An article by Gautam Naik, "Arrowhead Case: Knapping Hits a Spot For Flint-Stone Fans" appeared in the 10/6/05 Wall Street Journal, on the modern-day hobby of "knapping" -- making Stone Age tools the Stone Age way. Naik quotes knapping superstar Jim Spears: "Every stone is different and every stone is a challenge... It helps me get into the minds of ancient people."
The means by which we interact with the world -- tools, processes, production, rituals -- structures and bounds our thinking. To understand a people, try out their tools. Okay it's more complicated than that, and it would be extremely difficult to forget everything we know and the way we know it -- the recreation of the past is always problematic -- but immersion into the tool culture of a people provides a peek into a different consciousness.
jd
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Not sure if this is the same thing, but...
Even spending two days in the Shawnee National Forest backpacking, with modern-day camping equipment, can cause subtle shifts in consciousness. I could feel the grinding of my psychic gears as I shifted back into the world of interstates and truckstops and the sprawl of choices of 21st-century American civ.
Inasmuch as the tools and technology (including clothes, boots, etc.) shape and structure our interactions with Nature...
jd
jd
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