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I keep misreading helots as hoplites and the idea of a hundred hoplite slaves working the field under a manly muscular half-naked Spartan could have been a movie on its own.
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Nov 4, 2013 18:51
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Namarrgon posted:I keep misreading helots as hoplites and the idea of a hundred hoplite slaves working the field under a manly muscular half-naked Spartan could have been a movie on its own. I'm sure the genre's been explored before.
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Nov 4, 2013 19:06
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:This is disingenuous. It's a bit like claiming that Spartans had a better gym benefits plan. Probably true, but the rights extended only to Spartan citizens. This applies to Greek society in general, though. Athenian democracy was only for a very small elite, for example.
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Nov 4, 2013 19:43
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Ithle01 posted:From what I remember Sparta did have helots fighting alongside citizens in several of the battles of the 2nd Peloponnesian War, but that usually didn't work out very well for the helots because then they were the first guys on the top of the To Be Purged list. Also, there were half-citizens, but a lot of them ended up as mercenaries. I think my copy of The Campaigns of Alexander had an author's note talking about how more Greeks probably fought against Alexander than fought for him. Sparta actually did try to rebel while Alexander was away, but one of his generals that was staying in Macedonia (for exactly this reason) put it down. Yep, those Spartan dicks allied with the Persians and attacked Macedonia, which led to Antipater wrecking their poo poo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megalopolis .
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Nov 4, 2013 19:59
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Thanqol posted:Hey guys, could someone tell me about Sparta? They're pop culture's idea of the perfect hypermilitarised society but they never wound up going on any Alexander-style conquests. Why not? And what wound up happening to them and that martial culture? Sparta's entire culture was based around a small, elite force of professional citizen-soldiers, ruling over a large population of slaves (helots) who did all the heavy labour while a class of non-citizens (perioikoi) had a monopoly on trade. Basing your national defense on a small, elite army can work, but when you have a small, elite army, you only want to fight brief, defensive wars. Do you see the acute flaw in a nation where the only virtue is military virtue, but the army is only equipped to fight brief, defensive wars? Sparta was a deeply xenophobic and anti-intellectual culture, even for its time--legends say they were forbidden from owning gold and silver coins and used an iron currency, but most likely they merely refused to mint their own coinage. Spartans who weren't at war had little to do besides terrorize their slaves. Okay, helots weren't exactly slaves as slavery existed in the rest of Greece. The Messenian region was fertile, and often there was enough agricultural surplus that they could live well. They could marry, make contracts, earn money, and a few even purchased their freedom. But at the best of times, the Spartans held them in utter contempt, encouraged them to practice eugenics, included robbing and murdering helots as part of their warrior education, and organized massacres of thousands of helots to keep them in line. I can't think of another state that was so brutal to a slave population upon which it relied so heavily, except perhaps the Assyrians--an empire which also eventually collapsed under the weight of repeated revolts. Sparta's real historical prominence was in the 6th-4th centuries BC. Sparta was not good at establishing colonies or making friends, but in the early 6th century they established a policy of alliance-building that amounted to "beat people up, then offer them membership in your gang." After a series of costly wars, they came out on top over Argos and Tegea, and other Greek city-states acknowledged their hegemony. Thus Sparta established the Peloponnesian League, a military alliance with Sparta in the lead. However, the first time the League launched a campaign outside the Peloponnesus, the Spartans displayed their incompetence at projecting force outside their accustomed territory. Sparta was bad at projecting force for both strategic and political reasons. Militarily, they had a small army who were amazing at hoplite tactics but not so much on skirmishers or cavalry, so they strongly preferred to fight from a defensive position on familiar ground. Politically, they