WASHINGTON—A team of leading archaeologists announced Monday they had uncovered the remains of an ancient job-creating race that, at the peak of its civilization, may have provided occupations for hundreds of thousands of humans in the American Northeast and Midwest.Link to the full story.
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With his team having so far cataloged the decaying ruins of more than 400 edifices believed to have been used solely for human employment, Mueller said he now believes the inhabitants of mid-20th-century North America may have built their territory—in particular, the Great Lakes region and northern Appalachia—into one of the most advanced and prosperous civilizations in the world.
Numerous scholars told reporters the findings have challenged everything they thought they knew about the fundamental organization of human societies, calling it "staggering" and "almost unbelievable" that a culture predating our own had been able to provide work to nearly every person who sought it.
"By today's standards, the job creators' society was highly unusual," anthropologist Carla Delgado of the Smithsonian Institution said. "One of its more bizarre customs involved workers being employed at the same job at the same location day in and day out for their entire adult lives. It was grueling, perhaps, but astonishingly, some of these individuals were able to set aside part of their earnings for the future, slowly saving money with the hope of improving the prospects of their offspring."
"The amazing part is, this bafflingly high level of economic security went on for generations," Delgado added.
Archaeologists who participated in digs on the sites described ghostly scenes of intact but empty homes, halted conveyor belts, and crumbling storehouses still full of the lost people's signature "auto parts."
By examining recovered artifacts, they have reportedly been able to decipher the names of what they speculate must have been the grandest settlements from the height of the job creators' empire: cities known among the ancients as Gary, Lansing, Cleve-Land, Sandusky, and Pitt's Burg.
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Ancient Inhabitants of Pitt's Burg
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I was laughing along, then got fairly irate about the ending:
"'The remaining local population has its own mythology to explain the job-creating race's disappearance,' Decker said. 'Legend has it that they never died out, but rather entered a state of deep slumber from which they will one day awaken, bringing increased employment with them.
'And perhaps it's best to let the locals hold on to this belief,' Decker added. 'It's really the only thing they have left.'"
I'm OK with the part about the myth, because certainly there are some people clinging to that notion. But the attitude in the last line is actually part of the problem--going backward is not in fact the only hopeful scenario.
And obviously someone didn't get the memo on what has been happening in Pitt's Burg during the Great Recession.
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