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Ola posted:By the rivers of Doggerland, there we knapped flint Such geography. Much hill. Wow.
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Feb 2, 2022 03:56
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Phobophilia posted:It's not just the last hundred years, the general trend is that agriculturalized peoples with state institutions tend to push out of fertile lowlands and riverlands into marginal lands that are less capable of generating edible calories per acre. I think this is a misunderstanding, potentially driven by source bias (i.e. we don't have historical records from groups that specifically lived outside of the literate, urban tradition we all live in). The Art of Not Being Governed is I think the simplest introduction to this tension and is focused on things within the last about 400 years. James Scott focuses his attention on eastern Zomia, which is a fortunately well studied region and one where even today state control can be somewhat tenuous, though the non-state agents in the region are very much on the backfoot and have been since probably the end of WW2. He identifies a couple of factors that lead to this shift in the balance of power, with all-weather roads being an extremely decisive factor in favor of the lowland states. Before things like modern telecoms and all-weather roads, however, the region under study had a long-running cycle of lowland areas coalescing into cities, that turned into city-states, that turned into kingdoms, that then collapsed, and these existed in a constant symbiotic but ultimately tense relationship with the highland communities, who were pretty much never states and had different economic productions. The primary symbiosis was that the lowland areas tended to have negative population growths and produce little other than surplus food, while the highland areas produced a fairly large swath of utility goods (wood, amber, metals, furs) and slaves. The lowland kingdoms (usually Shan or Tai) would, due to the negative population growth rates and importing of slaves, find themselves in an increasing economic trap of higher and higher percentages of slave population, and around a third or so slaves in the population the economy would tip into fully unsustainable and the kingdom would implode, to be replaced by another state in a few generations. Point is, that even as late as the modern era, urbanized states were not straightforwardly stable or dominant over non-state entities. This relationship is not unique to eastern Zomia - a similar situation can be seen in the Balkans, Iranian plateau, Scandinavia, Mexico, Peru, really basically anywhere that there are cities, the cities are not very far from areas where city building and intensive agriculture are just not economically good ideas. Transhumance is still practiced today and was until quite recently a critical part of most economies, and it is fundamentally not compatible with how settled states with intensive agriculture govern.
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Feb 2, 2022 04:40
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Would you say the same thing about wildlife researchers and environmental refuges? Is it "gatekeeping" to dictate what people can and cannot do in a wildlife preserve based on the best research available? I'd say that wildlife researchers and any other expert is going to be inherently biased towards making things better for their field. There is a tradeoff between what land should be made a wildlife preserve versus used for other purposes. Imagine that there was a very biologically diverse area that was sitting on top of a highly valuable ore deposit. Listening to only the wildlife researchers or the miners isn't likely to lead to the best outcome for society. Perhaps the right thing to do under normal circumstances is to preserve the area, but if the ore was a component of a strategic material during wartime, the decision might be different. Decision making should be informed by the appropriate experts, but it shouldn't be given to them. Every field has its own biases and incentives that sometimes do not correspond to what's best for society as a whole. Archeologists have what seem to be particularly strong taboos around the handling of artifacts that lead to worse outcomes than are possible to achieve. No wildlife researcher is going to tell you not to enjoy the watching the birds that show up in your yard and baring extremely endangered species, they also don't get to prevent you from cutting down trees in your yard if certain birds live in them. Bird watching clubs have a substantial positive impact on supporting conservation efforts; it's better to get people interested in birds into bird watching clubs then telling that they're wrong to want to take home a beautiful feather. quote:Also the software analogy is pretty bad, because you're not talking about a person building ad targeting software (lots of coders have major concerns about privacy), you're talking about a for-profit corporation. Archaeologists are the people we pay, largely with public money, to take care of the past for us and future generations. There is certainly a societal values issue of providing sufficient funding for museums to make more artifacts available. In the absence of that, I would much rather have them in drawers in the safe keeping of paid experts than dumped out for the general public to rummage through. wins32767 fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 05:02
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:
Yea man. I don't want to come off too authoritative here because I certainly don't know much about it, or even who would (in terms of accessible history, maybe check out Patrick Wyman's podcast? He's been doing prehistory for a while now, and is writing a book on it I think), but imagine the Late Bronze Age Collapse, an event that seems impossibly far into the past to me. That happened roughly 3000 years ago. The events you're taking about happened 12,000 years ago. Long enough ago that the Earth itself, including it's climate, has time enough to be different (but again, I don't know that it's different  )
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Feb 2, 2022 05:09
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
This is amazing, thank you. I knew there would be some silting in the Greece area but from what I read previously, I didnt see anything even hinting at this.
