@tinker And WHAT WILL THEY MAKE OF LEGOS!!!????

@tinker so, when I encountered one of these test objects at home sitting on a counter, my first thought was that it resembled this really old-fashioned toy that I know about: a plastic boat with a little chamber that you put baking soda and citric acid (or whatever) into and then close it down so there's just a little stream of bubbles coming out the back of the boat, and it'll move through the water that way, farting out bubbles of carbon dioxide to impel itself

@tinker
Archeologists in the now:

(Old archeologists) The people of this archipelago were primitive because we found no interesting rocks.

(Young archeologists) Based on this boat we found sunk in deep fresh water they had a complex and refined woodworking culture 100k years earlier than your stone working civilization.

(Old archeologists) All these people walked here on a land bridge you know...

(Young archeologists) - rolls eyes in a 'racists will soon be dead' way.

@tinker will be declared a forbidden relic, in the future timeline described on the show Silo.

@tinker
obviously a sophisticated fishing calendar, duh

@tinker not unlike my very important dodecahedrons

@tinker High-status people were buried with such objects to ensure their access in the afterlife. In the essay...

@tinker "likely"?

@tinker "...but we don't know why. Okay?"

@tinker

<archaeologist voice>
these were built every year and tossed into the shores of Lake Superior in a solumn ceremony in order to appease to their deity named Edmund Fitzgerald.
</archaeologist voice>

@tinker Hip archaeologists: we believe it was used in some arcane fertility ritual.

@tinker
Would they be wrong, though?

@tinker They’d be right about the ritual part. We print it and pray that the bed is level, hot end temp is set correctly, slicing didn’t do anything weird, and everything works as intended!

@tinker https://onlinecampus.fcps.edu/media2/Social_Studies/WHGII_2010/Era1Topic2/Resources/Motel_of_Mysteries.pdf

I got my avatar from this, might be of interest

@tinker
...And Steamboat Willie was some sort of powerful deity.