were opposed to both tyranny and democracy, so their idea of contributing to Greek independence was deposing tyrants only to replace them with oligarchies. Their small army and contempt for foreigners also made it difficult to establish and manage colonies. They couldn't rule and exact tribute from a faraway city while debasing the population to slave status, as they had done to their neighbours the Messenians. The first time the Peloponnesian League launched a campaign north of the Isthmus of Corinth, Sparta's favourite defensive bottleneck, it fell apart. Sparta overthrew an Athenian tyrant, which was cool with everybody, then secretly planned to support a pro-Spartan successor, which was not. The Athenians backed the Peloponnese into a corner, the plan was found out (to general outrage among Sparta's allies), and the two Spartan kings couldn't get along with each other or with the Corinthian king, who took his ball and went home. After this failure, the Spartans had to consult their allies before levies or major decisions. Still, they maintained their preeminence as the defenders of Greece. Then came the Greco-Persian wars. At the Battle of Marathon, the Spartans decided to "honor their laws" by waiting several days to send troops, and their army arrived after the Athenians had won a legendary victory. Their only contribution had been to inspire the Athenians' confidence to hole up defensively and pressure the Persians to attack, knowing that reinforcements were on the way. Then the SPARTAAA Battle of SPARTAAA Thermopylae SPARTAAA. Contrary to popular SPARTAAA belief, Thermopylae was not a moral victory for the Greeks nor a Pyrrhic victory for the Persians. Now, Marathon wasn't a Pyrrhic victory for the Persians, either; their Empire was vast and they had plenty more men and materiel where that came from. But it did inflict disproportionate casualties, and left the Persians with nothing to do but go back home, especially after Darius died. It also showed Greeks that resistance was possible, demonstrated how to use the phalanx and compensate its weaknesses, and virtually kicked off a golden age of pride in Athenian democracy. Thermopylae, on the other hand, was a major strategic victory for the Persians once they managed to take it. In both battles, the Spartans supposedly held off because of religious obligations. In all likelihood, they were jockeying to hold off the Persians at the Isthmus, their favourite battleground. Spartans weren't entirely stupid or entirely fearless--they wanted nothing to do with the Persian cavalry. It's possible that Leonidas set out with his 300 Spartans because he didn't want to see Sparta's reputation go completely down the toilet. Not to mention the fact that not only were the 300 Spartans just a fraction of the Greek force, which was over 7,000 strong, they were a fraction of the rear guard that stayed behind to fight to the death--a thousand other Greeks remained with them. The turning point for the Greeks was the naval battle of Salamis, in which an Athenian commander led a mostly Athenian fleet to a crushing victory, and the credit went to a Spartan general because of a political compromise. The battle that broke the invasion was Plataea, in which the Athenians, sick of bleeding for Greece while the Spartans sat around with the Isthmus up their asses, demanded to march north and end the Persian threat. The Spartans' rep is built on bravado and the backs of their allies who did all the heavy lifting. Organizing yourself as a slave state and reducing entire conquered populations (like the Messenians) to slave status makes it difficult to colonize. If you're a Greek city-state that can't colonize, you're going to be quickly outpaced by those who can, because Greece itself is resource-poor. It has a hot, dry season and a cold, wet season. It's 80% mountainous, and today it is still 50% woodlands and relies on shipping for much of its economy. Sparta was lucky to have some of the most fertile land in Greece on its doorstep. poo poo, all these   and I haven't even gotten to the Peloponnesian Wars that gave Sparta true hegemony in Greece...for awhile. Until then, 
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 20:44
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Halloween Jack posted:Accurate appraisal. But but but my  .
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Nov 4, 2013 21:19
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Alekanderu posted:This applies to Greek society in general, though. Athenian democracy was only for a very small elite, for example. Keep in mind that it may be small to us, but equal political rights for ~20-25% of the population (and a greater percentage of the adult population) was actually exceptionally inclusive by the standards of a major ancient polity. It's really miles above Sparta's tiny gerontocratic oligarchy.
