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Tunicate posted:The latest 100% accurate historical simulation, Total War: Troy, is available for free today huh that's a neat article. I especially liked this diagram:  A family tree representing the transmission of "The Smith and the Devil" from Proto-Indo-European-speaking ancestors to modern language groups.Royal Society Open Science
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Aug 14, 2020 04:52
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, but there were terrains in the Americas where wheels would be useful, even without draft animals. I agree that it doesn't mean that Americans were bad at technology or whatever, real life isn't a Civilization tech tree, but it is interesting when you have a technology that is of great utility to some people and then none at all to others, and there isn't a clear reason why. I get why the Inca weren't going to be rolling carts around, but there were lots of people in non-mountainous terrain who probably could've made great use of wheelbarrows. It could really just be that they had no good candidates for draft animals like horses or oxen.
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Aug 14, 2020 07:31
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Kassad posted:It could really just be that they had no good candidates for draft animals like horses or oxen. They had dogs. Dogs can pull adorable little carts. Could you imagine a road just filled with big ol' doggos dragging carts?
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Aug 14, 2020 08:26
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Kassad posted:It could really just be that they had no good candidates for draft animals like horses or oxen. One cannot understate just how important animal power is to pre-modern civilizations. The fact Native American civilizations had even a tenth of what they did without it is a testament to their ingenuity and perseverance. Pretty much every field in which the Americas were "behind" technologically is due to not having any useful work animals.
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Aug 14, 2020 09:26
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Adorable is exactly why I wouldn't make the doggos break their backs pulling the kind of heavy loads a horse or an ox could handle  But yeah, the lack of smaller carts (pulled by animals or handcarts) is a bit puzzling. I'm thinking a peddler carrying his wares in a city or a farmer carrying some stuff he harvested. Kassad fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 09:28
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Building cities without having the wheel is some real tryhard poo poo.
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Aug 14, 2020 09:48
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Centuries (millennia?) of selectively breeding enormous muscular draft doggos would be pretty interesting.
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Aug 14, 2020 11:54
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SlothfulCobra posted:Isn't the vast bulk about Satan usually stuff from outside of the bible anyways? Pretty much. Capital-S Satan doesn't really appear in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at all; the "satan" ("adversary") who appears in Job seems to be a kind of angelic prosecuting attorney. The "Lucifer" of Ezekiel 28 is, at least primarily, Ithobaal III of Tyre rather than a fallen angel. In the New Testament, Satan makes appearances tempting Jesus and so forth, and lesser demons appear who get exorcised by Jesus, but even there he's less prominent than he becomes in some later Christian thought. The story of Satan's fall from Heaven really comes from one verse (Luke 10:18).
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Aug 14, 2020 15:05
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Roman landscape art:
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Aug 14, 2020 15:59
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Dogs as draft animals are a thing, and were used in America by Native Americans, as anybody who's ever seen the Iditarod can tell you. They were also used by plains tribes. Among the plains tribes, the idea was that a dog could carry 50 pounds on its back, or pull 80 pounds in a travois, and were used pretty extensively in buffalo hunts to get the meat back home.  They just weren't used a lot for that purpose in Central America....we know the Aztec used dogs as pets and food, for instance, but we don't have any evidence they used them as draft animals. But you can certainly have draft animals without wheels.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:19
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The way in which Native Americans, and I'm thinking primarily of the Lakota and Comanche, became very quickly horse cultures puts paid the idea of there being an intrinsic deficit in intelligence or creativity. They knew a good idea when they saw it.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:04
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I also hope there was a nomadic herder from the Eurasion steppe who somehow made it to the Great Plains in the 1650s
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Aug 14, 2020 17:46
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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sebzilla posted:Centuries (millennia?) of selectively breeding enormous muscular draft doggos would be pretty interesting. I dunno about enormous but one of the really interesting extinct working dog breeds is the turnspit dog, which was a ubiquitous part of the English kitchen in the early modern, and basically the closest real life has ever come to the Flinstones, and as aforementioned American plains and arctic societies have used dogs as draft animals since antiquity.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:33
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LingcodKilla posted:They had dogs. Dogs can pull adorable little carts. Could you imagine a road just filled with big ol' doggos dragging carts? Yes because I sometimes get to see dogs pull sleds and they 100% love doing stuff for their humans.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:08
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LingcodKilla posted:They had dogs. Dogs can pull adorable little carts. Could you imagine a road just filled with big ol' doggos dragging carts? They literally had that.  It was called a travois, and I'm not really sure on the full mechanical principles, but they used them. Last I read up on them, it looked like a lot of the native breeds that were bred to pull them died out. They did adapt them to horses though.  I guess it's probably far less prone to mechanical failure than a wheeled cart.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:38
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Kassad posted:Adorable is exactly why I wouldn't make the doggos break their backs pulling the kind of heavy loads a horse or an ox could handle Why are we so certain that they didn't use the wheel in such capacities?
