No need to dig
From time to time I give into my curiosity about history. One way is to watch documentaries that deal with modern archaeology. You know, when you get out with a shovel and see what’s in the backyard. Some of the best programming comes out of the United Kingdom of course and what I’ve learned is that I can apply the same rules to my own area. Let me elaborate. In most of the documentaries that I watch the scientists are dealing with an area that has been settled for up to 2000 years. Multiple groups of people multiple changes. In sharp contrast my own area has a timeline that barely covers two centuries. And I’ve already been alive for a third of that. We have some decent records available. Aerial photography going back almost 90 years. Land use records. Photos taken in various villages showing the housing. If I applied those same guidelines to the village where my father was born, I know that the family was there since roughly 1840. Not quite two centuries but close. I know the boundaries of the family farm and where most of the burns sat having seen them myself. I know the roads have not shifted greatly over that time. I imagine that if I was to take my shovel and go dig in the backyard of my grandfathers, I would probably find some common artifacts. He was a blacksmith so there might be nails or pieces of machinery. I have not done so because the land is no longer owned by my family, but I could always sneak in undercover of darkness and see what I would find. Would the owners be puzzled by new holes behind the house? Would it seems there was buried treasure being sought by someone else? I really don’t know. On my own piece of land, we know that our house is the first building ever. No sense in digging around the foundations. We also don’t throw away shards of pottery or old tools or anything else that would make for an interesting documentary. All I can do is dream up stories to tell my own children that they can pass on to their children and so on. We went to visit my nephew who is in a vacation house that is on the same piece of land where my mother went to school almost a century ago. Not the same building but the stream was where the class would go to get water during mealtimes. That has not changed and the road going by the main entrance is the same road that people have used for again almost two centuries. I find the continuity to be intriguing. Probably not enough to inspire the English film makers to come this way but if they ever ask, I will have some answers.
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