16 March – I made a comment about the discovery of the earliest human symbols. My old friend Cornelius Holtorf is surely right to point out that this story of “first occasion” belongs with a metanarrative of “origins”.

The story – this was where things first began to look like they are today.

The problem – viewing history only in terms of a progression towards the present is tremendously distorting and says more about the present than the past. In seeking origins we don’t learn anything new.