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Nov 4, 2013 21:23
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Equality is admirable but wasn't the reason for the material equality between the genders in Sparta basically a way of maintaining stability in estates given that the menfolk got killed all the goddamn time at home and on campaign? Training accidents, falling off cliffs, infection, spear through the chest, etc.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:47
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At their most depleted, I believe Spartan women owned more than a third of Spartan land outright due to male casualties.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:49
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Halloween Jack posted:At their most depleted, I believe Spartan women owned more than a third of Spartan land outright due to male casualties. Aristotle posted:And nearly two-fifths of the whole country are held by women; this is owing to the number of heiresses and to the large dowries which are customary. Not necessarily just the male casualties. Spartan women also had a lot more rights w/r/t property and inheritance. That they were in position to own land at all (as opposed to it going to the sons or a brother/uncle/cousin of the dead husbands) is pretty significant, as is the fact that they could designate heirs themselves. Aristotle (wonderful misogynist that he is) puts the blame the other way 'round: the excess of woman owned land led to the manpower shortages. It's probably a bit chicken and egg with a hint of (un)virtuous circle, but there were plenty of free, land owning men in Sparta, just many fewer full citizens. This is exacerbated by concentration of land among an elite few as well as the whole lady bits issue.
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Nov 4, 2013 23:07
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Sparta wasn't completely anti-intellectual though, was it? It just opposed the Athenian-style of intellectualism that we're familiar with. I recall an anecdote in Thucydides's writings about a captive soldier being let go after he recited a couple of verses of the Illiad. They were really into oral tradition as opposed to writing things down, which seems like a really foreign idea to our modern society, but it still was a valid opinion at the time. The conceit that writing things down will encourage people to be irresponsible and not bother to remember things seems absurd in retrospect, but on the other hand, there are people today who are honestly arguing that with computers, we shouldn't waste time in school teaching math and spelling, because kids can just look them up. How much archaeological remnants did ancient Sparta leave behind, anyways?
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Nov 4, 2013 23:28
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Isn't the "literacy turned our capacity to memorize into mush" thing still a pretty widespread idea to this day?
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Nov 4, 2013 23:31
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the JJ posted:Not necessarily just the male casualties. Spartan women also had a lot more rights w/r/t property and inheritance. That they were in position to own land at all (as opposed to it going to the sons or a brother/uncle/cousin of the dead husbands) is pretty significant, as is the fact that they could designate heirs themselves. Aristotle (wonderful misogynist that he is) puts the blame the other way 'round: the excess of woman owned land led to the manpower shortages. It's probably a bit chicken and egg with a hint of (un)virtuous circle, but there were plenty of free, land owning men in Sparta, just many fewer full citizens. This is exacerbated by concentration of land among an elite few as well as the whole lady bits issue. It was probably the most level-headed decision to come out of the Spartan polis, seeing as though male bloodlines tended to be rather short due to the Spartan way of life. That's what I meant by stability and necessity. It doesn't gel with a lot of the rest of Spartan society - slaves are basically walking practice dummies, professional soldierhood was a primary (the primary?) role of men, hero worship, etc. Out of all that belligerence and militarism (women not being in the army) they just decide on matrilineal estates on their own? poo poo, I bet a whole fuckload of male heirs got killed over probate disputes before they just decided it was best to grant women a modicum of equality rather than have the drat Hatfieldopouloses and McCoyarakises fighting over the family farm every time someone got deep sixed.
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Nov 4, 2013 23:46
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Guildencrantz posted:Like with so many others, the Romans. But the Roman conquest was basically the comma at the end of a long, slow decline. After their golden age the state was just decaying in isolation. It's a model example of the death spiral that happens to stagnant societies: every war made the Spartiate/Helot ratio worse, and they had no mechanism for promoting people to Spartiates. As a society that held philosophy, progress and critical thinking in deep contempt, they were completely incapable of generating any kind of reform movement, and so couldn't adapt to changing circumstances. The only thing they were good at was "not getting conquered" and by the time the Romans rolled around, Sparta was a backwards, isolated, irrelevant living history exhibit. I vaguely recall reading something about periokoi becoming Spartiates (or citizens) after 10 generations in Sparta - is this accurate or am I thinking of something else? Also, are there any population statistics on how many Spartiate families there were?
