World’s Oldest Submerged City (We’ve Found)

What happens when you combine sea level rise, subsidence and earthquake activity?

You get Pavlopetri, widely known as the world’s oldest underwater city, located in southern Peloponnese, Greece. It’s no dramatic underwater wonder like most people picture Atlantis, but it is a UNESCO site — mainly because they’re trying to keep it from getting destroyed by ship anchors and looting.

The village dates to the Minoan era culture that flourished in and around Crete 5000 years ago.

At the rate we’re headed, there will be plenty more underwater cities to choose from 5000 years from now.

Prehistoric Beekeepers

We all know that humans tend to have a sweet tooth.

Which is why it’s no surprise that beekeeping and raids on wild hives go back thousands of years. Cave art near Valencia, Spain dating back 8,000-15,000 years ago depicts a woman collecting honey from a hive on a cliff while being swarmed by bees.

There are depictions of people gathering honey in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.

No matter what continent, wherever there have been humans and honey bees, chances are hives have been raided, people have been stung and honey was enjoyed.

What Retro-Future Are We Getting Wrong?

We are clearly in an era of booming space travel, or at least booming rockets.

The cultural perception of the future was writ large in comic books and magazines as the early space race began. Now we are seeing that come full circle as rockets and space suits are borrowing from what people thought the future would look like.

It’s much easier to imagine seeing spacecraft in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but what about going farther back to an even earlier retro-future?

If you were living in an era of abundant train travel, you could imagine a future where trains would fly overhead or become hotels . . . which is not quite what happened.

What might we be getting wrong now about our retro-future dreams now?

Rarámuri Runners

The Rarámuri (or “Tarahumara” in colonial-speak) people have made running a central part of their culture for generations.

Running over long distances in the Mexican state of Chihuahua and around Copper Canyon, the Rarámuri run as a necessity and as a form of prayer.

In 1993, a few Rarámuri runners decided to enter the famed Leadville 100 in Colorado and went on to win in ‘93 and ‘94 — wearing their customary huarache sandals instead of the running shoes their competitors wore.

Even amid shoe sponsorships of the Leadville 100, runners shunned free shoes in favor of making their own with scraps of tire they found in a local landfill.

World’s Largest Native Geometric Earthworks… in Ohio?

A little East of Columbus, Ohio, just south of West Main Street and near the Buffalo Wild Wings, are remnants of what were once the largest geometric earthworks in the world.

The site once spread across a 4-mile area, with mounds in some places reaching 14-feet high.

Called the Hopwell Octagon Earthworks, the Smithsonian’s American Indian Magazine reports that, “two millennia ago, what’s now called the Octagon Earthworks were part of the largest geometric earthwork complex in the world.”

Unfortunately, along came Manifest Destiny, urban sprawl and a golf course.

More recently, however, these massive earthworks were declared a Unesco Heritage Site where, amazingly, every 19 years, the moon lines up exactly with parallel lines within the site.

Sure beats golf!

Where the Bison Roam

The history of bison in the United States is a sad one, closely tied to some of the most tragic chapters of a genocide of people who predated white settlers on the North American continent.

We all know the story: Westward expansion decimated the bison along with thousands of Native people.

Today, as some people — including the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT) — try to preserve bison habitat, the Trump administration is taking a troubled page from history by pushing out bison in favor of domesticated cattle. (Or as COLT says, “DEI for cows.”)

Fortunately, the administration’s recent decision left bison alone as long as they were on tribal lands . . . but pushed them off public grazing lands.

Female Fliers

Amid the current tendency to rewrite history, it’s important to remember that some of the earliest pilots were women. Even before the WASPs of WWII, women were taking to the skies, flying rickety planes with open cockpits.

Everyone has heard of Amelia Earhart, but she wasn’t the only woman to fly in the early days of flight.

1929 saw the “National Women’s Air Derby,” a flying race that went from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio.

Yes, Amelia Earhart was in the competition (although she didn’t win), but so were scores of other women. Soon after, The Ninety-Nines were founded, a flying club that boasts thousands of women fliers today.

