow as much sun in as possible. Basketball-sized boulders are expertly stacked freehand—mortar is never used—into five-foot-thick walls that curve to encircle a 30-foot diameter enclosure with one small opening through which the gardener can crawl. The top of the circular wall always slopes inward, which is the key to the unique design of the giardino Pantesco: The jagged, convoluted crevices of the volcanic rock catch the fog (which explains why using mortar is forbidden: the goal is to maximize surface area), and then the inward-facing slope channels the moisture into the enclosure, where it moistens the soil. At the center of all this a single orange or lemon seed is planted, in hopes of eventually growing into a full-size tree. “

 

[audreyh1]

Yep, and why they are our ancestors rather than dying out.

Need article. Thanks for sharing!

 

[marko]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the article.

Every time I see something like this I'm reminded of the fact that some people several millennia ago decided to take a common grass (teosinte) and breed it over many generations to create corn.

They say that if you were to submit this idea for a grant today you'd be laughed out of the room.

I always wonder if there is some missing piece of human history where all this knowledge came from thousands of years ago. (Pyramids, terra-preta soil, solar observations, calendars, herbal medicines etc) How much trial and error went into it!

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the article.
…..
I always wonder if there is some missing piece of human history where all this knowledge came from thousands of years ago. (Pyramids, terra-preta soil, solar observations, calendars, herbal medicines etc) How much trial and error went into it!

Not sure it is true but I was told in history class that ancient people like the Greeks actually only worked about 4 hours a day unless it was harvest time.
If so they had a lot more time to contemplate solutions to a problem.

Hence the problem of a squirrel proof bird feeder. One person thinks of a feeder to thwart squirrels.. A billion squirrels spend all day scheming and trying to get that food.

 

[marko]

Not sure it is true but I was told in history class that ancient people like the Greeks actually only worked about 4 hours a day unless it was harvest time.
If so they had a lot more time to contemplate solutions to a problem.

Yes. Except for a pause for the Dark Ages, I suspect that was true everywhere until the Industrial Revolution.

Seeing as they didn't have TV (and hanging out at the beach was likely frowned upon) they had lots of time to discover other things. Like, who figured out how to make wine, beer? Who looked at a snail and said "Mmmm! Escargot! Get some butter"