Open Source Civilization and the Unexpected Origins of the Silk Road

Michael Frachetti presents through The Long Now Foundation

Michael Frachetti will be presenting his talk "Open Source Civilization and the Unexpected Origins of the Silk Road" on Monday, February 26 at 7:30PM (Pacific Standard Time) at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. The presentation is part of Seminars About Long-Term Thinking through The Long Now Foundation. 

Seminar Introduction

Travel the ancient Silk Road with an archaeologist researching a revolutionary idea.

Nomadic pastoralists, far from being irrelevant outliers, may have helped shape civilizations at continental scale. Drawing on his exciting field work, Michael Frachetti shows how alternative ways of conceptualizing the very essence of the word “civilization” helps us to recast our understanding of regional political economies through time and discover the unexpected roots and formation of one of the world’s most extensive and long-standing social and economic networks – the Silk Road that connected Asia to Europe.
 
Archaeologist Michael Frachetti is an Associate Professor with the Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis and author of Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia (02008).
 

The Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. We hope to foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

Seminars About Long-Term Thinking Podcast

The Long Now Foundation produces two monthly audio podcasts, one for each of their ongoing lecture series, which you can subscribe to. Long Now podcasts and videos are free for everyone to enjoy thanks to the support of their donors and Long Now members. 

The Long Now Foundation's monthly Seminars were started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking; to help nudge civilization toward our goal of making long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare.