Paper 2: Alien Archaeologist 2
Value: 100 Points
Length: 3-4 Pages or Longer
Due Date: Thursday, October 26, 2023
As predicted, Dr. Quack has been kidnapped by aliens from the future
seeking to know more about human civilization and as before Dr. Quack has
gone into a catatonic state at seeing them (you would think he would be used
to them by now. In fact he does swipe technology from them... Wait a
minute
......
). Due to Dr. Quack's apparent state you, the Council of
Archeologists, have been commanded by The Supreme Commander to take
over the investigation.
Welcome to the second part of the Alien Archaeologist Assignment. Unlike
last time where human society as a whole was the subject of the essay, you
will be looking at a much narrower topic this time:
Human Communication
The Supreme Commander has ordered you, the Council of Archaeologists, to
once again take charge of the investigation.
He has noted that Dr. Quack had
his usual array of visual sources and you will make use of those as has been
done in the past.
You will need to make direct reference to at least eight of these sources in
your written report to the Supreme Commander.
You are to write these
essays as if you are alien archaeologists who know some English words, but
not necessarily what they mean. You also do not know if these were meant
for entertainment or some other purpose, such as news. Things that appear
to be normal to us might utterly baffle the aliens. At one point in her
interview, Betty Hill described how the aliens were baffled by Barney Hill's
dentures. It sounds silly. But think of it this way. Assuming the aliens had
studied humanity for awhile from a distance, they might know general
information such as what teeth are and what they are used for. But more
detailed or specialized information like the existence of dentures might
utterly baffle them as they have no context or information about them. Or a
person who had been raised in another country that didn't have professional
wrestling might not understand that it is fake and staged since they had
never been exposed to it. By the way, that person was my wife who was
almost driven crazy by my watching pro wrestling and the participants