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PittTheElder posted:Yea man. I don't want to come off too authoritative here because I certainly don't know much about it, or even who would (in terms of accessible history, maybe check out Patrick Wyman's podcast? He's been doing prehistory for a while now, and is writing a book on it I think), but imagine the Late Bronze Age Collapse, an event that seems impossibly far into the past to me. That happened roughly 3000 years ago. Brings this to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQP-7BPvvq0
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Feb 2, 2022 05:13
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Tulip posted:I think this is a misunderstanding, potentially driven by source bias (i.e. we don't have historical records from groups that specifically lived outside of the literate, urban tradition we all live in). Yeah, my post was a huge oversimplification, but nonetheless from what I understand, the manifestation of a state exerts a gravitational pull that warps all space and energy around its orbit. The tendency of the state to redistribute resources hierarchically may render it unsustainable in the long run, but while it is extant it's Everyone's Problem. It can't be ignored, either you submit to its authority and become a part of it, run away and make yourself a PITA to govern, or manifest a rival state
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Feb 2, 2022 05:53
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wins32767 posted:I'd say that wildlife researchers and any other expert is going to be inherently biased towards making things better for their field. There is a tradeoff between what land should be made a wildlife preserve versus used for other purposes. Imagine that there was a very biologically diverse area that was sitting on top of a highly valuable ore deposit. Listening to only the wildlife researchers or the miners isn't likely to lead to the best outcome for society. Perhaps the right thing to do under normal circumstances is to preserve the area, but if the ore was a component of a strategic material during wartime, the decision might be different. Decision making should be informed by the appropriate experts, but it shouldn't be given to them. Every field has its own biases and incentives that sometimes do not correspond to what's best for society as a whole. Archeologists have what seem to be particularly strong taboos around the handling of artifacts that lead to worse outcomes than are possible to achieve. No wildlife researcher is going to tell you not to enjoy the watching the birds that show up in your yard and baring extremely endangered species, they also don't get to prevent you from cutting down trees in your yard if certain birds live in them. Bird watching clubs have a substantial positive impact on supporting conservation efforts; it's better to get people interested in birds into bird watching clubs then telling that they're wrong to want to take home a beautiful feather. What are you actually suggesting or arguing for? These are all terrible analogies that actually seem to be making the opposite point you're trying to make, and I had a whole post typed up to break that down, but this isn't D&D, and I'm actually really not at all clear what it is you're suggesting.
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Feb 2, 2022 07:44
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It feels to me like there's two things to consider: How difficult is preserving the artifact? And, if this artifact were to be lost, how many backups do we have? If there's plenty to go around to anybody who's interested, and it can be easily kept safe by a non-professional (e.g., coins) then yeah go for it. If it requires specialized care to preserve, then putting it in the hands of specialized preservationists (which usually aligns with researchers but doesn't have to; could be e.g. a religious institution) seems crucial. And if there's only a handful of them in the world, then putting them on display somewhere is how you increase the amount we interact with our human heritage, instead of letting the highest bidder lock them away
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Feb 2, 2022 07:51
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also don't strip mine a wildlife preserve to wage a war goddamn
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Feb 2, 2022 07:59
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cheetah7071 posted:also don't strip mine a wildlife preserve to wage a war goddamn it's impossible to know if we should listen to wildlife researchers or mining companies about this
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Feb 2, 2022 08:04
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the thing is that the context of the item matters, too. even an unremarkable item can be a remarkable find if found in an unusual place or dated to a strange time period. something like a roman coin cache is essentially safe to provide for public resale, but even then it's really best for them to still pass through the hands of an archaeology team first so they can note the shape of caligula's nose or whatever. the problem with museums tends to be that they don't like being a "middleman" destination for artifacts, for reasons both understandable and not. for coins it's often easy enough to convince the academics that they don't need to keep the whole lot forever but those are one of the few types of artifacts they take that attitude toward
Jazerus fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 08:04
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ChubbyChecker posted:it's impossible to know if we should listen to wildlife researchers or mining companies about this Likewise, it's impossible to know whether archaeologists or black market profiteers are the best people to manage priceless pieces of humanity's heritage.