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Nov 5, 2013 01:29
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Halloween Jack posted:The turning point for the Greeks was the naval battle of Salamis, in which an Athenian commander led a mostly Athenian fleet to a crushing victory, and the credit went to a Spartan general because of a political compromise. The battle that broke the invasion was Plataea, in which the Athenians, sick of bleeding for Greece while the Spartans sat around with the Isthmus up their asses, demanded to march north and end the Persian threat. One of the best parts about the battle of Plataea is that the Spartan commander had ordered the army to retreat the night before the battle because their supply lines had been cut. It was only because his own men, the Tegean allies, and the Athenian contingent stayed behind that there was a battle in the first place. During the battle Pausanias 'waited until the omens were right' before engaging. Turns out the right time was after the Persians and their Theban allies were so exhausted from mauling the unsupported Athenians that the still-fresh Spartans could clear them out. Coincidentally, one year later Pausanias was charged with accepting Persian bribes and affecting Persian customs. Multiple accusations followed because he somehow managed to keep beating the charge until eventually he got himself walled up inside a temple while fleeing arrest.
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Nov 5, 2013 01:52
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I vaguely recall reading something about periokoi becoming Spartiates (or citizens) after 10 generations in Sparta - is this accurate or am I thinking of something else? Also, are there any population statistics on how many Spartiate families there were? Part of the requirement was that a Spartan pay 'barracks dues,' basically a recognition that he'd be loving around drilling and training his whole life instead of doing something useful economically. So he needed to own not just land but enough land (administered in his absence by his wife) to keep paying the dues and so stay in the barracks. Other than that, yes, I believe there was some sort of bloodline thing.
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Nov 5, 2013 02:11
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I think one of the reasons Spartans are still considered cool is that they mastered the action movie one-liner before that was even a thing (e.g. "So much the better, we'll fight in the shade"; "Come and take them"; "If.") No one needs to do a friggin' St. Crispin's Day speech for the average Spartan to get him all fired up!
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Nov 5, 2013 03:30
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Buttonhead posted:I think one of the reasons Spartans are still considered cool is that they mastered the action movie one-liner before that was even a thing (e.g. "So much the better, we'll fight in the shade"; "Come and take them"; "If.") Ok, I'll admit laconic wit is pretty sweet.
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Nov 5, 2013 03:32
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The Entire Universe posted:It was probably the most level-headed decision to come out of the Spartan polis, seeing as though male bloodlines tended to be rather short due to the Spartan way of life. That's what I meant by stability and necessity. It doesn't gel with a lot of the rest of Spartan society - slaves are basically walking practice dummies, professional soldierhood was a primary (the primary?) role of men, hero worship, etc. Out of all that belligerence and militarism (women not being in the army) they just decide on matrilineal estates on their own? poo poo, I bet a whole fuckload of male heirs got killed over probate disputes before they just decided it was best to grant women a modicum of equality rather than have the drat Hatfieldopouloses and McCoyarakises fighting over the family farm every time someone got deep sixed. I'd say it was also probably a consequence of the Spartan focus on martial virtues, which combined with the Helot system meant that there really wasn't much social value in land as pretty much everyone in the elites would have access to enough wealth to let them concentrate on gaining glory. We think of allowing women property rights, etc. as a liberal attitude but it probably more reflected the lack of importance placed on material wealth in Spartan society, as weirdly alien an idea that might be to us good capitalists. Likewise Spartans weren't anti-intellectual per se. They greatly valued culture, tradition and literature but as has been said, disdained writing and saw Athenian style free exchange of ideas as detrimental to martial strength, which was all that mattered. I suppose we currently have an understanding