That's the other thing, the doodles here are really poor, like, they look like a toddler's drawings. I feel like a modern average adult would produce better doodles.

Possible it was a child, the drawing especially is like something a child would doodle

I will also add that these things didn't just pop up from day one fully formed. No one's first ship was a tessarakonter. They would have started with some proto-ships, basically anything that could float, and overtime learn what makes the best floating stuff, perfect it, build upon it, etc.

Same with bridges, no one's building the Golden Gate on their first attempt. Early ones would have been very temporary, and quite even just "well we can walk across that spot that has a tree down, so why not just bring a tree down ourselves here?" Overtime you can learn to make them stronger, to bring more supplies over, to bring more people over, and eventually you might say "hey, we cross over this exact spot 7 times a week, but we're always replacing this wood, what else can we do here?"

While it would be mistaken to try and understand technology in a technology tree sort of way where it's all linear and constantly improving upon itself, especially in these prehistorical and ancient history societies, it might be okay to sorta imagine it like that if it helps gain a wider understanding. Better bridges required a better understanding of things like maths, physics, etc. Combining the understanding of building materials, purpose, arches, over time throughout many generations. The more a society grew, the more information they learnt, the better things could potentially be.

Disease prevalence was mentioned already, so I'll mention location.

While it has been extensively documented that Vikings had many settlements on modern day Greenland, the same cannot be said of modern day Canada. The only undisputed settlement on Canada is L'Anse Aux Meadows, located at the northern-most tip of the island of Newfoundland. It should be noted that this site is believed to have been rather short-term and small in scale — it was used for several decades, upwards of perhaps a century, and was significantly less populated than settlements in Greenland. This is because the site lacked features that are typically associated with permanent, constantly-populated settlements (animal pens, agriculture, burial sites, etc.).

Part of why the Europeans devastated the Native Americans with disease was because they established permanent, populated settlements on continental North America. The permanence of these settlements meant that by extension there was always a permanent source of disease to infect the Native Americans. Also, because the settlements were on continental North America, that made it a lot easier for trade and travel to occur, thereby spreading the disease. Much easier than if your settlement is located on a island, which would either limit you to trading just on that island or demand you having to get on a boat and go elsewhere to trade then boat back to the settlement.

Ein-comment-schadenfreude? Autoschadenfreude!

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Herodotus is frequently cited as the world's first historian. In ancient times, the study of history wasn't so much a subject as the study of philosophy with Historical events as examples in philosophical discussions. In earlier times...people had their oral histories until people such as Home collected these and assembled them into the Iliad and/or his Odyssey. Of course the earlier books of the Old Testament are codified oral histories as well. The ancient Egyptian told stories in their hieroglyphs. Someone focused on the story of history would almost always originate from the upper classes as they were the only ones with the wherewithal to expend time and energy on such things without the need for finding food.

People are all the same species. Why do beavers from different areas do the same things? Why do animals of different species and different continents do similar things in broad strokes?

As to your final question, reverse everything. Why the vast variety of differentiation in animals across the world? How have basic human needs been met with the diverse responses of humans to their needs?

I'm not sure the sketch is even about the other not noticing them. To me it looks like wave type of greeting. An affectionate meeting between two people

One reason is that the disease most responsible for decimating Native American populations was smallpox and smallpox does not seem to have been nearly as common in Early Medieval Europe as was in the Early Modern Europe.

Among Eurasians and Africans, the mortality rate of smallpox was 30%, but among Native Americans and indigenous Australians, it was more like 90%.

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Since most of those nations didn't read and write, they transmitted everything through oral stories .... north American indigenous nations for sure.

Why didn't Finland join NATO after WW2 considering the Soviets and them had multiple wars only a few years prior?

In Rome few would have studied history directly.

History would mainly have been learned as a means to study other things, like politics, military arts, as a way of learning pietas (the roman concept of duty and loyalty towards the family and Rome). For example the life and campaigns of Alexander would have been a core part of pietas and military training (and Ceasar was noted as being a huge Alexander fanboy).

But if you wanted to study history then there would have been numerous chronicles written and available at libraries and private collections, most of which are lost today and only known second hand through historians like Polybius, Diodorus and Arrian (who had an almost unrestricted access to the writings of the hellenic and pre-hellenic world).

History was not always taught in classes. For example, many Indigenous nations transmitted histories through oral stories.

Why did the Native Americans not suffer from disease etc. when the Vikings landed, and traded with the inhabitants of Vinland? Weren't they established there for a number of years?

During Protestant Reformation wars, if an army found Bibles with books that weren't canon to their version what would they do with the books?

You could just have written that we continue to do nothing serious about climate change. That will disrupt society enough that history disappears as people use their energy trying to survive in a world that has fallen apart.

The society that results will use its energy to look forward, not back, as it’s resources don’t allow for all the effort required for the upkeep of historical records.

Just going off what has happened in the previous examples of society breaking down; and this one will be much, much worse.

Not as much as is saved now, but those resources were more substantial than you might think.

Usually not much in an archive or library ... anything written was expensive so a lot wasn't written.

Except the technology means they don’t need to rub a pencil over 1,200 + year old manuscripts hoping to see if they find anything on each of the many pages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1c2OfAzDTI

I mean I would not be surprised to see the name Ethel be revived.

You said Edward and Robert are "rarely used" which is far from correct.

>Isn't the western region more mountainous and the eastern region predominantly flat lowlands?

What you're thinking of is the Yucatan, which is, indeed, a giant flat slab of limestone. But much of the eastern region is also, for example, the Guatemalan highlands, or the Peten jungle, and the terrain even in the northern Yucatan is still pretty rough to actually travel across.

This all being said, as I said in my comment here, it's mostly a myth anyway.