Flutterby™! : The Arrow of Time

An interesting item from Science News: If you ask an American or European to arrange something in chronological order (say, cards depicting the 7 Ages of Man) they arange them from left to right, with the earliest on the left. If you ask certain Australian Aboriginals to do the task, they set them up from East to West, just like the Sun travels in the sky. Seems an obvious approach. However, if you sit the Yank on the other side of the table he will still set the cards up from his left to his right, while the Aboriginal will reverse the order of the cards. They don't use left or right, they use absolute directions, like North and South. The implications for having so acute a sense of direction are intriguing; I suppose if your tribe has been in the same valley for 40,000 years you already know every bush and rock cold.