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Smallpaul t1_jabrm0f wrote

Reply to comment by whereisfatherjack in Eli5: How did people know how long a year was in olden times? by Slokkkk

Both. They had neither the content of Wikipedia nor the technology to store it.

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whereisfatherjack t1_jac01n1 wrote

They had a lot of the content and they stored it verbally, through songs and poems.

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Smallpaul t1_jact4ov wrote

They had a tiny fraction of the content. They didn’t know what an atom was, not a galaxy, nor a continent, a complex number, etc.

They may have had wisdom about how to run their societies, live a good life and live in their local environment, but that is not the same as having vast global knowledge.

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