Hats Against Fascism

When residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota experienced the heavy hand of recent Trump administration immigration crackdowns, they looked to the past for inspiration.

Protesters in Minneapolis — and their supporters farther afield — took up knitting needles, fashioning knit red caps just like the Norwegians did generations ago as they resisted Nazi oppression.

During World War II, the resistance in Norway used simple red hats as a sign they opposed the fascist regime.

More recently, as federal agents descended on neighborhoods of Minneapolis, a small knitting shop thought it would be a unifying form of modern resistance to encourage people to do the same.

Needle & Skein, a local yarn shop, was overwhelmed with orders for their red “Melt the Ice” hats.

The Norwegians of the resistance would be proud.

About That ‘Supremacy’

The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games featured 18 Black athletes — 16 men and 2 women — competing for the United States.

Under the literal gaze of Adolf Hitler and amid the rise of nazism, Black athletes brought home 14 medals to the US.

The United States’ track and field team’s Jesse Owens was the standout, but there were many others competing, including 400-meter gold medalist, Archie Williams.

In what may be the best humble brag ever, 400-meter gold medalist Archie WIlliams said, “I was aware of their super race, whatever, “Aryan supremacy,” but they didn’t prove it to us!” 

Breathing Hole Hunters

As ice vanishes, a way of life may be disappearing as well.

An age-old way of hunting in the Arctic is to wait for your food to surface through a hole in the ice. In a cold, unforgiving environment, a missed chance at resupplying your food stores can mean the difference between life and death.

There is no question that Arctic sea ice is going away — amid a backdrop slashed funding for scientific research and a U.S. President trying to take over Greenland.

No ice will mean tough times for creatures above and below the ice.

The Mysteries of Cliff Dwellings

Throughout the Southwestern United States, hundreds of high cliff dwellings dot the landscape. Most require difficult climbs to access and are tucked into cracks, fissures or under large rock overhangs. A question has persisted for generations: why?

These structures were built over a thousand years ago when a myriad of different peoples and cultures lived throughout the continent.

The people who lived in cliff dwellings once lived on the flat land below and later abandoned the defensive structures in the cliffs as well. Archaeologists point to warfare, drought and even cannibalism.

We still can’t really agree on what these people were called. The term “Anasazi” is basically a slur used by the Navajo people who were hired by white men to rob the archaeological sites. The word has no relation to the Pueblo people who are the descendants of the cliff-dwellers. (Not to mention these people weren’t a single monolithic group.)

Craig Childs of the High Country News may have said it best,

“These people were Ancestral Puebloan, Hisatsinom, and Anasazi. And they were none of these.” 

The Cave Art of Lascaux

Deep underground near Montignac, France is a network of caves that contain some of the earliest, most impressive Paleolithic art ever found. And we have a dog to thank for this discovery.

In 1940, 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat was walking with his dog Robot, who found an entrance to a huge network of caves. The Lascaux Cave features over 6000 different drawings of Upper Paleolithic-era animals, people and abstract designs. The drawings are 17,000 to 22,000 years old.

The artwork in the Lascaux Cave contains some of the earliest known examples of depth and early perspective, which led Pablo Picasso, after visiting the cave, to say, “we have learned nothing in 12,000 years.”

A Culture of Nonviolence

Could you imagine being such a greedy and insecure colonial power that you force your subjects to buy salt from you? That was what the British Empire did in the waning days of their rule in India. (Though they didn’t yet know those days were waning.)

The Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt. After years of oppression, Mohandas Gandhi had another idea: nonviolent protest. In 1930, Gandhi led a march for 240 miles, ending at the Arabian Sea where the protestors would collect their own salt. After scores of other acts of civil disobedience, India won independence in 1947.

Gandhi’s principles and actions went on to inspire thousands of people trying to toss off the chains of oppression, from South Africa to the United States.

Remember that the next time you reach for the salt . . . or march in a protest.

Reviving Salmon Culture

UPDATE: Soon after this post was published, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that salmon had made it all the way to the headwaters of the Klamath River.

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After being without this crucial cultural and natural resource for over 100 years, the Yurok and Karuk people of far Northern California are celebrating the return of salmon.

