Archaeologists' Notes

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Dear Readers,

  In my work, I always find it exciting to get records from my time-normal counterparts, academics piecing together the timelines of those who came before them.  It's fascinating to see how their minds work in each and every time stream, and what conclusions they drew about their pasts.

  Many of you will think of a book that I loved as a time-normal child, called Motel of the Mysteries, which as I recall lampooned the discovery of King Tut's tomb to a 20th century North American drive-in motel room.  While the misinterpretations of this book were illustrative and humorous, there is real ground to be covered when you have records from both the archaeologist's civilization and the one that he or she studied.

   A source that I stumbled on some time back illustrates this well.  It's not about an archaeologist who misinterprets the past, or about the funny or kooky things that happen when archaeologists try to learn about the past.  Instead, what amazed me was how much the world had changed through the mirror of time and the evolution of our species in the time that intervened.  See her notes, transcribed from a voice recording, below the jump.

   Always,

   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman
   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople

Notes from __/__/__
Dr. Castro Harmonium

Abseiled through the opening today.  Uneventful descent could not predict discoveries within.  Will make for big paper.

First, describe the opening: Large concrete slab, unearthed three weeks ago.  In center, we located a break, and opened it with the heavy machines.  Beneath: central shaft, runs down a few hundred feet.  Along shaft found seven concrete floors, via radar.  Can't quite understand purpose of structure from these data.  Graduate students also puzzled.  Decided to descend.  They will follow.
Now at first concrete level.  Headlamp reveals machinery, form of large rectangular prisms.  Dusty and old.  Large, too.  Larger than would expect.

Pull out pocket generator to try and make them work.  Machines hum to life via induction.  Very big.  Very noisy.  Other machines come on.  Pocket system not good enough to run them; must have some backup system available.

Based on period of interest, equipment includes Universal Serial Bus interface.  Can explore systems of these machines.  Approach machine, plug in, navigate.  Discovery: machines are full of information.  Loaded with data.  No other purpose than collection and protection of data.

Locate administrative files.  Hypothesis confirmed, location called "Data Center" in ancients' tongue.  Shake head; machines dehumanized by such labor.  Not important task for them.  Barbarians knew nothing of their devices.

Read files.  Cached information.  Words stick out from textbooks: "Wikipedia," "Facebook."  Terms of narcissist age.  Shocked by candid individuality, selfishness.

Peruse data.

"Megan McSorley totes confsed with new facebook, wtf? dont see why they changed it, i liked better b4."

Word glares from screen.  "i".  Grammar wrong, doesn't matter.  Definite narcissist age.  This is a mother lode of data.  Each individual stored.  Each person, a page.  Connections formed between people to break down barriers that should never have existed in the first place.

Can feel the students now, from above.  Will arrive soon.  Will share discovery in collaboration.  Smile.

--END TRANSCRIPT--