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Tikal Timbers and Time

There is a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science that Tim O’Reilly pointed out in his Twitter stream.  It points to resource over-use by the Maya over the course of a few centuries. This would seem to lend credence to former Seminar speaker Jared Diamond’s collapse theories.

Abstract

Tikal, a major lowland Maya civic-ceremonial center in the heart of the Petén region of Central America, relied heavily on the adjacent lowland rainforest as a resource base for fuel and construction materials. In this study, we analyzed 135 wood samples from timbers used in the construction of all six of the city’s major temples as well as two major palaces to determine which tree species were being exploited and to better understand ancient Maya agroforestry practices during the Late Classic period. We found evidence for a change in preference from the large-growing, upland forest species, Manilkara zapota, to a seasonal wetland species Haematoxylon campechianum in A.D. 741 as well as a decrease in lintel beam widths over time. Though M. zapota later returned as the wood species of choice in A.D. 810, beam widths were found to be significantly smaller. These findings concur with models that hypothesize widespread deforestation during the Late Classic period and indicate a declining forest resource base by the 9th century A.D. Because of the many large timbers available for temple construction in the 8th century, some system of forest conservation is indicated for the ancient Maya prior to the Late Classic period.

Source:

Journal of Archaeological Science
Volume 36, Issue 7, July 2009, Pages 1342-1353

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Filed under: Life, the Universe and Everything, The Long Now Foundation

Black Swans, complexity, financial collapse etc.

A very thoughfull guy, John Petersen, looks into the future and explains what our societies are facing with the current transformations onset by the evergrowing complexity in the world. Being a remarkably diverse fellow, Petersen elaborates further on the widely misunderstood impact of what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls ‘The Black Swans’ and gives some other examples on the nature of the complexity mentioned before by i.e. philosopher John Key and mathematician Benoit Manderbrot, to explain why some unprecedented things are afoot. John Petersen, a futurist and the president of the Arlingtion Institute, reinforces his talk with some very interesting statistics worth our consideration, i.e. “The world population has grown more in the last 50 years than in the 4 million years that preceded it”, and the notion that within 20 India years will probably grow to become the most important country in the world… He also talks about the oil production peaks and the importance of harnessing new energy sources.

In short, a very intelligent and thoughtfull lecture on the socio-economic situation of the world today that pust things into perspective and what may be ahead of us.

Here’s the YouTube description and below it the whole playlist of the lecture:

Very thoughtful analysts and theoreticians are now suggesting that we are at the beginning of a full-scale meltdown of the world’s financial system – not just a recession. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, extraordinary investor and author of The Black Swan, and mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot now believe that this financial failure has the potential to be the most significant event since the American Revolution. Couple that with a rapid shift in the planet’s climate system, rising food prices, and a reorganization of the world’s energy regime, and one has the makings of an historical shift in the way we all live that is unlike anything anyone alive has ever considered or experienced. At the same time, extraordinary breakthroughs in science and technology promise that much of what we find familiar will soon be obsolete and give themselves up to amazing new capabilities that seemed like science fiction only a handful of years ago. We are in the beginning of an epochal shift that will ultimately produce not only a new world, but also new humans that have a new set of values and perspectives. Leading world futurist John Petersen explores not only what is happening and might happen – but also what might come out of it all.

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Filed under: Collapse of Society, Financial Crisis, Life, the Universe and Everything, Nassim Taleb, Video