of intellectual life that requires the ability to criticise any idea and discuss whatever but the Spartans really restricted intellectual pursuits to poetry, music and literature. Provided of course that those suitably displayed and encouraged Spartans to be patriotic killing machines. I'd also argue that Sparta wasn't as politically inept as most other posters have painted them. They were pretty fantastic at propaganda, it's clear they had a noted reputation for being fierce warriors and were able to use this, to an extent, to avoid conflict and impose their will. Of course this was then coupled with an ethos that meant they didn't really want to avoid conflict and frequent leadership that grossly overestimated their ability to impose their will so 
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Nov 5, 2013 03:54
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MrNemo posted:I'd say it was also probably a consequence of the Spartan focus on martial virtues, which combined with the Helot system meant that there really wasn't much social value in land as pretty much everyone in the elites would have access to enough wealth to let them concentrate on gaining glory. We think of allowing women property rights, etc. as a liberal attitude but it probably more reflected the lack of importance placed on material wealth in Spartan society, as weirdly alien an idea that might be to us good capitalists. Except that owning land was how you became a Full True Spartan. You have to remember that there's a layer of free men and landowners between the Spartans and the helots that are not Spartans only because they're not rich enough to afford to be doing nothing but training all the time. And yeah, it's hard to look at, say, Lysander and not think that they could play political games as well. Or their pantsing of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War, via such strategies as 'being the preferable benevolent overlord,' 'flipping Athenian generals,' 'adapting to naval war,' 'not falling into infighting,' and 'alliances with Cyrus.' I mean, they're clearly not 300 hooah ubermenchen bastions of light liberty and civilization, but either they're dumb meatheads or they were clever enough to let Athens bleed for them.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:15
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"If." is my favorite of all the famous Laconic phrases. As hosed up as Sparta was it's fascinating. I've never been huge into Greeks but I think that's the focus on Athens boring me. Sparta's interesting because it's not just a militaristic state, there are plenty of those in history, but I can't think of any other militaristic state that was organized the way Sparta was. It was a very strange society.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:18
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Grand Fromage posted:"If." is my favorite of all the famous Laconic phrases. I'm a sucker for Derkylidas laying down the smackdown w/r/t... well, the story leading up to it isn't very Laconic, but basically the son-in-law of Mania, a local satrap (who happened to be a woman) offed said mother-in-law and then tried to flip to the Spartans when the over-satrap promised revenge instead of, you know, letting him rule. Derkylidas marches into the city and lets the guy dig himself a big hole trying to explain that all this land was his father's, really, no he swears. Meanwhile Greek mercs who had served under Mania are sharing their version of events. Derkylidas is all 'well, since this land is really Mania's, and she served Pharnabazus*, this is actually our land by conquest, not your land to barter with us for.' At which point the guy is like 'well what about me.' And Derkylidas is all 'I think it would be most just if you lived in your father's house.' E.g. house arrest in relative bumfuck nowhere. Look, it's a terribly cold smackdown given in like two sentences, you just have to trust me on that. *I think it was Pharnabazus.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:30
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the JJ posted:I mean, they're clearly not 300 hooah ubermenchen bastions of light liberty and civilization, but either they're dumb meatheads or they were clever enough to let Athens bleed for them. Oversimplifying I think. They were culturally doomed due to their economic setup and value system, individual leaders were free to be brilliant(and indeed, would probably have to be, given the limitations they were fighting under).
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Nov 5, 2013 04:57
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The Laconic wit makes me think of Spartans sitting around dishing out sick  s to each other in addition to military training.I mean poo poo, they were good enough at it that they gained a reputation for it.
