ABSTRACT
Money-grubbing fantasists like "psychic archaeologist" Erich von Dniken proclaim our forebears couldn't build anything impressive, therefore famous ruins must be the legacy of civilizers from outer space. Television documentaries show hearty, sweating guys experimenting with lifting big stones near the pyramids at Giza, or standing multi-ton obelisks upright, or launching galley ships with dozens of grunting rowers, while most archaeologists concern themselves with recording what exists and comparing those data to other sites. Controversies among archaeologists focus on interpreting why as well as how people made something, and whether technology was introduced from another society or independently invented. Time is the primary difference between ancient and modern technologies, with the ancients accounting for time-consuming hand labor by using large labor forces marshaled by the ruling elite. Mathematics is a broad field encompassing geometry, algebra, calculus, and statistics. It was practiced in many ways by many peoples in ancient world. Astronomical alignments are spectacular when they are built into stupendous monuments.
