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Halloween Jack posted: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? Actually the industial revolution was pretty terrible for your quality of life if you were part of the social class expected to start working down the mines instead of in the fields.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:32
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Halloween Jack posted: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? Easy, find anybody from the 1800s. Human health stayed decent and steady throughout the classical and medieval periods--people generally ate a pretty healthy diet, and other than famine they were well enough off. Then industrialization happened and poo poo got hosed for about 150 years, and has just returned to normal in the 20th century.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:38
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I really should have remembered that. Even today you can observe it in North Koreans.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:40
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You can still see it in South Koreans. People my generation are generally the same height as any average westerner, while the old people are absolutely tiny. Not just the ones who are permanently bent in half (bent-backed peasant isn't just a literary term, it's literally true) but every day I see old ladies who are like four feet tall at best.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:45
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Yup China is like this too. Chinese people under 30 average maybe 2-3 inches shorter than the average western European height, but a lot of them are pretty big. It's not too unusual for teenage boys (or the occasional girl) to be taller than me, and I'm bog-standard North American average male height. Over 30 I have seen a handful of people taller than me in my whole time in China. Over 40 and they're 6-12 inches shorter than NA average. Over 60 and they rarely reach 5'6". I'd actually like to hear more about the evidence for this. What is it about the 19th and 20th centuries that made peasant diets take a nosedive in quality? I could understand urban poor being tiny but people who grow veggies for a living? Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 16:04
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Grand Fromage posted:Easy, find anybody from the 1800s. Human health stayed decent and steady throughout the classical and medieval periods--people generally ate a pretty healthy diet, and other than famine they were well enough off. Then industrialization happened and poo poo got hosed for about 150 years, and has just returned to normal in the 20th century. I guess up till the industrial revolution quality of diet pretty much enforced population size limits, especially when disease combined forces with malnutrition to wipe out the excess at an early age.
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Nov 5, 2013 16:22
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Arglebargle III posted:I'd actually like to hear more about the evidence for this. What is it about the 19th and 20th centuries that made peasant diets take a nosedive in quality? I could understand urban poor being tiny but people who grow veggies for a living?
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Nov 5, 2013 16:35
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Arglebargle III posted:Yup China is like this too. Chinese people under 30 average maybe 2-3 inches shorter than the average western European height, but a lot of them are pretty big. It's not too unusual for teenage boys (or the occasional girl) to be taller than me, and I'm bog-standard North American average male height. Over 30 I have seen a handful of people taller than me in my whole time in China. Over 40 and they're 6-12 inches shorter than NA average. Over 60 and they rarely reach 5'6". There was this world event covering the mid-30's to mid-40's where many people's livelihoods were disrupted. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 16:43
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Arglebargle III posted:Yup China is like this too. Chinese people under 30 average maybe 2-3 inches shorter than the average western European height, but a lot of them are pretty big. It's not too unusual for teenage boys (or the occasional girl) to be taller than me, and I'm bog-standard North American average male height. Over 30 I have seen a handful of people taller than me in my whole time in China. Over 40 and they're 6-12 inches shorter than NA average. Over 60 and they rarely reach 5'6". I recall there was something about periods of starvation generally selecting for shorter, less muscular, and thus less energy demanding builds. Bodies which didn't build as much muscle, but which stacked up fat reserves easily. Of course, it'd have to be really severe and last for a long time to really sink in. Not sure where I read that though.
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Nov 5, 2013 17:00
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Alchenar posted:There was this world event covering the mid-30's to mid-40's where many people's livelihoods were disrupted.  I meant the previous 1800-1950 dates quoted.