In 1912, the first hydroelectric dam was built on the Klamath River — where indigenous people have lived and fished for thousands of years. Fast-forward to 2024, when four dams were removed and the “biggest dam removal and river restoration effort in history” took place. After the dams came down, it didn’t take long for those persistent aquatic fighters to return to their historical waters. In August, the last of the dams was demolished and by October salmon were spotted in the river.

The senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe was quoted in the BBC, saying,

“I couldn't believe they'd been spotted in Oregon. It was incredible news to hear – it was mind boggling. When I heard, I was like 'wait, already?!' They've exceeded any expectations anyone had."

Those are some tough fish who didn’t forget where they came from.

Dangerous Laughter

Telling jokes about the king has always come with risks. Court jesters in medieval times performed in front of the king and other royalty, sometimes delivering news wrapped in entertainment. Of course if the king thought you went too far, you might end up in a dungeon or worse.

We’ve seen a modern version of what happens when you displease the royal court, but fortunately Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air. (Today there is a corporate layer between the ruler and the entertainer, which may or may not offer protection to today’s jesters.)

Here’s hoping we stick with rule of the people and don’t continue the current slide back to the days of a royal court.

Migrant Farm Workers in the United States

Migrant farm workers are once again being demonized and forced to live in the shadows. President Trump’s devotion to ICE raids (and funding) has led to deportations, separation and death.

From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Bracero Program begun during World War II, the United States has a dark history of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment masked as “policy.”

In the waning days of the Bracero Program, faced with horrible conditions and repression, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta rose up to create the United Farm Workers.

Recently, another Huerta — David Huerta, head of SEIU California — was arrested by federal agents and held for three nights for peacefully protesting an ICE raid on a garment warehouse.

Worm Saves the Day

It is only recently that the United States Forest Service and wildfire managers have understood the benefits of “good fire” in promoting forest health. For generations, the federal government has portrayed fires as something that must be stopped no matter what.

The North Fork Mono people have a creation story that centers on a heroic worm, who helps rescue a falcon caught on a high rock spire by raising the water level — by using fire.

Using controlled fire to eliminate excessive underbrush can help raise the water table and make once-dry streams flow again. The North Fork Mono and their hero inchworm knew that.

If only someone had told Smokey Bear about 50 years ago.

Fossil-fuel Canoes?

If you’ve ever been to a Southern California beach within sight of the Channel Islands, you may have stepped on a tar ball. This part of California’s coast has long been tied to fossil fuels, with oil derricks covering parts of the landscape in the 1930s. In that era, California produced a quarter of the world’s petroleum, racing headlong into West Coast car culture and environmental destruction.

And those tar balls on the beach? Some of them come from naturally occurring “asphaltum” seeps, which the native Chumash people used to seal their canoes for thousands of years.

Long before the automobile would help change the very climate of our planet and an oil well blowout would blacken the waters around the Channel Islands (and help inspire the very first Earth Day), the Chumash were paddling their canoes, made waterproof by tar.

Before ‘English Only’

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 1, 2025 titled “Designating English as the Official Language of The United States,” as another tool in his administrations anti-immigrant toolkit.

But what languages flourished in what is now the United States before English speaking people arrived? Or before Spanish speaking people arrived?

Thanks to the work of Native Land Digital — an Indigenous-led organization based in Canada — we can easily visualize the richness and diversity of languages and peoples in the Americas and all over the world.

Compared to the multicolored splendor of thousands of Indigenous languages, “English Only” looks a little, well, boring.

Culture of Conservation

Way back in 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir went camping together in Yosemite. This was not a world of long presidential motorcades and helicopters. According to Roosevelt . . .

“John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days' trip.” 

Leading to what would become the United States’ renowned system of national parks, Muir pleaded with Roosevelt to preserve the wilderness lands of Yosemite - and beyond. John Muir is sometimes called the “father of the National Park Service.”

After listening to the recommendation that protected lands fall under the unified protection of the federal government rather than a patchwork of federal, state and local control, Roosevelt signed a resolution that put Yosemite under federal protection.

Today, efforts are under way to do the exact opposite across the country.