Having been to Europe, it surprised me that so many large Roman structures were discovered nearly 2,000 years after they were abandoned. Such as the great Roman Baths of the city of Bath, England. It was discovered in the 1800s while they dug down 15 feet and discovered and immense labyrinth of ornate buildings that extended down dozens more feet. Or the strange bow-shaped curve in the otherwise straight road in Chester, England which road engineers attempted to straighten in the 1930s and discovered a large Roman coliseum underneath where they wanted the straightened road to go!

 

So I was wondering this while reading the Cleveland Clinic developments thread, with all of the parking garages they have built and are building. Sometimes I am confused by the things we do as Clevelanders, Ohioans, Americans and Humans. So if I get confused by this, what would an archaeologist think of our settlements, how they are designed, the items they might find within our homes and offices and shops and nightspots, etc.

 

For example, would they discover our televisions and notice that most of the seats in the room faced this device and conclude that the television was an object of religious worship? Maybe they would find our nightclubs and think this is where rituals were conducted since they may not know that these were places to dance to music since archaeologists may not be able to play a record or CD?

 

Or would archaeologists dig up all these parking garages and wonder why we built so many of these concrete and steel-reinforced caves then put these similar-looking, complicated masses of steel and plastic in them? They may confuse these for some kind of residential pods that we lived out of during our nomadic lives, going from place to place to wherever life-sustaining opportunities existed. They may wonder why we didn't just build more homes nearer to work as was discovered in digs throughout the rest of the world.

 

What are some things that we have which might confuse an archaeologist from 2,000 years in the future? Let's keep this focused on the topics of this forum, such as urban living arrangements, lifestyles, activities, settlement patterns and the various things we use everyday that might be seen as strange in the coming centuries or millennia?

May I suggest the book "Motel of Mysteries" for you? It's a children's book but its good entertainment. A .pdf form of it can be found on the internet with a basic google search.

 

Personally, I think we'll be viewed as a society that is wealthy and prosperous, but like the roman empire couldn't read the writing on the wall and adapt.

Why did they put so much food, and valuable glass and aluminum receptacles, into vast and heaping trash middens?

When Resident Evil Extinction came out, I remember people wondering what aliens would think of Earth if their first contact was the ruins of Las Vegas.