Deep time: the realms of discovery.

STEPHEN JAY GOULD, writing in An Urchin in the Storm (1987), used the term "deep time" to describe the vastness of geologic time. But the term is applicable to other depths of time experienced by human beings. The human mind envisions time at all its levels, psychological as well as that evidenced in layers of rock.

We may look back on the life of a half century past and regard that period as deep time. We may so regard the time of early settlement in North America, ten or a dozen generations past, in a similar manner. Or we may treat the eleventh century, the dawn of a new millennium, as true deep time in our civilization. Again, we may regard the beginning of the Christian era, as authentic deep time.

Others may regard the time in which Stonehenge was built as the deepest time in prehistory. Finally, the archaeologist may regard the age of cave painting in France and Spain--20,000 years ago--as the greatest depth of time we can conceive of, with man in a creative mode, that is. Of course, we are able to hold these various concepts in our mind at the same time, shifting our personal, historical or prehistorical emphasis according to our need to explore and ponder what lies beyond our current functioning in what some style real time.

Many people live in a single dimension of time, the present. Millions, however, give thought to the past, whether personal or historical. They measure current events and experiences against what has gone before. They search the past for understanding and reconciliation with the perplexities and hardships of the present. Each searcher of the past seeks a particular level of time, depending on what he or she wants to discover. And, at various times, different levels of time are sought out for exploration. We know that this has been practiced in our civilization for at least 2,500 years.

Herodotus, for instance, sought to understand how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. During much of history, life was short and brutal, and we cannot be sure to what extent ordinary people, the poor and illiterate, gave any thought at all to the past--beyond, let us say, their fathers' time. The habit of speculation about deeper levels of time surely was largely restricted to the educated and privileged. In our own technocratic age, the tendency is for the technically "educated" to be absorbed in strictly current matters of information.

Bringing past time to life has been a major activity of the human mind since the dawn of history. The classical world thirsted for the discovery of deep time as evidenced in the works of Homer and later, the formal historical works of Herodotus and Thucydides. The Romans were very mindful of the tracing of their roots into deep time.

From this stemmed the historical consciousness of Western Europe. The Renaissance sought deep time at the level of the newly rediscovered classical world. And with Napoleon's adventures in Egypt came the fascination with Egypt and Egyptology, which continued well into the twentieth century. The new century also brought with it a fascination with the neolithic world, the world of the megaliths and stone circles, and all the mysteries associated with these.

Then, about the time of the Second World War, came epochal discoveries of the vast decorated caves of southern Europe and a realization that people, once considered to be almost hairy apes, were people of extraordinary artistic accomplishments. As a result of this, moderns are able to identify with human beings who lived 600 to 700 generations ago.

As archaeological work continues and the world of 50,000 years ago comes alive in our imaginations, the process of human identification most probably will be extended to even this vastly lower level.

There is so much to learn at every level of time. To cite only one short period in human history, the period of the Black Plague in Europe in the fourteenth century, we begin to understand today that we know very little of the vast ramifications of the plague, which killed perhaps one third of the European population. The plague clearly had a colossal impact on Western society and economies, on work practices, ownership of property, class and human relations in every area.

In the post-World War II world, many people worried about mass extinction as the result of an atomic catastrophe. But a comparable situation already had occurred in the plague years with the depopulation of much of Europe.

Despite the colossal disaster, there were extraordinary achievements made in the terrible century. Witness the ongoing construction of the great cathedrals, a true mystery given the vast amounts of labor and sums of money required for these endeavors. The events at this level of deep time reveal the immense capacity of human society to carry out reconstruction amidst ruin.

Many hundreds of miles to the east and many centuries earlier, one finds another range of mysteries in another layer of deep time. Europe had some inkling of this layer inasmuch as it sought and treasured the spices and other exotic products of the Near East. To some extent, these had been known since the days of a Romanized Europe, but awareness of them increased enormously because of the European crusades to recover the Holy Land. And the Bible stories told of the frankincense brought by the Three Wise Men as gifts to the Christ Child.

