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Deteriorata posted:Yeah, in the 17th century, Britain was having trouble finding trees tall enough for masts. General deforestation of the island led to burning coal for heat, which then led to the steam engine and the industrial revolution. This sounds like exploitation of particular kinds of trees rather than ships causing out and out deforestation by themselves. There's an ACOUP post that talks about tree requirements for iron production alone and it's utterly staggering:  Iirc it was something like 100 tons of wood for every ton of iron, and the Roman Empire was producing in the multiple tens of thousands of tons of iron annually. And that's just for iron; other metals, ceramics, let alone the enormous wood requirements of just heating buildings would all play into making it very bad to be a tree at the time. I would be stunned if shipbuilding was more than a blip in comparison to fuel costs. Also how much was Europe actually forested in Roman times, does anyone know? I remember hearing that the Bronze Age actually marked the high point for land exploitation (maybe because of warmer temperatures?), so it's not like there were primeval forests over much of it. Or were there?
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Jul 2, 2021 19:59
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Koramei posted:This sounds like exploitation of particular kinds of trees rather than ships causing out and out deforestation by themselves. There's an ACOUP post that talks about tree requirements for iron production alone and it's utterly staggering: Building ships didn't cause the deforestation. Using wood for fuel had deforested Britain sufficiently that the navy was having trouble finding suitably old trees for ships' masts. Deforestation was the cause of the shipbuilding problems, not the other way around.
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Jul 2, 2021 20:06
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I mean the guy you were responding to said "I think you get the deforestation due to ships" and you started your post with "yeah," so while agreeing with him was perhaps not your point, you can see why I thought it was? In any case I was mostly using that as an excuse to talk about the staggering fuel costs of stuff.
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Jul 2, 2021 20:11
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Nothingtoseehere posted:We can spot the Roman empire in ice-core records from higher mercury and soot emissions, it's certainly a more industrially intense period than before, although deforestation is just a natural consequence of urbanisation - need fuel for cooking and heating somehow. Rome being so big for so long probably cost more fuel than all the iron production (although that undoubtly took a big chunk of wood aswell). Right yeah for whatever reason wasn't thinking about cooking and heating. Which is silly, it was an interesting part of The Great Divergence - Pommeranz talks about some major advances that China made in home heating pre-industrial revolution, and talks briefly about how this wound up not really mattering a lot in the grand scheme of things but it's not hard to imagine scenarios where it becomes direly important. I'd be curious to see a holistic look at wood demand by time/place divided by use. Iron production numbers are staggering, but you also don't smelt new iron every day like you do with food. Construction could also add up pretty substantially depending on how often homes get destroyed/population growth.
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Jul 2, 2021 20:25
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This got posted in another thread recently, and is pretty relevant:Platystemon posted:They hosed up the environment quite a lot.
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Jul 2, 2021 21:10
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Yeah it did, the polynesians got taro and they all eat it now Taro isn't from the Americas, it's from SE Asia and adjacent areas. Apparently it's thought to have a huge native range which helped foster multiple domestication efforts. The Americas are full of weird poo poo like that though. We have pretty solid evidence of metal items being traded in through Alaska, and I believe there's some stuff about Basque fisher men loving around the east coast which I haven't really looked into at all. Basque stuff is interesting because theres a weird subset of artifacts in the southwest dealing with them moving into the area in the 1920s and sheep herding. They left a lot of dendroglyphs and lunate hearths. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jul 2, 2021 |
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Jul 2, 2021 22:40
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Moar IRON AGE questions: Wikimobile tells me the Roman leaders of -200-200 were, uh, numerous. Can someone give me a quick primer on the most important ones and what their interaction on the Germanic north was? Also, to what extent did people use iron for jewelry before 500 ad?
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Jul 3, 2021 06:41
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Yeah it did, the polynesians got taro and they all eat it now You're thinking of sweet potato. Taro is old world. Sweet potato (kumara) was particularly important for New Zealand Maori because taro and other tropical crops don't grow too well here so it was the primary staple crop. So very important.
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Jul 3, 2021 08:55
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Lead out in cuffs posted:This got posted in another thread recently, and is pretty relevant: Platystemon posted:They hosed up the environment quite a lot. I like how Scandinavia is just sitting there going "nope, nothing happening here at all."
