Re: archaeology,
I found a digital version of "Ends of the World"... will add it to my reading list. Note that it will likely jump right past the two Star Trek 25yr anniversary books in front of it. (despite their high reputations, the first one at least started out as a crashing bore)
Trilobites could roll up like isopods? That's really cool, makes a lot of sense, and I'd never heard that before. Neat!
I've always felt that modern man has underestimated the intelligence of our predecessors. Our ancestors began making stone tools (hammers and crude stone knives) 2.5 million years ago. There is evidence that Neanderthals, 60,000 years ago, buried their dead in caves, and although it has been disputed, they may have even placed flowers or other ornate ornaments on the graves.
My feeling is that modern man is commonly so focused on productivity, self gratification and lucre-accumulation that collectively he tends to underestimate
everything around him, including the high degree of animal programming in our own brains and tissues.
Animals like crows and elephants (etc) can hold funerals, too, and IIRC Neanderthals were estimated to have larger cranial space than us, and to be of roughly equal intelligence!
Personally I've concluded that tribal life was humanity's healthiest, most mutualistic and most appropriate form of living, and that our industrial / high tech civilisation is something which has only existed for a brief moment in history, and will soon enough be blown away like a leaf in the wind via natural processes. But... maybe I digress.
There are many amazing archaeological sites around the world that boggle our minds. How did ancient Egyptians build the pyramids? How could the Incas fit those stones in Machu Picchu so precisely? How did the Druids place those stones in Stonehenge? We assume that we are more evolved and superior, and yet we cannot explain how these sites were constructed.
I'm given to understand that archaeologists have made some interesting breakthroughs on this stuff in the last few years & decades. I'll share a bit of what I've picked up in case it's of interest:
re: Egypt,
IIRC massive pyramid stones were likely transported by sleds (some found en situ in modern times) with the sand in front of them being systematically wetted so as to provide a nice gliding effect. Some of the other theories on that, such as groups of rolling logs underneath, have fallen out of favor it seems. In terms of the pyramids, I believe there's a well-developed and tested theory that proposes a massive spiral work ramp was likely constructed around the building, used to transport materials and for temporary stability, then removed once the... marble(?) tiles were plated around the pyramid as the final touch, long ago.
re: Incas,
My understanding is that the classic, painstakingly-carved stones in earthquake-resistant walls are not in fact all that deep along the Z-axis, and are actually a kind of facade. The interiors of the walls are filled with rubble, apparently. IIRC the really elaborate ones actually predate the Incas, and the art was already lost by that time, circa 1500 or so. The Incas stonesmiths would patch the walls sometimes, but the work is typically easier to identify because it's much rougher in nature. In many other cases of Incan architecture, evidently the walls were much simpler, simply because there was no good reason to spend massive amounts of time on them.
In any case, yeah-- certainly agree about how amazing the earlier works of man are. For me that would include places like Lascaux, impressive not so much for architectural reasons, but for what an enormous impression it can make on the psyche, i.e. descending in pitch darkness in to the deep, dark womb of the earth, then seeing those tableaus illuminated by flickering firelight, and perhaps even having a mystical sort of experience. That sort of thing.
Btw, the higher prevalence of perfect pitch in Asians makes a lot of sense to me given how important it is to pronounce things so exactingly in several (most?) of their languages. Maybe that also relates to how I find Asians to be good karaoke singers on average.