Civilization Quote by Doris Lessing
““A hundred years of scholarly thinking has stretched back a million-fold the age of the Earth. But these same diviners, antiquarians and scholars are thinking now as they did a hundred years ago, when it comes to the age of civilizations; they can't even begin to concede that civilizations might have very old histories. The Earth is allowed to be millions of millions of years old, but the birth of civilization is still set somewhere between two thousand B.C., depending on the bias of the archaeological school and the definition of civilization.””
About This Quote
Source Essay: The Danger of Thinking Too Much About Time, Doris Lessing, 1990
People cling to outdated timelines for civilization, ignoring evidence that human societies may be far older than conventional dates suggest.
In simple terms: Civilizations may be older than we think.
Key Takeaway
Question assumptions about historical timelines.
Themes
history
archaeology
bias
civilization
chronology
Mood
thoughtful
critical
inquisitive
Type
analytical
philosophical
When to use this quote
- Academic research
- museum curation
- public education
- media reporting
Key Concepts
Chronology
Epistemology
Cultural Relativism
Questions to Reflect On
- What evidence could reshape our view of civilization’s age?
- How do biases affect historical narratives?
A Different Perspective
New evidence can be dismissed due to entrenched paradigms.
![“We are just a blip. I found it very interesting when Clive [Oppenheimer] interviewed the Ethiopian scientists and asked them, "Do we have another 100,000 years?" In their calculation, mankind will be entering a very critical phrase a thousand years from now.” quote by Werner Herzog](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/5c5/werner-herzog-964_calculations_we-are-just-a-blip-i-found-it-very-inter_3209986.jpg)
