[jfengel]

"How often do you get to touch something that's 1,200 years old?" said Bill Quackenbush

Uh... all the time, if you live in Europe. (And probably elsewhere; I just know Europe best.)

That's not just an American thing. A lot of the artifacts of the Western hemisphere are lost. They used a lot of wood. They did build in stone as well, and some of it is preserved, but they didn't build really monumental structures until around 1,000 years ago. Some older stuff does survive, but yeah, it's not an everyday thing.

In Europe, they've been building monumental structures in stone since forever. Quite a few are still in use, some even just as plain residential dwellings.