A few days ago I settled down to watch 'Time Team', a Brit TV show about archaeology in which they visit various sites ranging from neolithic, iron/bronze age, through to roman, medieval and more modern to complete a short dig while cameras roll.
This week's episode was on Blaenavon in Wales, which had a large iron ore deposit at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Their task was to uncover a viaduct built between two hills, on which ponies pulled steel wheeled carts of ore from the mines. The viaduct was 40 metres long and 10 high. It was built in 1790, yet only 25 years later it had completely vanished, already obsolete.
The viaduct was never demolished, instead it was buried under tons of industrial waste and rubble, discarded because of the speed at which new transport and industrial methods were being discovered.
And here we are, a few years into the digital revolution and already we have a mountain of discarded 'new technology' beneath our feet. I couldn't help but draw a parallel between the wastefulness of the Blaenavon viaduct and the speed at which we discard working technology for something else, just because it is newer.
If anyone is interested, there is a drawing of the viaduct on page 4 of this pdf.
http://www.rcahmw.gov.uk/pubs/Cofnod-Newsletters/Cofnod-4-Newsletter.pdfInterestingly, Blaenavon is now listed as a World Heritage industrial landscape site, in the way that Redmond or Silicon Valley may be in the future.
Edited to include this link:
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/archive/2001ba.html