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Jul 3, 2021 10:48
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Doesn't Denmark or Sweden have one of the national parks that was originally set aside to make boats? Then in like the 1960s the park rangers went "my king, finally, the trees are mature enough to upgrade the fleet"
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Jul 3, 2021 15:08
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Theres a whole section in Common Sense about how the United States will do great because of its plethora of old growth forests for building big ships
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Jul 3, 2021 15:36
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Doesn't Denmark or Sweden have one of the national parks that was originally set aside to make boats? Then in like the 1960s the park rangers went "my king, finally, the trees are mature enough to upgrade the fleet" In 1975, Sweden, on an island in Vättern (Swedens second largest lake) called Visingsö. Interesting place for a daytrip, there are some ruins and stuff too and a fair amount of the forest remains. It is not technically a natural park though, but are still managed and preserved by a state agency, the National Property Board who administer many of Swedens old and public historical buildings/heritage sites. im on the phone so will not go in-depth abot the topic right now, but even though the forest maps dont show it, Scandinavian countries (especially Finland and Sweden) have changed structure alot during the last few centuries. Most forests are even-aged pine and spruce monocultures and if anything Fennoskandia is more forested than it has been for over a millenium. Young low diversity production forest has increasingly replaced more diverse semi-natural habitats common before modern agriculture such as wetlands, mixed open woodlands, pastures and meadows of various kinds as well as more natural old-growth forests. A map reflecting that would show large swathes being transformed into the forest equivalent of a cultivated field. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jul 3, 2021 |
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Jul 3, 2021 20:34
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The entire state of Pennsylvania was clear cut. Literally every tree was cut down and burned for coke or sent down the the Susquehanna to Baltimore (There are a few acres !!! Of old growth still around )
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Jul 3, 2021 20:36
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Tias posted:Moar IRON AGE questions: I'm a total amateur and the thread has people much more knowledgeable than myself, but whatever - I'll see what I can do. First, keep in mind the Roman borders never went far past the Rhine so when I'm talking about Germany here I mean generally the area between the Rhine and the Elbe. Everything past the Elbe is a big ole' "?". You only have to look at the guys from after ~60 BCE and after because prior to that the Roman interaction with Germans was basically non-existent or through intermediaries in Gaul. The reason you're seeing so many leaders is because they have yearly elections. Once the big civil war kicks off these stop being as relevant. The first Roman you're interested in is probably going to be Julius Caesar, you know, the famous one. During his time in Gaul he also fought against various Germanic peoples who were either raiding or migrating into the area. Caesar got so sick of dealing with them that he launched a punitive invasion over the Rhine designed to impress the German tribes he was dealing with before returning back to Gaul. Germans fought in Gaul for various reasons and there were a not insignificant number of German mercenaries on both sides. Also, Caesar's campaign against the Belgians is famous in that he decided the Belgae were warlike savages that were impossible to deal with except through force and lots of Belgae end up on the slave markets by the time Caesar is finished in Gaul. After this things get more complicated. Augustus had German body guards that comprised his own personal legion because he liked their fighting spirit and their total dependence on him for their livelihood so we can see that there must be some sort of significant interaction between Rome and Germanic peoples, but the Germanic area is still outside Roman territory. Augustus also spent some time fighting Germans in the Germanic area and famously lost three legions in an ambush led by a German tribal leader that had a formal Roman military education. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest is pretty famous so you should plenty to read about it if you look. Long story short, the loss was a huge blow to Roman morale in the region and was a big turning point in making the Roman emperors decide to abandon fully integrating the Germanic area into the empire. However, this doesn't mean they didn't continue to fight against the Germanic tribes. Augustus also had an heir with the nickname 'Germanicus' which means he spent no small amount of time fighting (and winning) against German tribes because that's how you get your nickname. I think that guy died young after he got sick (or was poisoned) in Egypt. After Augustus the Romans settle into a cozy existence of trading with the German tribes along with occasionally recruiting German tribes for military service. The formal Roman borders never really extend very far into Germanic territory and the Romans basically see no reason to waste time trying to conquer angry forest people when they can just bribe them with good Roman wine instead. Several German tribes exist as clients of Rome so establishing a border is tricky, as can be expected. There's also some trade with Scandinavia, but given the distances I think it's handled through intermediaries, from what I recall the Scandinavian amber was quite valuable and given the Roman borders extended into Belgium and England I imagine there was trade with the Danes. A quick google search confirms this and there was also definitely trade along the Amber Road which I just found out about from wikipedia (I mean, I knew they traded amber, but I didn't realize the extent of the trade and the route it took). The Amber Road goes in down Eastern Europe starting in the Baltic around Lithuania then through Poland and then into the Bohemian region before going to the Mediterranean.