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Feb 2, 2022 08:09
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wins32767 posted:I'd say that wildlife researchers and any other expert is going to be inherently biased towards making things better for their field. There is a tradeoff between what land should be made a wildlife preserve versus used for other purposes. Imagine that there was a very biologically diverse area that was sitting on top of a highly valuable ore deposit. Listening to only the wildlife researchers or the miners isn't likely to lead to the best outcome for society. Perhaps the right thing to do under normal circumstances is to preserve the area, but if the ore was a component of a strategic material during wartime, the decision might be different. Decision making should be informed by the appropriate experts, but it shouldn't be given to them. Every field has its own biases and incentives that sometimes do not correspond to what's best for society as a whole. Archeologists have what seem to be particularly strong taboos around the handling of artifacts that lead to worse outcomes than are possible to achieve. No wildlife researcher is going to tell you not to enjoy the watching the birds that show up in your yard and baring extremely endangered species, they also don't get to prevent you from cutting down trees in your yard if certain birds live in them. Bird watching clubs have a substantial positive impact on supporting conservation efforts; it's better to get people interested in birds into bird watching clubs then telling that they're wrong to want to take home a beautiful feather. who bought the british museum a something awful account
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Feb 2, 2022 08:10
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I'm just jealous because, as a geologist, nobody has ever suggested we should control all rocks.
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Feb 2, 2022 10:02
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Scarodactyl posted:I'm just jealous because, as a geologist, nobody has ever suggested we should control all rocks. you should though
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Feb 2, 2022 10:03
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cheetah7071 posted:you should though I agree. Are you sure you're giving it your all? Perhaps try consulting some esoteric texts.
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Feb 2, 2022 11:21
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If the geologists were in charge half of them would be taking turns giddily (and drunkenly) operating the big boy excavators. About the only thing they could collectively agree on is that everyone has to pay attention during rock show and tell.
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Feb 2, 2022 14:37
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regardless of thread drama, looting sites has insanely detrimental effects to the sites themselves, and its a huge issue for native peoples across the americas. they have made it abundantly clear they don't want more colonizers just picking up pottery shards and arrowheads, let alone destroying sites.
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Feb 2, 2022 15:32
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I took a museums and collections course which visited the archives of a local science museum. The archivist was talking about how the local tribes were constantly petitioning them to give poo poo back and they kept coming up with reasons to keep it. She was clearly trying to be respectful of their claim but, uh, came across as being pretty loving bitter about giving up anything in their collection. Struck me as a tense scenario.
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Feb 2, 2022 15:40
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Also there's lots of antiques that are both impressive and not unique enough anyone wants to research them. Coins are a typical example, a roman coin collection might look museum worthy but hoards mean indervidual coins are abundant enough for you to buy freely. I've got a story along these lines somehow one of my ancestors came into possession of *Colonel* William Washington's sword (he was like George Washington's great-nephew's cousin or something). Said ancestor gave it to the local museum on condition that it be displayed, with, apparently, a proviso that it return to the family if not displayed When I was like eight years old Dad takes me to the museum and we're going through it and we don't see the sword Dad proceeds to haul up to the little old lady at the front desk and start loudly demanding the return of said sword, specifically the return of the sword to *me*, an eight year old, as the presumptive heir to the blade I eventually managed to convince Dad this was a bad idea and we needed to leave anyway a few years later I went back and the sword was on display again after all. It's basically just handmade machete with a bone handle, like something actually beaten from an actual ploughshare kinda neat but, let's face it, in the right place edit: hahaha, googling it the sword actually has a neat history quote:With the main British infantry surrender and during Tarleton's retreat, Washington was in close pursuit and found himself somewhat isolated. He was attacked by the British commander and two of his men. Tarleton was stopped by Washington himself, who attacked him with his sword, calling out, "Where is now the boasting Tarleton?" A cornet of the 17th, Thomas Patterson, rode up to strike Washington but was shot by Washington's orderly trumpeter.[3] Washington survived this assault and in the process wounded Tarleton's right hand with a sabre blow, while Tarleton creased Washington's knee with a pistol shot that also wounded his horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cowpens Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 15:59
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I know that most Americans piss blood at the insinuation that the world doesn’t exist to cater to their whims. But the fact that you can’t get gawk and touch fragile priceless artifacts is a small price to pay for preserving historical knowledge and cultural heritage. Not only for us, but for future generations.
