The nineteenth century was an age of important advancements.  Matches, sewing machines, the assembly line, and tin cans all came from this century.  It also saw the rise of Socialism and Marxism.  The 19th century also gave rise to better ways to store and transmit information.  The telephone was patented in 1876 (the same year as the first practical four-stroke combustion engine) and soon afterwards telephone wires were finding their way across the nation.  Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and people were able to record sound.  Increase in technology often brings an increased ability to share ideas and technology.  The faster it moves and the longer it can be stored, the easier it is to use that information.

Throughout history it has been important to preserve and transfer information.  Failure to do so results in time periods such as Egypt after the invasion of the "Sea people", the Greeks after the Dorian invasion, and the Dark ages.  History is full of mysteries that are only mysteries because the information has been lost. 

Peeling back the layers

As I have posted before, the eighteenth century was an age of advancement in politics, theology, and technology.  As an archaeologist, I am interested in the this time period as the origin of archaeology in America.  Thomas Jefferson is known as the "Father of American Archaeology" for excavating an Indian burial mound.  He excavated the mound layer by layer, taking careful notes along the way.  (http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-excavation-indian-burial-mound)  No one is known to have scientifically performed an excavation before this and his methods were comparable to that of archaeologists a century later.

Thomas Jefferson was not the first or the last one to excavate a burial mound, but the reason that he is credited as an innovator and pioneer is that he recorded what he found.  If we do not record and share information, others cannot benefit from our work.  If one person shares information, others do not have to do the same work for the same information: everyone benefits.  Christopher Columbus was not the first European to the Americas, but he was the European to spread the word (a good example of what I'm talking about even though it not from the eighteenth century).  When information is shared, other people are able to contribute the information that they have and the entire group is made better for it. 

(Hooray! I found out how to put pictures in my posts!)

We had the second Digital Civilization class today. I have been assigned to the eighteenth century and information groups. I have a basic knowledge of the eighteenth and it should be fun learning a bit more about that. It was the age of enlightenment and revolutions. It was the age of kings, philosophers, and pirates.

For my digital concept group I have been assigned Information. This is a bit more abstract than my other group. Information is kind of a big subject. I suppose I will be looking at information in the eighteenth century and how that relates to the digital age (the point of the class).

Still getting used to blogging.

How digitally civilized am I?

When I first thought about the question I thought that I'm probably at about the digital caveman level. As I continued to think about it I have come to the conclusion that I actually do a lot of digital things. I am not a computer science expert and I cannot program or write codes. I know enough for what I need and it works for now. I am interested in learning and would like to be more involved in the digital world, but change is slow and we will see how this goes.