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Jul 3, 2021 21:04
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I have a dumb question: what would you all rate as the most popular (explicitly not our favorite) premodern historical periods/regions in the west today? e.g. my opinion roughly in order, maybe something like: 1. Medieval Britain 2. Vikings 3. Ancient Rome 4. Pirates 5. Mythological/Ancient Greece 6. Feudal Japan 7. France (18th century?) 8. Ancient Egypt 9. "Ancient" China (period probably not spelled out) 10. Renaissance Italy I expect there are ways to actually get data of this but I don't have the first idea where to start
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Jul 4, 2021 01:46
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Koramei posted:I have a dumb question: what would you all rate as the most popular (explicitly not our favorite) premodern historical periods/regions in the west today?
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Jul 4, 2021 01:58
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That's actually a really difficult question. I also don't think most people would think of pre modern pirates at all. 1. Medieval 3. The Enlightenment as a nebulous concept 2. Vikings, biggest increase recently 3. Japan, Probably biased as I'm a huge weeb and associate with other weebs 4. Renissance Italy, prolly neck and neck with Japan. People might not be as into into it, but it's impact on art and culture, plus how the West teaches history means it's got a huge impact on peoples brains 5. Greece, but only the surface level poo poo and mythology 6. Egypt again super surface level 7. China, I doubt most westerners could name a single dynasty outside the Han 8. Southern Pre Colombian societies, only Aztec and Maya are gonna be well known at all 9. Northern Pre Colombian Socities, virtually unknown.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:00
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Koramei posted:I have a dumb question: what would you all rate as the most popular (explicitly not our favorite) premodern historical periods/regions in the west today? Looks like you just make a list of Assassin's Creed games.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:02
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There's no Japanese Asscreed
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Jul 4, 2021 02:02
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VictualSquid posted:First step would be to define your demographic among whom the popularity is counted. I mean I'd be curious about that too; if e.g. certain eras are more popular among baby boomers than gen z. I guess Japan for one.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:11
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 Not scientific, but the other ones don't even register. It's basically "Pirates," "Vikings," "Medieval," and then everything else.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:11
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Gaius Marius posted:That's actually a really difficult question. I also don't think most people would think of pre modern pirates at all. I assume they meant "modern" narrowly defined, since 18th century france is listed in which case, revolutionary america is probably on the list
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Jul 4, 2021 02:13
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The problem with that is people aren't googling Ancient Greece, but what about Illiad, Odyssey, Alexander the Great, or any of the Greek Pantheon
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Jul 4, 2021 02:13
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Gaius Marius posted:The problem with that is people aren't googling Ancient Greece, but what about Illiad, Odyssey, Alexander the Great, or any of the Greek Pantheon The cool thing with google trends is that th einfo gets better the more times that you hit it  Why would "odyssey" have spiked in October 2018? e. assassin's creed. e. basically this doesn't look to me like those other terms reveal much different interest.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:17
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I'd be most likely to look up "Greek mythology" and "Rome" if I were going of general knowledge
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Jul 4, 2021 02:18
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Brawnfire posted:I'd be most likely to look up "Greek mythology" and "Rome" if I were going of general knowledge "greek mythology" and "ancient greece" are almost perfect correlation lines. What's interesting is they get searched less in the summer lol
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Jul 4, 2021 02:21
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Oh google trends is a really interesting way of doing it. Searching for some other stuff does seem to even it out a bit:  Ninja absolutely dwarfs all of them but I feel like that's way more general; samurai is probably much more relevant to people at least a bit interested in that period of Japanese history. e: wow, Odyssey handily beats out Sparta too. I'm surprised at how important it is after all; I guess I'm way too immersed in nerd discourse because I would have expected it the other way around. Koramei fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jul 4, 2021 |
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Jul 4, 2021 02:24
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Not many students are assigned to read the Sparta.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:28
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Koramei posted:Oh google trends is a really interesting way of doing it. Yeah conflated terms is the biggest weakness. It's not a perfect tool, but it's a tool, right? It can at least demonstrate relative interest. Could try messing around with the "category" searches. "Crusades" tracks pretty closely with "Greek Mythology", as does "King Arthur". "knights" is at a higher order of magnitude of interest. e. "Odyssey" is higher because of video games.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:28
