Here’s the last video from this session, showing the assembly of the telegraph. Step by step, I’ve shown how a person could have made an electronic technology without the aid of industry- and thus at any point in history. Of course, no one past modern times will ever need to do this, even in the event of complete social collapse; there will be so much metal and material lying around to repurpose. Human industry has had a significant impact on the landscape, and the boundary between natural and artificial origin would be an arbitrary distinction to future techno-scavengers. As I have said earlier, it also difficult to imagine someone in pre-modern times desiring this object, since it’s electronic effect is so subtle, and a group would need to adopt it together for it to become useful.

Really, my premise of creating a place outside history falls apart if it is subjected to much scrutiny. Mineral County Montana, where I executed the project, has plentiful metal ores. Most of the ores on the surface, however, have long been removed by people. I scavenged the piles left over from hard rock, pick axe and dynamite mines. Nowhere in this area could I find flint or sharp rocks needed to begin the project (200 miles away in Idaho’s craters of the moon was the closest) so I started the process making stone tools with non-local materials. This metal rich area is an unlikely site for a prehistoric internet because it was uninhabited. The Clark fork river valley barely had an Indian trail going through it in this area. It was tall, ancient trees and rocky cliffs, with little rainfall or game animals to hunt, probably beautiful but not hospitable.