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Nov 5, 2013 05:56
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Koramei posted:Isn't the "literacy turned our capacity to memorize into mush" thing still a pretty widespread idea to this day? I think the idea is widespread but I don't really buy into it. It seems like the sort of thing people accept unquestioningly, but if you think about it when was the last time you made an effort to memorize something? I remember in high school it took me about 20 minutes to memorize The Jabberwocky and I can still recite it from memory today. I think it's more that nobody bothers to memorize things today because writing it down is so much more efficient. It takes two minutes to handwrite that poem and 30 seconds to read it. I think the mental hardware is still there (how many songs do you know the lyrics to?) but it's become less relevant. There's all sorts of interesting theories about prehistoric cognition that are pretty much impossible to investigate. The one that pops into my head is the idea that prehistoric people really did experience aural hallucinations like gods talking to them, only it was the right brain's (putative) language center which is dormant in modern humans but can be active in schizophrenics. There's other explanations for schizophrenia though, so there's no real evidence either way.
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Nov 5, 2013 05:58
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Really, it sounds like one of those "Seven Skullfuckingly Amazing Things You Didn't Know About History" bits from Cracked.
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Nov 5, 2013 07:16
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Yeah. It's more that people don't put effort into memorisation. I've seen people go from goldfish memory to being able to listen to a paragraphs worth of speaking and repeat it back word for word while copying the exact inflection, pauses, mannerisms etc of the person speaking with a bit of training. It's more about clearing your own mental deck while you listen than anything else. Even trying to concentrate on what is being said to remember it is more likely to gently caress it up than just relaxing and listening. It's weird but in doing this I've been able to recall conversations almost word for word weeks later and I don't know why as I haven't done anything special to remember them.  TLDR; saying that people aren't made like they used to is a crock of poo poo. Arglebargle III posted:There's all sorts of interesting theories about prehistoric cognition that are pretty much impossible to investigate. The one that pops into my head is the idea that prehistoric people really did experience aural hallucinations like gods talking to them, only it was the right brain's (putative) language center which is dormant in modern humans but can be active in schizophrenics. There's other explanations for schizophrenia though, so there's no real evidence either way. Although holy poo poo I wish time machines were a thing so this could be tested.
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Nov 5, 2013 08:47
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veekie posted:Oversimplifying I think. They were culturally doomed due to their economic setup and value system, individual leaders were free to be brilliant(and indeed, would probably have to be, given the limitations they were fighting under). Ehhhh I'd shy away from teleological Guns Germs and Steel stuff like 'doomed by their value system.' The same can be said of the Thebans or the Athenians or just about whoever; they were never going to amass the right cache to conquer or unite the other city-states in a way that would let them tee off against a big empire like the Persians or the Macedonians or the Romans. Sure, if you froze Sparta in time and then threw a few centuries of crises at it, sure, eventually it'd fail. But the same can be said of those backwards rear end Macedonians, just look at that inefficient monarchy. It could never... whoops hey there Philip! I don't think you can look at the Sparta success in the Peloponnesian War and go 'just the work of a few brilliant exceptions' (Derklydias, Lysander, , Brasidas, hell, you can even count Alcibiades, Cyrus and Xenophon to a certain extent, since the system was attractive/flexible enough to bring them in and use them.) and then look at the run up to the war with Thebes (, again, even Xenophon has to sort of admit) and say that that was the true Spartan nature showing.Like, once you get to the nitty gritty and start viewing individuals as historical actors things get very complicated. I think in the end, by the stated goal of the state (make things better for those in charge) the Spartans did better than most of their neighbors at their peak, and certainly no worse than any of the other post-Alexander states that got rolled when rolled into town.
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Nov 5, 2013 09:33
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Mostly in the sense that their economic and value systems would leave them ill equipped to adapt to changes, particularly when any large empire bumps up against them. Of course, they could change from that, but as long as they kept it, they were kinda stuck.