From the coast of Oman it was transported in huge camel caravans across the desert along the edge of Arabia's Empty Quarter. The ancient camel tracks, like highways, can be seen in the desert today. Only now are we beginning to understand the full dimensions of this trade and the social and economic structures which supported and were a part of it. A book. The Road to Ubar (1999), sheds light on the trade which originated in one of the harshest regions on earth.

In an even deeper level of time, the Arabian peninsula had a much better climate and sustained great cities and vast stretches of irrigated agricultural land. This was the world of the fabled Queen of Sheba, whose people conducted the most far-reaching expeditions along the East Coast of Africa.

Africa before that is truly the Dark Continent in terms of contemporary understanding, except among a small group of scholars who know the range of the civilization of Saba and the ancient sea voyagers in the Indian Ocean. The Sabaean kingdom flourished between 1400 and 900 B.C. One wonders how much we shall learn about this world because of the unfortunate paucity of scholarly resources devoted to a search for understanding.

No doubt this accounts for the failure of college history courses to include the story of the great Chinese voyages along the East African coast in the late fifteenth century which, if they had not been halted by an anti-seapower faction in the imperial government, might have led to a rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and direct Chinese contact with Europe.

Finally, it is possible to ponder the deepest level of human experience, the time of the Neanderthals. Until recent years, scholars tended to dismiss them as lesser creatures; they were portrayed as being without any of the powers of modern men. Today, we are moving towards a new appreciation of the people who were the principal human type in the centuries before 30,000 B.C. First of all, as more Neanderthal skeletons are found, we are beginning to realize that they lived closer to us in time than previously believed. Their skeletons have been found in a number of caves long regarded as the exclusive habitation of Homo sapiens. Evidence of this is set fourth in James Shreeve's book The Neanderthal Enigma (1995).

And, while we are coming to recognize their essential humanity, we are recognizing that their outlook was probably very different from that of modern men. Scholars such as Shreeve now believe that the Neanderthals were less aggressive than homo sapiens, less interested in discovery and innovation. They apparently did not seek alliances with other human groups they encountered. Their large cranial capacity indicates their ability to retain memories, and they were guided by these memories, being profoundly conservative. Their mating customs also may have been very different, which led to a diminishing population of Neanderthals.

Shreeve speculates that they gradually withdrew to isolated pockets of land, possibly mountain valleys where they did not face competition for land and food. It was a self-destructive strategy built into their mental constitution. And that destruction was completed sometime after 30,000 years ago. But Shreeve also speculates that Neanderthals may have survived much longer in a few very isolated hideaways in the Urals and elsewhere, possibly down to 3,000 B.C.--an extraordinarily interesting theory. The goals of the Neanderthals were simply different. Shreeve believes that their chief goal was intimacy in life, with their own kind and their environment. Homo sapiens changed the direction of humanoid history, but the path taken was not necessarily the only one that could have been followed. The Neanderthals did not aim to overwhelm other peoples.

Whatever level of time we consider deep time, it is clear that the realm of discovery is a vast one that challenges our minds to open new vistas on human existence. The process of exploration of periods in the past enriches our comprehension of the background of the present. We realize that life is truly multi-dimensional to the most extraordinary degree. After making new discoveries in time, we never again accept the humdrum aspects of life as the normal arrangement of human existence.

We are changed by discoveries in deep time. We discern the vast galaxies of human experience over the centuries. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has said that there is a universe within each brain. And that universe is ever expanding as we probe the deep past. This is as an exciting a voyage as anyone can make. We may sail to Byzantium, to use William Butler Yeats's phrase, or we walk through the Alps with the Iceman from 5,000 years ago.

The potential of the human mind may be uncovered in many ways--through art, music, and archaeology. We are truly fortunate that in a new millennium, we have the scholarly tools to plumb whatever deep layers of time we select. Our historical and prehistorical horizons are widening for us all the time. As we delve into the past, our mind and spirit are profoundly enriched.

ANTHONY HARRIGAN is a retired journalist and long-time contributor to Modern Age.