Timeline for Are there any examples of technologies have been lost over time?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 29, 2019 at 3:55 | comment | added | user8194 | @axsvl77 As usual, with cultural tech, technologies like these aren't monoliths that we either Have or Do Not Have. In general, each Polynesian society had their own variations on methods of navigation, many of which were lost, but a few of which survive. | |
| Jul 29, 2019 at 2:38 | comment | added | AllInOne | @axsvl77 i claim no special expertise but quote Wikipedia stating “widely lost”. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 23:42 | comment | added | Diagon | @T.E.D. - According to one film on Polynesian navigation, it was lost due to European colonizers banning it on threat of violence. With typical colonial arrogance, the Polynesians were told that it was not possible to navigate without clocks, sextants and maps, at that they were no longer to do it or each their children to do it. Europeans understood how central it was to Polynesian culture, and they were always very diabolically intentional about their tactics for destroying cultures. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 14:12 | comment | added | Ross Ridge | @CMonsour It's not at all clear why you would think a "cathedral", whatever you meant by the word, can't be built using modern techniques. I can't find any definition of the word that makes this a requirement. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 13:22 | comment | added | C Monsour | @RossRidge Some words have more than one meaning. We hope people can disambiguate based on conrext. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 6:43 | comment | added | Ross Ridge | @CMonsour Nothing was stopping them from building it using contemporary building techniques, as cathedrals have been built for centuries. A cathedral is simply a church that is also the seat of a bishop, regardless of how it was constructed. (Which means that Washington basilica isn't actually a cathedral.) | |
| Jul 27, 2019 at 14:08 | comment | added | C Monsour | @WoJ Cathedrals have a function today, but we would be hard-pressed to build one from scratch. When they built the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, they had difficulty finding people with the proper skills, and that was decades ago. | |
| Jul 27, 2019 at 13:22 | comment | added | WoJ | @CMonsour: no cathedrals are not obsolete as they have a function today. How an ancient crowd of people managed to, say, sail, is historically interesting but their know-how would be quickly made obsolete by better techniques, first by compass, and ultimately GPS. It is not that they had an extraordinary idea which got lost. Just better took over. | |
| Jul 27, 2019 at 12:34 | comment | added | Astor Florida | Has Polynesian navigation been lost? I saw a documentary in the 80's where Polynesians explained how it worked. | |
| Jul 27, 2019 at 2:06 | comment | added | C Monsour | @T.E.D. Ah, but what is obsolete? Are cathedrals obsolete? | |
| Jul 26, 2019 at 20:41 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | If we're counting techniques that were lost due to becoming obsolete, the list could go into the thousands. | |
| Jul 26, 2019 at 17:10 | history | answered | AllInOne | CC BY-SA 4.0 |