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Feb 2, 2022 16:03
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In Iceland any object older than a hundred years old can be seized without compensation by the National Museum. They don't go to your house and snatch your family heirlooms as soon as they turn hundred (though theoretically they could). The idea is that if you accidentally stumble on an artifact while out and about you just don't take it home and put it on a shelf. Also there's usually an appropriate cash payment given for turning in old silver, gold, or jewels to discourage anyone who say digs up a medieval treasure or something from not just smelting it down.
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Feb 2, 2022 16:32
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Was there any people living on Iceland before the current people showed up
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Feb 2, 2022 17:27
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euphronius posted:Was there any people living on Iceland before the current people showed up Yes, a small community of Christian monks.
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Feb 2, 2022 17:29
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Cessna posted:Yes, a small community of Christian monks. How did they replenish their population?
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Feb 2, 2022 18:00
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Weren't the elves there first?
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Feb 2, 2022 18:02
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Crab Dad posted:How did they replenish their population? Presumably new monks moved in.
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Feb 2, 2022 18:18
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Crab Dad posted:How did they replenish their population? They didn't. (There isn't a lot of archeological evidence they were ever here but they're mentioned a bunch in old texts and there are some place names named after them. Recent, but controversial, archeological studies suggest settlement might've occured up to 200 years earlier than the written records claim (874+-2) There's also some caves in southern Iceland that I'm told by smarter and more qualified people that bear some similarities to similar caves in Ireland and might suggest a much more substantial and earlier Gaelic population than previously thought but it's very hard to tell just how old they are or who dug them) FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 18:38
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WoodrowSkillson posted:regardless of thread drama, looting sites has insanely detrimental effects to the sites themselves, and its a huge issue for native peoples across the americas. they have made it abundantly clear they don't want more colonizers just picking up pottery shards and arrowheads, let alone destroying sites. Yeah this is definitely my impression of the local situation. Here we have the "Marpole Midden", also known to the Musqueam, whose village it was, as c̓əsnaʔəm. It's such a significant site that it's used as the type idenfifier for the "Marpole Culture" in the archaeological record. And for about a hundred years it was a fun place for white settlers to go on the weekend with a shovel and pull some bone tools (and quite likely human remains) out of the ground. And then it was mostly destroyed by a hotel being built on top of it in the 1950s. It's finally back in the hands of the Musqueam Nation, but it took a major protest in 2012 against a proposed condo building on the site to get that to happen. Brawnfire posted:I took a museums and collections course which visited the archives of a local science museum. The archivist was talking about how the local tribes were constantly petitioning them to give poo poo back and they kept coming up with reasons to keep it. She was clearly trying to be respectful of their claim but, uh, came across as being pretty loving bitter about giving up anything in their collection. Struck me as a tense scenario. This is also definitely a major and important issue, especially given the racism in the history of archaeology. But I think it's a very separate issue from the "archaeologists vs the public" one. As an aside, "tribe" is a word with some nasty colonialist baggage, and best avoided in reference to indigenous peoples.