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Vidéo games in general is just going to gently caress any of the results. I'm sure there was a spike for pirates when black flag released.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:31
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Koramei posted:e: wow, Odyssey handily beats out Sparta too. I'm surprised at how important it is after all; I guess I'm way too immersed in nerd discourse because I would have expected it the other way around. ah but  
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Jul 4, 2021 02:31
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CommonShore posted:Why would "odyssey" have spiked in October 2018? A new restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in the summer of 2018 and toured a lot of cinemas in the fall. May be related to that.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:32
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People just got way into trying to restore Magnavox odysseys
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Jul 4, 2021 02:34
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Gaius Marius posted:Vidéo games in general is just going to gently caress any of the results. I'm sure there was a spike for pirates when black flag released. Yeah I was thinking "Rome" may have caught a ton of tourists in the results, but its biggest spike in the past 15 years was for September 2013, i.e. when Total War: Rome 2 came out. I'm sure other methodology would come up with some different results, but otoh I think it's another pointer to how important popular culture and video games are for how most people end up getting their history. And also high school assigned readings. Totally slipped my mind that the Odyssey is a standard text in lots of curriculums but that makes a lot of sense. I suppose I can't really count being forced to read it as someone actually being interested in Ancient Greece.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:36
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Probably the best way would be to take some cross-section of popular culture, like high-grossing movies or something, over the past decade, and just manually check if they're historical and if so, what period. It would be annoying as hell but I'm not sure of any better way to really measure this.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:36
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cheetah7071 posted:Probably the best way would be to take some cross-section of popular culture, like high-grossing movies or something, over the past decade, and just manually check if they're historical and if so, what period. It would be annoying as hell but I'm not sure of any better way to really measure this. Google trends would actually capture that, though, because the people who are making those things would be trying to play to market interest in the topic. Something like Assassin's Creed: Odyssey gets made because the studio's market research finds that people are interested in vaguely Greek poo poo enough to pay money for something with that theme.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:38
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Well, I more meant that like, "Rome" is going to both capture interest in the history, and modern interest in it as a vacation destination (or just interest in the modern city in general). "Greece" will be similar. You'd have to be really carefully with interpreting the results.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:40
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CommonShore posted:"greek mythology" and "ancient greece" are almost perfect correlation lines. What's interesting is they get searched less in the summer lol Nobody gets assigned The Iliad and The Odyssey as summer reading. Just The Chocolate War and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman cheetah7071 posted:Probably the best way would be to take some cross-section of popular culture, like high-grossing movies or something, over the past decade, and just manually check if they're historical and if so, what period. It would be annoying as hell but I'm not sure of any better way to really measure this. I can't imagine that would correlate much at all with population-wide interest in a given topic even in a single country, let alone generally. Gross is based on a ton of factors, such as quality of the film itself to name only one (and possibly not a big one), plus style and technique, hype and marketing, annually cyclical and fad-based trends in genres, actors, directors, and other principals involved, critical acclaim or scorn (which is similarly uncorrelated), and even more soft factors.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:46
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cheetah7071 posted:Well, I more meant that like, "Rome" is going to both capture interest in the history, and modern interest in it as a vacation destination (or just interest in the modern city in general). "Greece" will be similar. You'd have to be really carefully with interpreting the results. (thinking through the question more than arguing with you) But how many people are interetsed in Rome as a vacation destination without some kind of an interest in the history? I get that there would be some result contamination, but even with that contamination, "Ancient Rome" looks like random noise beside "Pirates." The hardest contamination would be people who live in Rome now looking for stuff about it.
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Jul 4, 2021 02:51
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I was just looking at a list and a lot of films are kind of ambiguous on that front too. Beauty and the Beast is entirely in an early modern French historical setting and takes some pains to evoke it, but is that the reason people watch it? Do people see the Middle Ages in Lord of the Rings? perhaps in retrospect it was a stupid question
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Jul 4, 2021 02:51
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