Ed Barnhart: commitment

Transcript context

…You don’t want to lean into the mystery too much. It’s such a weird discipline because you’re operating in… It’s really in a dark room. You’re feeling around a dark room. So it’s mostly mystery. I would say a lot of sciences operate in a mostly well-lit room. It’s like a dark corner and you’re figuring out a way to light it. But yeah, in archeology, most of it is a mystery. Right? Yes, it’s job security. I like that part. But I do also try to always remind myself that every paradigm shifting idea that humans have ever had began as heresy and lunacy. That guy was crazy up to the second. He was brilliant. And so we got to keep our minds open to the things that sound outlandish, because one of them eventually is going to lead us to the big paradigm shift. And if we are busy burning books of ideas that we don’t like, that’s where we close our minds to the possibility of advancing things. I really love that, and I really appreciate that you’re saying that. One of the fascinating things about just the Amazon to me is that there’s still a large number of uncontacted tribes. To rewind back into ancient history, you can imagine all of these tribes that existed in the Amazon that were isolated, very distinct from each other. Can you speak to this, your understanding of these tribes and their history that are still here today?…

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