Mirror Shades

Sometimes I wonder if other species are as obsessed with their past as humans are. When I read about artifacts, tombs, temples, and other archaeological findings, I experience them as part of our collective history. We can point at this history and learn from it. Transmit that knowledge into future generations. It is a collective consciousness that we share and of which we are cognizant.

Cool.

So, do other species think about it this way too? Do they transmit their knowledge to future generations. I believe some animals do, but obviously not to the extent that humans do with their tools and linguistic-symbolic abilities.

Lost in the streets of Old San Juan, one of the earliest Spanish settlements in the Americas. I raise my camera. How can we even look back through the fog of centuries to those bygone times?

Scientist have behavioural experiments to test an animal's ability to recognize itself in the mirror, and thus demonstrate self-awareness. Apes, dolphins, crows, elephants, and other animals have passed this test and seemingly demonstrated recognition of their selves as separate from the rest. Strangely animals like cats, dogs, and monkeys fail the test. What about awareness of their collective selves as separate species from the rest?

Archeology is the mirror on which we recognize our selves as part of a larger cultural matrix and collective entity. After all, who cares about broken pottery? But what if that pottery told you about the people who inhabited that region? Their customs and behaviors. The relationships between them across time and space. Now things get thrilling!

A car beeps and races by. Tropical music and laughter. The smell of food wafting from restaurants. Evening falls in the alley and all alleys across San Juan where the breeze sighs in Atlantic azure as the moon rises above the sea.

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