After listening to the the ‘Time, Knowledge, and the Material Record’ seminar, I found myself reflecting on one of the key take-away ideas – how artefacts we discover in the present don’t necessarily give us an accurate representation of how the object in question existed in the past. I quite like to imagine archaeologists and historians a few hundred years in the future sifting through remnants of our current civilization and attaching romanticized importance to what we now consider mundane items.
“Ah yes, we’ve discovered these artefacts which the old texts refer to as ‘crocs’. We have reason to believe that they were named after the aquatic predator, the crocodile, and so select members of the ancient society wore them on their feet to show power and dominance in social situations, and to attract romantic interest from the opposite sex”
Imagining what future societies must think of our current civilization is the very premise of the recent film ‘Mortal Engines’ directed by Peter Jackson, although they approach the concept with a far more serious tone than I do. Having grown up reading the original series by Philip Reeve, I was deeply disappointed by the film adaptation, finding it very deserving of the 4.87/10 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the dystopian future it imagines hands us a grim warning: the actions we take now create the future for the coming generations. This is hugely relevant with the current climate crisis, and I believe that if we want to create a future where humans still exist to look back and reflect on our history as we have the luxury of doing so now, drastic action needs to happen.
