Archaeology is necessarily about change, and all change is perceived by looking back from the perspective of one's own peculiar place in space and history. The differences perceived between now and then challenge us to explain them, and we try to do that by using assumptions about the world, time, and process.

For example, consider the story of Genesis as presented in the Judeo-Christian Bible. The Bible incorporates a serious effort to explain change from a legendary Golden Age (Eden) to the world of toil and sorrow most of us experience. In asking “How did the world begin?” we are expressing our assumption that there was a beginning, as we observe with every individual life. The Bible's answer is that God created the world in six days, and then rested. The world that God created was not significantly different from the world we see around us, except that it was Good, and the experienced world is not all Good. If the world in all its diversity and complexity did, indeed, come into being in six solar days, then its existence is proof of a Creation, and a Creator. Many people take comfort in that belief. However, geological and astronomical study has led scientists to posit a slow development of life on the planet, requiring over 2 billion years to shape the planet and its biosphere as we know it today.