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Feb 2, 2022 20:40
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Sorry, I meant to say nations there but slipped. Doubly stupid since it's the Six Nations in my area, so it's baked into the loving name
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Feb 2, 2022 20:54
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One thing that has not been mentioned much in the discussion here is the fact that a open market for antiquities creates a powerful financial incentive for looters. The ability to easily and reliably sell antiquities at a high price is what drives looters. Archaeological looting isn't just a few people digging in their local area to make a quick buck, its a big business. In Iraq, Syria, and other conflict zones, organized militant groups and terrorist organizations have long organized looting projects, and they sell the antiquities they find to Western art dealers and auction houses. Western collectors are frequently willing to accept that an unprovenanced object was found "somewhere" without asking questions. Groups like ISIS and many other armed groups in the Middle East and elsewhere make millions of dollars every year doing this. They are only able to make this kind of money because of the open existence of the Western antiquities market. Items looted by ISIS in Syria get sold to art dealers and auction houses who will happily help looters launder the background of antiquities they grabbed. Then, art collectors will happily buy looted antiquities from auction houses and art dealers without asking questions about their origin. You will often see antiquities trafficking from looted sites called the "black market" in the media, but its super easy for a "black market" item to enter the open market, and collectors frequently buy antiquities from sources that are barely removed from the black market. This isn't just an issue for high profile items either, a huge amount of the trade in looted antiquities is small items purchased by people who would not think of themselves as "art collectors." Even coins are an issue here. A huge number of people buy ancient coins as personal collectables, but a very large percentage of ancient coins sold on the open market have been looted. Coins sold online usually come with a "certificate of authenticity," which promises that they are not modern forgeries. However, they almost never come with certificates of provenance, since for almost all coins sold online, that is unknown. In many cases, "unknown" has to be assumed to mean "originally looted." Some of this can be determined from simple deduction. There are vast numbers of Indo-Greek coins available for purchase online, often at quite cheap prices. (for example, here is one for 65 dollars available online: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/ganga_numismatics/216/product/india_indogreek_hermaios_posthumous_tetradrachm_scarce/1603141/Default.aspx. You can find hundreds of others with a quick google search). However, relatively few Indo-Greek sites have been excavated under controlled conditions by archaeologists (since they are mainly in Afghanistan, rural Pakistan, and other unstable Central Asian areas), and the vast majority of Indo-Greek coins sold online come from looters. If large scale archaeological work in Afghanistan ever becomes possible, archaeologists will find many, many sites that have been destroyed by looters looking for coins to sell to Western antiquities dealers. Western museums are by no means innocent in this, they buy things from antiquities dealers as well. However, most private collectors are far worse, because they generally do not care about the provenance of the objects they are buying. Provenance is a critical for scholars who are studying an object, and frequently an object is pretty useless for scholarship if we don't know where it came from and what it was found in association with. However, collectors don't usually care about that, since they are not trying to study the objects they buy. If you just want a cool looking blue bowl from Ancient Rome to show off to your friends, it doesn't matter to you where it came from. And even if you do care about ethically sourcing antiquities, most dealers do not, and they will happily sell you items they don't know the origin of.
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Feb 3, 2022 02:41
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Crab Dad posted:How did they replenish their population? When a mommy monk and a daddy monk love each other very much...
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Feb 3, 2022 03:44
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sullat posted:When a mommy monk and a daddy monk love each other very much... I'm just imagining all these boats leaving ireland or wherever and only a few making it with lots of boats of celibate monks(most likely dead) being sprayed all over the east coast.
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Feb 3, 2022 03:50
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sullat posted:When a mommy monk and a daddy monk love each other very much... Whoa I remember this from the Decameron!!!
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Feb 3, 2022 05:00
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I'm pretty sure there were monastic orders that were co-ed and into free love, but that might have been in Turkey, and a bit earlier in history.
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Feb 3, 2022 05:41
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Yeah that definitely pops up in Christian communities even into recent times from time to time
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Feb 3, 2022 06:05
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Lead out in cuffs posted:As an aside, "tribe" is a word with some nasty colonialist baggage, and best avoided in reference to indigenous peoples. Would you care to go into this more? 'Round here that's how indigenous people tend to refer to their top level organizations when using English.
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Feb 3, 2022 08:34
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Lead out in cuffs posted:
Really? Cause I got bitched out on SA for using "First Nations" as "nation" is apparently a European concept.
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Feb 3, 2022 08:56
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The preferred terms are (as one would expect) very different region-by-region, and there's some backlash against Westerners trying to come up with a new euphemism that lumps together (for instance) people in the Great Plains with Australia and the Arctic circle as a homogeneous blob.
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Feb 3, 2022 10:08
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Yeah there seems to be a big split just across the US-Canada border too, due to their history of interaction with the colonial governments rather than any inherent difference. Canadian indigenous groups have I think all transitioned to referring to themselves as First Nations, while I gather that in the States the term Tribe, and self identification with the term Indian is much more common. Then there's an additional split in the Arctic; within Canada the term Eskimo is seen as an outdated slur, but I believe the groups within Alaska still use it as a generic high level term for themselves.
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Feb 3, 2022 10:36
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