(June 24, 2015 at 2:42 pm)Rhythm Wrote: You imagine that they (early ag societies) had less free time than we do now, less discretionary wealth (regardless of opportunity to spend it), but this isn't -actually- true.
Even if they had free time and little bit of coin in their pouch, its not like they could pop on down to Sears or take a weekend off to visit stonehenge. Planet money podcast had an interesting piece about the history of light. 4,000 years ago a days wages got you 10 minutes of light. 100 years ago a days wages got you 5 hours of light. Today a days wages gets you 20000 hours of light. The point I am trying to make is that we live in unprecedented times. Where we're at today compared to just 100 years ago is amazing and I do think it skews our understanding of the past