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Aug 14, 2020 20:04
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SlothfulCobra posted:
Mechanically, it's pretty much two poles in a V shape with netting or a basket attached. You put the stuff you want carried in the netting or basket, and then you either drag it or hook it up to an animal and make it drag it. It probably doesn't work as well as a wheeled cart or a wheelbarrow in terms of energy efficiency, but if you're going over soft or uneven ground, there's less chance it'll get stuck or tip over.
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Aug 14, 2020 20:07
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Dalael posted:Why are we so certain that they didn't use the wheel in such capacities? While Mesoamericans had the concept of the wheel, they used it for toys rather than utilitarian purposes. Often spindles were used in their place, as much as possible. All evidence indicates that the wheel was introduced to the Americas by Europeans. It's broadly believed that without draft animals, wheels just didn't appear to be worthwhile.
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Aug 14, 2020 20:16
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Kaal posted:While Mesoamericans had the concept of the wheel, they used it for toys rather than utilitarian purposes. Often spindles were used in their place, as much as possible. All evidence indicates that the wheel was introduced to the Americas by Europeans. It's broadly believed that without draft animals, wheels just didn't appear to be worthwhile. I find this idea really odd... Sure draft animals make pulling a cart easier, but the wheel is useful whether you have them or not. To me, the wheel is basically the 2nd most important invention after our ability to make fire. Its just odd that entire societies would go on without it. When people say, "all evidence indicates" I have to ask.. What exactly is the evidence? Lack of wheels dating from those periods? Writing from explorers and/or natives of those societies?
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Aug 14, 2020 21:20
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We don't have any surviving artifacts, there's nothing in written or artistic sources, the people in those cultures don't have any stories of them, and we don't find other evidence like rutted tracks. There either were no wheeled vehicles or they were so extraordinarily rare that they don't leave a trace.
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Aug 14, 2020 21:27
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At least the wheelbarrow seems like a big advance over carrying heavy stuff.
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Aug 14, 2020 21:28
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Grevling posted:At least the wheelbarrow seems like a big advance over carrying heavy stuff. What was the road situation like in the Americas? If you're hiking overland I'd much rather have a backpack than a wheelbarrow
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Aug 14, 2020 21:31
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Iceland didn't have wagons until circa 1900 because before than there were no roads of any kind in the entire country. The Early 20th century in Iceland is often "The Wagon Age" because it was the first time in the country's history where wagons became the prominent mode of transportation and method of shipping. So functionally from settlement circa 874 (possibly up to 200 years earlier according to recent archeological data. Probably only a 100 or so) to 1897 when the first proper road was laid Iceland didn't have the wheel.
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Aug 14, 2020 21:35
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FreudianSlippers posted:Iceland didn't have wagons until circa 1900 because before than there were no roads of any kind in the entire country. Which is odd, considering the vikings definitely had the wheel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBvN-vyri0 From the Oseberg ship burial, 834, when the wagon was probably quite old. You don't need roads to use wheels, the biggest chariot battles in history happened off road. Maybe they just didn't have that much to carry?
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Aug 14, 2020 21:41
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Anecdotal experience from my life in a village, but I never saw wheels used for any thing other than the bamboo rings kids made to push around with a stick. Any terrain that is hilly or doesn't have proper road work you are better off with carrying things on your backs. Even the long distance traders that used to come from the tibetan plateau would come in donkey caravans. Even the huge logs used to make the religious chariots for festivals in Kathmandu valley were dragged into town. After they were carved and finished they would put wheels on them.  
ughhhh fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 21:41
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cheetah7071 posted:What was the road situation like in the Americas? If you're hiking overland I'd much rather have a backpack than a wheelbarrow Right. There were some excellent roads in various parts, but none of them were designed with a wheel in mind and so they had lots of steps. Wheeled transport is a good example of how technology is an iterative system. To get an ancient wagon you need an animal to pull it, materials science to build it, a geography that makes it useful, a road to drive it on, security to defend it, an economy to require it, and a society that lasts long enough for archaeologists to find it. Without that complete system you end up with a boat, or a travois, or a rail-line, or a backpack, or a toy. It's like how major inventions like gunpowder or steam engines were discovered by early cultures but took a long time to make the impact that they did. You need all the parts of the system. Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 21:42
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Iceland is mostly hills and mountains and lava fields and the rest is tundra and swamps. Until roads and bridges it was faster to take a ship from eastern Iceland to Copenhagen and then another to western Iceland than to go by land. Mostly because southeastern Iceland is basically one big black sand desert divided by glacial rivers which can be quite savage. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 21:47
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Arglebargle III posted:Roman landscape art: Owns Love seeing how the monuments may have looked in real life
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Aug 14, 2020 21:51
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FreudianSlippers posted:Iceland didn't have wagons until circa 1900 because before than there were no roads of any kind in the entire country. I can understand how wagons and wheeled vehicles might not have been the best way to move around in South America, and thus why they might not have been popular.. But so many other useful things require the wheel, which is why its.. odd to me. But... Grand Fromage posted:We don't have any surviving artifacts, there's nothing in written or artistic sources, the people in those cultures don't have any stories of them, and we don't find other evidence like rutted tracks. There either were no wheeled vehicles or they were so extraordinarily rare that they don't leave a trace. if we truly don't have any of that, it makes it even more incredible that they achieved so much.
