Dear Editor,

Having grown up in a family whose dinnertime conversations were as often about the Civil War as about the high school basketball team, it comes naturally to me to be fascinated by the latest findings which offer us a glimpse into the past. The Pontiac Historical Society is processing photographs taken in the early 20th Century, revealing the fashions and family structures of that era.

In Turkey, there is a site where vast stone structures have been recently discovered, which are twice as old as the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Gobekli Tepe was accidentally discovered by a farmer attempting to clear a field to plant olive trees. The stones he was trying to remove turned out to be the tops of massive columns which were part of an ancient structure. It was built and then buried nearly 12,000 years ago, a time when it was previously thought that the people who lived there and then were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers. Apparently, their lifestyle was so successful that they had time and resources to carve and erect stone columns that would test the engineering talents of modern builders.

This morning, I watched videos on the preservation of Edmontosaurus by the extremely coincidental circumstances which desiccated the animals, then buried and fossilized the remains. The result is a very revealing three-dimensional sculpture of a creature that lived millions of years ago. Yes, millions of years.
All these artifacts of times past are available for us to study and ponder through the most unlikely of circumstances. Yet, here they are; ignore their testimony, only if you wish to remain ignorant of the past. So, how does this relate to our present time?

Civilizations come and go. They come into being, struggle to thrive, then grow old and senile, and fall prey to environmental changes. Sometimes, a trace of evidence is left, and sometimes it is found. Sometimes, the disappearance is forever.

Robert Wills, Thorne and Shawville