> I would wager that if you could travel back in time to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, you’d find they’re just like us.
I find this viewpoint surprisingly underutilized in institutional history and archeology sometimes. I occasionally watch documentaries with distinguished talking heads on e.g. egyptology and what not, and they often bend over backwards to find complicated explanations that defy all "this is just not how humans or human organizations operate" logic. For example, analyzing an impressive building and then assuming that the same people capable of constructing it also made a basic mistake or in other ways assuming they were daft. Or requiring a complex lore/spiritual explanation for something that can be equally explained by classic big org fuckups.
I find this viewpoint surprisingly underutilized in institutional history and archeology sometimes. I occasionally watch documentaries with distinguished talking heads on e.g. egyptology and what not, and they often bend over backwards to find complicated explanations that defy all "this is just not how humans or human organizations operate" logic. For example, analyzing an impressive building and then assuming that the same people capable of constructing it also made a basic mistake or in other ways assuming they were daft. Or requiring a complex lore/spiritual explanation for something that can be equally explained by classic big org fuckups.