# So if I time traveled a guy from 2000bc to say 1500bc in his sleep... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 20, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367 "2017-10-20T15:25:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/1 "2017-10-20T15:25:27Z")
Would he wake up and immediately realize something was amiss? Or would all seem right with the world? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/2 "2017-10-20T15:33:02Z")
From a place like Ancient Egypt and or Iraq, yes he absolutely would. The Indus Valley one would probably be an alien in his own area. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/3 "2017-10-20T15:43:33Z")
Unless he went to sleep in a cave or out in the middle of a nondescript desert he’s probably going to notice the difference. Especially if he was sleeping on a blanket or pile of straw which doesn’t even exist 500 years earlier. Documentaries indicate that his clothes would time travel with him though. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/4 "2017-10-20T15:44:40Z")
I doubt that there has been any human group that hasn’t changed significantly in language and behavior over a 500 year period. They might seem more or less the same to an outsider, or looking backwards with limited details, but for someone living in it? No way would they miss it. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/5 "2017-10-20T16:03:32Z")
Start positions would have changed slightly and the sun would be rising in the wrong constellation on the equinox. In 2000BC it was Aries but in 1500 it was Pisces. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/6 "2017-10-20T16:51:39Z")
He’s gonna miss his family and friends. He’s going to miss his culture and language. This is after the advent of writing, so there is some stability in culture and language, but literacy was still pretty low, so there is plenty of drift. After 500 years, it’s likely that he would not be able to understand or be understood. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/7 "2017-10-21T15:56:11Z")
Even today, I don’t think we could understand someone from the early 16 c. That would be the era of Tyndale. We would do better with the written language, but it would still be hard. Go back another 100 years and we are in Chaucer’s era. Wann that Avril with his shoures soote. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/8 "2017-10-21T16:05:29Z")
Our cave man friend would be dazed and bewildered by noises we don’t even notice. Power line hum, a fan in an appliance, clock ticking. Stuff we totally ignore would annoy the poor guy. A vacumn cleaner would scare the heck out of him. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/9 "2017-10-21T16:11:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Our cave man friend would be dazed and bewildered by noises we don’t even notice. > > Power line hum, a fan in an appliance, clock ticking. Stuff we totally ignore would annoy the poor guy. A vacumn cleaner would scare the heck out of him. Re-read the question posed. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/10 "2017-10-21T16:14:31Z")
I missed the bc after 2000. Never mind then. Carry on… ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/11 "2017-10-21T17:31:25Z")
Yes, but what he’d notice would depend wildly on where he was. There were various civilizations that rose and collapsed in that time or went though major technology shifts - 2300BC to 1200BC is roughly the timeline to go from stone tools everywhere to bronze tools everywhere in Europe, areas got conquered or abandoned, and overall a lot was going on. It gets crazily severe if you take someone in the Mediterranean from 1300 BC to 1100 BC, as they’d see multiple kingdoms collapsed, virtually all cities in the eastern Med destroyed or abandoned, and overall a basically post-apocalyptic world. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/12 "2017-10-23T06:44:52Z")
In the Indus Valley, he would see tall and fair people, with a rural horse riding culture. He came from a settled and veru urban one. He would probably conclude that he had died and gone to whatever was hell in his culture. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/13 "2017-10-23T14:44:52Z")
But still, that change of 500 years would be far less shocking then 1517CE to 2017CE. I think it would be less shocking then even 1817 to 2017. The tech changes and the communications and travel times that go with it are such a improbable leap forward that no other time jump would really equate. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-if-i-time-traveled-a-guy-from-2000bc-to-say-1500bc-in-his-sleep/799367/14 "2017-10-23T15:52:44Z")
Read the OP earlier and didn’t respond at the time. My read on what was being asked was more along the lines of “If a guy from 2000 BC who was already wandering in a strange land and didn’t know anyone, didn’t speak the local language, and didn’t know the local scenery was plucked up and tossed into 1500 BC, would the world seem different?” i.e., that it wasn’t about “where did my girlfriend go?” or “why does everyone talk funny?” or “hey, the damn river moved!”, but rather about the long sweep of tech and social change, or lack thereof. We addressed the same general question [in this earlier thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=753227). (Part of why I didn’t answer earlier in this thread was that I’d posted in the earlier thread and was too lazy to look it up and too lazy to say the same thing again). Yes, the pace of change was glacially slow for most of human history, and no, I don’t think there was much appreciable difference in technology (or social change for that matter) in the 500 years between 2000 BC and 1500 BC.