Americans travel around Europe or Asia, and they soon discover that U.S. history — and California history, in particular — is nothing, compared to most of Eurasia.

Egypt has recorded history going back more than 5,000 years. China can account for 4,000 years. Nearly any country in Europe, even in the north, has history going back to at least the year 1000. Many go back far further than that. Greece and Italy, for starters, can take you to buildings or ruins dating back more than 2,000 years.

So, it is a bit strange for Americans to be in a country, the UAE, where the entire history of the country can be recalled by people still living. That is what comes from a national history that began in 1971. Anyone over 60 remembers the whole of the country’s existence.

Thus, any story in The National that goes back before 1971 is a form of “ancient history” here. Such as the 1960s.

Before oil, it was tough to scratch out a living in what is now the UAE, and a significant economic engine was pearls, obtained by pearl divers in the Gulf.

Now, there are concerns that the history of pearl diving may be forgotten coming, as it did, so very long ago — in the 20th century.

A pair of film makers are working on a 40-minute project that will focus on pearl divers, and specifically on the music that accompanied the profession.

According to Jason Carter, a British musician: “While a diver was diving his friends on the boat would all sing a song for him. It would be his specific song, that was made up for him based on how long he could hold his breath under water. By the time the song was finished, if he hadn’t resurfaced they would go in and rescue him. It was like a timer. They had no watches, so this song played the role of a stopwatch.”

Diving for pearls was one of the more lucrative professions a person could have in this part of the Gulf, 100 years ago, particularly in the older settled regions of what is now the UAE — the the northern emirates of Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khamiah.

The Gulf is a fairly shallow body of water, with an average depth of 160 feet. And pearl oysters historically were plentiful — and could be reached by young men and boys who dove to the floor of the Gulf.

The industry was rocked, in the 1920s, when Japan began to produce cultured pearls. They were cheaper and hard to distinguish from naturally occuring pearls; most oysters do not contain pearls.

When Japan began turning out scads of pearls, that led to hard times in the Gulf, in the 1930s and 1940s, until oil came on line. Which changed everything.

The UAE today, particularly Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are sprawling metropolises — where an “old” building is anything built before, say, 1995. People have been living in the area for thousands of years, but any notions of how they lived pre-1971 seem to be getting rather dim.

The fear that pearl diving might be forgotten is a legitimate one. And the makers of the documentary are out to find the surviving practioners of an industry that died out in the 1960s. In the not-so-distant pre-history of the UAE.