There was also some evidence that these primitive people tossed a Frisbee, played Scrabble, and drank mojitos on the beach, but as the researchers concluded, “That was most likely trash left behind by Professor Wainwright and his college buddies when they came to visit one weekend.”

The report has me wondering: What will happen when some future civilization looks back on us? Will future archaeologists dig up remnants of today’s society 160,000 years from now and conclude that we were modern? With our luck, instead of digging up an iPhone, a plasma television, or a Prius, they will uncover one of those giant, inflatable lawn decorations and conclude we were morons.

Future humans will be snooty that way. They will see themselves as far superior to us. That’s what 160 millennia worth of evolution and technological advances can do to a person. Our lives, as deciphered by the archaeologists, will seem primitive and filled with superstitions.

“They inflated large balloon icons on their front lawns to ward off evil spirits or to pay religious homage to their gods,” is what archaeologists of the future will probably conclude in their NIH-funded studies.

How wrong they will be. Those inflatable lawn decorations are not there to ward off evil spirits or serve some religious purpose. They are there to, um, well I don’t exactly know why they are there, but I’m darn sure it isn’t for those reasons.

By the year 162,007 humans might even transcend the basic human form, becoming sentient orbs of pure energy. The energy equivalent of a hundred billion, trillion static electricity shocks – the kind you get touching a doorknob after walking across carpeting - going off all at once. But with a light as bright as those new car headlights that can sear a retina as if it were a T-bone steak on a hot grill in seven seconds.

In fact, a major complaint among orb couples of the future will be that one spouse glows too brightly, keeping the other awake at night. Other complaints will be that the male orb keeps scorching the furniture, doesn’t put his dirty laundry in the hamper, and leaves the toilet seat up.

If people haven’t become energy orbs by then, they definitely will communicate primarily through mental telepathy. I base this on the fact that every advanced civilization featured in a sci-fi flick or on the old television show “The Twilight Zone” communicated this way.

What I never understood is why they always look so pensive when telepathically communicating. Painfully, so, as if they need a laxative. Here’s a little advice, “Loosen up future people. Just because you communicate telepathically, doesn’t mean you must look as though you have a migraine that could drop an elephant. Be animated, exhibit facial expressions, use hand gestures. Go ahead, act like a spastic mime having a seizure, who cares? In a few years you’re going to become orb people.”

As for those living 160,000 years ago, the study that appeared last week in the scientific journal Nature claims to have identified three signs of modern life among this ancient culture. Besides cooking seafood and using ground-up red pigment for makeup, they also found evidence of tiny blade technology. I’m not sure what tiny blade technology refers to, but my guess is it has something to do with their shaving systems. These people were so primitive they probably still shaved with a twin-blade razor.

In the pre-orb future, shaving systems reaching a million or more blades will be common. While the shave will be extremely close, there will always be that slight risk of accidental self decapitation. Luckily, doctors of the future will be able to fix that easily enough.

But there’s one thing neither the distant past nor the far off future will likely offer. It’s the reason why we are so lucky to live here in the present. That’s right: Mojitos.

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