The Americas and Time Keeping: Crash Course History of Science #5
In this episode of Crash Course History of Science, we travel to the Americas to ask the question, "When are we?" and get some answers. We'll look at the Maya, Inca, and Olmec civilizations...
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Let’s recap the history of science so far: systematic knowledge-making has probably occurred as long as humans have been around. Unfortunately, historians rely primarily on written records, and those are only a few thousand years old. Although ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Chinese cultures had writing and useful sciences, we started with classical Greek and Indian cultures that developed systems for understanding the cosmos and all the stuff in it. Today, we’re going to jump through space to see how other cultures made knowledge at roughly the same time without any contact with the peoples of Africa, Asia, or Europe. This is a story about the planet Venus, breathtaking pyramids, and most of all the question “when are we?” What is time, and how do...
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Let’s recap the history of science so far: systematic knowledge-making has probably occurred as long as humans have been around. Unfortunately, historians rely primarily on written records, and those are only a few thousand years old. Although ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Chinese cultures had writing and useful sciences, we started with classical Greek and Indian cultures that developed systems for understanding the cosmos and all the stuff in it. Today, we’re going to jump through space to see how other cultures made knowledge at roughly the same time without any contact with the peoples of Africa, Asia, or Europe. This is a story about the planet Venus, breathtaking pyramids, and most of all the question “when are we?” What is time, and how do...
