One of my big interests, dating from my early childhood, is archaeology and ancient history.  Why?  Maybe because it gives us a glimpse into the lives and cultures of people who lived so long ago, the deep origins of who we are today, the mind-boggling discoveries that are constantly expanding our knowledge of what happened hundreds and even thousands of years ago.  The puzzles that we are solving, or at least coming close to solving, year by year.  The Mycenaean script called "Linear B" was deciphered in the 1950's.  Will "Linear A" be deciphered in my lifetime?

When I was younger, the origin point of the Indo-European family of languages was very fuzzy.  There were theories based on rudimentary clues, but no one knew.  I always thought to myself, "When I die and go to heaven, I will ask God what the origin of the Indo-European family of languages was."  Well, I've crossed that question off my "To Ask God" list because now the answer is pretty clear.  Similarly the answer to the question "What impelled the mass migrations of the (so-called) barbarians from Central Asia into the Roman empire in the fifth century?"  At this rate, I will run out of things to ask God when we finally meet face to face; we will just exchange pleasantries and chit-chat.

The clues to ancient history are everywhere,  The present-day boundaries of parishes in England reflect the boundaries of Britano-Roman villas in the early centuries A.D.  The Romans are long gone and the villas have vanished (unless archaeologists dig them up, which they often do), but the boundaries persist.  What was it that happened in 536A.D. that so changed history around the world?  One by one the clues are uncovered and the story emerges, from ancient DNA and ice cores and ancient oral histories that now suddenly make sense.

Our ancestors were pretty tough customers, a lot smarter than we give them credit for, stronger, braver, tougher, able to figure things out in ways that astound us now.  And the wonderful thing is that we will never stop learning more about them, the people whose blood runs in our veins, and their lives will never cease to be oh, so relevant to our own.