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Aug 14, 2020 22:00
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Not having horses probably made the motivation to bother with wheels not worth it
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Aug 14, 2020 22:01
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Dalael posted:I find this idea really odd... Sure draft animals make pulling a cart easier, but the wheel is useful whether you have them or not. To me, the wheel is basically the 2nd most important invention after our ability to make fire. Its just odd that entire societies would go on without it. Wheels are complicated to make and require a lot of maintenance. They aren't very practical for travel across broken ground without roads. A travois is just a couple of poles that you can get anywhere. They drag across the ground pretty easily, particularly grasslands. Unless you're settled in a particular spot with a decent-sized community with specialists, wheeled vehicles are more trouble than they're worth.
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Aug 14, 2020 22:04
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Plus - especially in North America - you had huge long navigable rivers
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Aug 14, 2020 22:06
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euphronius posted:Not having horses probably made the motivation to bother with wheels not worth it Comparing horses to dogs and llamas makes this realization pretty stark. A big dog can carry about 40-50 lbs of gear or tow 250 lbs.. A llama can carry about 80 lbs of gear, and probably tow up to 500 lbs. A draft horse can tow upwards of 5,000 lbs, and they work together easily so you can easily pull much larger loads.
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Aug 14, 2020 22:23
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Would there be a market for a business that seeks to bury and preserve your remains and a few possessions after you die for future archaeologists to dig up? Like "listen we promise we will hide you and a few grave goods in a place as out of the way as possible so that only scientists thousands of years in the future will find you"
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Aug 15, 2020 06:10
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what if i told you there was an app on the market...
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Aug 15, 2020 06:40
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There are laws about disposal of human remains. Dunno what exactly they are though. Probably not allowed unless the land is privately owned, definitely none of it in protected areas like a national park. Unless the grave is somehow marked, it'll probably end up being accidentally unearthed within 20 years, and there'll be a police investigation of the possible murder if your body is recognizeable. If the grave is marked, and the land owned for the purpose of burial, then it's just an undertaker with a fancier tagline.
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Aug 15, 2020 06:46
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Would there be a market for a business that seeks to bury and preserve your remains and a few possessions after you die for future archaeologists to dig up? Like "listen we promise we will hide you and a few grave goods in a place as out of the way as possible so that only scientists thousands of years in the future will find you"
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Aug 15, 2020 07:00
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euphronius posted:Plus - especially in North America - you had huge long navigable rivers South America also has huge, long and navigable rivers. There are also lots of mountains and stuff like rain forests that are really hard to cross. If you have that kind of terrain, wheels just seem like a bad idea. And without people making wheels, you never find out that wheels are good for lots of stuff besides transporting things. Nessus posted:What do you think cryonics is? The opposite? People freeze themselves on the crazy idea that they can be revived in the future, they certainly don't want to end up dead and preserved! Or give up the belongings they maybe put in storage. Though since Cryonics companies are all in it for the money, I guarantee the moment they go bankrupt, they'll just switch off and dump everything. I guess if future archaeologists are lucky, the companies will be too lazy to cremate the unfrozen mush they end up with and can maybe dig up some bones from the refuse they leave behind.
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Aug 15, 2020 11:30
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Libluini posted:The opposite? People freeze themselves on the crazy idea that they can be revived in the future, they certainly don't want to end up dead and preserved! Or give up the belongings they maybe put in storage. It's totally the thing! The joke's just on the stiffs!
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Aug 15, 2020 11:59
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Epicurius posted:Mechanically, it's pretty much two poles in a V shape with netting or a basket attached. You put the stuff you want carried in the netting or basket, and then you either drag it or hook it up to an animal and make it drag it. It probably doesn't work as well as a wheeled cart or a wheelbarrow in terms of energy efficiency, but if you're going over soft or uneven ground, there's less chance it'll get stuck or tip over. Also super easy to repair if something breaks. You need a stick and some lashings.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:42
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