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Nov 5, 2013 09:52
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Tommofork posted:TLDR; saying that people aren't made like they used to is a crock of poo poo. That's the fascinating thing about prehistoric psychology, since we know that at some point in the past cognition was different. We don't know exactly when (the mental Great Leap Forward 50,000 years ago is the most well-known theory but is hardly conclusive) but clearly modern humans don't go back forever. The reason it's also impossible to know is that anatomically modern humans and behaviorally modern humans aren't necessarily the same thing. So anatomically modern humans show up 200,000-150,000 years ago (depends on how you define anatomically modern) but the fossil/archeological record seems to show an explosion in creative behavior around 50,000 years ago. I say seems because archeological records are full of guesswork and get more and more inaccurate as you try to narrow in on one time. So the question is when did people think like us, and then if the people before them didn't think like us, how did they think? Apart from very crude things like looking at skull capacity, all you can do is search for clues in modern humans. Only we have no idea what's a clue and what's not. Hence the theory that schizophrenia is an atavism; it could be a clue or it could just be one of a thousand things that can go wrong with the brain.
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Nov 5, 2013 11:10
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That really is fascinating and I would love to hear more about that, if there is more. e: When you have time between real life and doing Chinachat. 
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Nov 5, 2013 11:21
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There's very little more to know. Complex tool sets, evidence of ritual, ocean-crossing technologies, body decorations and art for the sake of making cool poo poo appear to show up 50,000 years ago. Nobody agrees whether this is a sign of an evolutionary advance or just a cultural step forward. For example we know the agricultural revolution and industrial revolution were not accompanied by any biological changes.
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Nov 5, 2013 11:30
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Might have just taken that long to reach critical information mass, go beyond subsistence concerns. Is it a worldwide thing or more uneven in when it happened?
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Nov 5, 2013 11:34
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It's probably impossible to answer, but I wonder if there was actually a shift 50,000 years ago when everything just seemed to click, or if there was actually a more gradual progression that resulted in a breakthrough 50,000 years ago that allowed for the better preservation of artifacts. Like maybe before that, people were making jewelry and decorative items, but it was all made out of plant material and biograded but then people started applying their tool making abilities to making jewelry and so that could suddenly survive. It looks like a leap forward, but really it's just a change of material or using an existing skill in a new way.
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Nov 5, 2013 12:00
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We talked about Bicameral theory a while ago in one of these threads, the conclusion was that it's unconvincing to say they had some neurological defect resulting in auditory hallucinations. For a start, the implication is that humans were philosophical zombies until some some arbitrary event occurred, and sapience suddenly emerged from some location and spread genetically or memetically. Which sounds like someone trying to justify imposing colonialism on people that have been arbitrarily deemed to not be human.
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Nov 5, 2013 13:27
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Could be just a leap from more perishable and rarer tools to lasting tools. That sort of spread would happen pretty fast as humans individually discover and propagate the idea.
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Nov 5, 2013 14:14
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It is interesting though, because it's right, at some point something changed to make us us instead of mere animals. We just don't know when it happened or what. But there is some point you could go back in the fossil record and identify that people were no longer us anymore. The good thing is whenever that was, it vastly predates history so anything you read about is dealing with people who are fundamentally the same as we are.
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Nov 5, 2013 14:51
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Grand Fromage posted:It is interesting though, because it's right, at some point something changed to make us us instead of mere animals. We just don't know when it happened or what. But there is some point you could go back in the fossil record and identify that people were no longer us anymore. It's a conversational detour, but something kind of cool about this line of inquiry is that there actually isn't a single path of evolution. There's several different evolutionary paths that were taken, and key concepts like tool-making were invented and reinvented several times before they were fully adopted by the species. Homo sapiens even co-existed and interbred with other species like homo neanderthals and homo floresiensis for thousands of years, challenging our own conception of personhood.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:05
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It was the end result of thousands and thousands of years of people talking their way into sex. Eventually, the species became much more creative.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:06
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I have a question of my own. The human race has definitely improved over time thanks to better nutrition, medicine, and other technology. Are there places in the record of ancient human remains where we can see that people were much less fit than their ancestors several generations before, due to something like the Bronze Age collapse?
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Nov 5, 2013 15:30
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