Patrick Wyman: Lost Worlds

Description

In this episode, Therese Markow and Patrick Wyman discuss Patrick's latest book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World. Patrick also discusses his journey as a historian from studying the Fall of Rome to popular history. He emphasizes the importance of understanding past climactic changes and their impact on human societies, including the development of agriculture and the rise of social hierarchies. Patrick also highlights the significance of migration and the diverse burial practices that reveal aspects of ancient societies' beliefs and social structures.

Key Takeaways:

Human history is not stable, and it always starts with the climate. Climate and environment are the unavoidable parameters within which everyone is living, and, whether people are aware of them or not, they are responding to the pressures and shifts that are happening climatically around them.
Abandonment of sites and cities happens over time and often for a variety of reasons that are always specific to the climate systems and problems of that particular area.
Modern science, like ancient DNA extraction, now allows us to learn more about dynamics in ancient periods that we never could have seen before.
Funerary practices vary across the world in ancient times, as they do in modern times. Often, it is based on one of two poles: when people die, are their spirits potentially dangerous (ghost society) or potentially beneficial (ancestor society)?
Every single one of the billions of people who lived was living a life that was full, rich, sophisticated, and complex.
As humans, we have been through big, crazy stuff, and yet we are still here and still thriving. Humanity is incredibly durable, and we can make it through some really, really bad times if we work hard and work together.

"Migration is humanity's most basic tool for getting out of bad situations and finding better ones. The simplest possible thing you can do if things get bad wherever you're living is to move somewhere else. And this has been our response at every time and on every geographic scale over the course of human existence." — Patrick Wyman

Episode References: