On my mind: We haven't changed as much as we think

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

This is my first 'On my mind' post, and I am joining Rhonda from Down to Earth for this. I have just this evening arrived home from my travels in Finland and Estonia, of which more later. One of the main themes of the trip for me, as we looked at buildings and museum collections and landscapes mapping history from prehistoric times to the present day, was how little cultures really change. The earliest finds include objects which you could still find in a bathroom cupboard - combs, mirrors, razors, tweezers. The gap between modern and prehistoric people is not so great as we think - we essentially use many of the same tools, we just have more high-tech versions of them.

Which brings me to this:

I hope you can see it. The pictures aren't great but I couldn't use flash. It's chewing resin, and it's among the earliest pieces of evidence for the presence of humans in Finland.

It's 9,000-year-old chewing gum.