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Nov 5, 2013 17:06
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veekie posted:I recall there was something about periods of starvation generally selecting for shorter, less muscular, and thus less energy demanding builds. Bodies which didn't build as much muscle, but which stacked up fat reserves easily. Of course, it'd have to be really severe and last for a long time to really sink in. A couple hundred years, or about 10 generations, isn't a long enough period for genetic selection to really kick in. It's just malnutrition. The kind of adaptation you're talking about would have more to do with the differences between sapiens and neanderthalis. Also, perhaps some article on obesity, because I recall reading about something along those same lines. Arglebargle III posted:Yup China is like this too. Chinese people under 30 average maybe 2-3 inches shorter than the average western European height, but a lot of them are pretty big. It's not too unusual for teenage boys (or the occasional girl) to be taller than me, and I'm bog-standard North American average male height. Over 30 I have seen a handful of people taller than me in my whole time in China. Over 40 and they're 6-12 inches shorter than NA average. Over 60 and they rarely reach 5'6". Where do you live in China? I've always noticed that Southern Chinese tend to be shorter, and I just chalked it up to a diet that's too dependant on rice. Farmers stopped eating their own food at around the time enclosures became common. A peasant stops growing food for subsistence, and instead grows it for a wage, which they then have to spend on the same food after it goes through the system. It's similar to how farmers in developing nations who grow cash crops like coffee have to live. Ireland's sort of a special case, but you can see the forces behind the malnutrition at work there. I blame capitalism. In addition to this, any peasants that continued to own their own land would find it difficult to cope with the flood of cheap flood coming from industrialised agriculture. So you get this double effect of too much cheap and nutrient-poor food, and a decline in stuff that's better for you.
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Nov 5, 2013 18:03
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To tie it in to the thread, why were the germanic tribes so much bigger than the (latin) Romans? Has there ever been a study of identifiable skeletons to see what the comparative heights of the tribes were?
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Nov 5, 2013 18:05
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Phobophilia posted: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. If someone wants to read our last argument about bicameralism, it's somewhere in my post history in this thread. I've read all of Jaynes' book since then, and I gotta repeat, while his arguments range from bizarre to spurious to a few seeming outright falsifications, it is at least an extremely stimulating idea. And an utterly, utterly terrifying one. And I do want to note that there is very surprisingly almost no eurocentric ideas as such in the book, and nothing in relation to colonialism. Jaynes doesn't discuss cultures outside of the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesoamerica at all essentially, and doesn't even refer to questions about the change from bicameralism to consciousness in modern times in places like Subsaharan Africa, which is odd, but does partially exempt him from such politicised considerations.
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Nov 5, 2013 18:21
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I'd like to thank whoever first pointed me towards Dan Carlin. The fall of the roman republic series is really good, and the comparisons to American politics are entertaining if a little wacky. I basically imagine Obama now as the Marcus Livius Drusus the Elder of our day haha.
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Nov 5, 2013 18:35
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tekz posted:I'd like to thank whoever first pointed me towards Dan Carlin. The fall of the roman republic series is really good, and the comparisons to American politics are entertaining if a little wacky. I basically imagine Obama now as the Marcus Livius Drusus the Elder of our day haha. Tom Holland's Rubicon is excellent.
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Nov 5, 2013 19:03
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euphronius posted:To tie it in to the thread, why were the germanic tribes so much bigger than the (latin) Romans? There has been suggestions that only the beefiest tall dudes would join up with the great armies that would tussle with the Romans, while the scrawnier types would tend to stick back home, tend the farms with the women, and all that. A simple matter of put the big tough guy out there cuz he can fight better in a pre-gun world.
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Nov 5, 2013 19:58
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Install Windows posted:There has been suggestions that only the beefiest tall dudes would join up with the great armies that would tussle with the Romans, while the scrawnier types would tend to stick back home, tend the farms with the women, and all that. A simple matter of put the big tough guy out there cuz he can fight better in a pre-gun world. I thought pretty much every man would join up with the armies in the summers since there really wasn't much to do around the farm when the crops were just growing and raiding provided a pretty good secondary income.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:32
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Wouldnt the Latin Roman army also have their tall dudes there. And also the reports of their greater height came from non soldier sources and things.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:38
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Lord Tywin posted:I thought pretty much every man would join up with the armies in the summers since there really wasn't much to do around the farm when the crops were just growing and raiding provided a pretty good secondary income. The scrawny dudes who didn't know how to fight wouldn't have been wanted by the armies, since they'd tend to be more of a liability and resource drag on the army at large, especially for things like raiding parties. euphronius posted:Wouldnt the Latin Roman army also have their tall dudes there. For a long time the Romans still kept up with the ideals that everyone of a certain social class and up should be going out to fight, as a matter of principle. You'd expect them to have less of that effect. That said when you look at modern statistics many of the "germanic" countries still have taller average heights by a couple inches or so over Italians, and that's with both groups having the advantage of fairly adequate nutrition. Italian men average 5'10" while Germans average 5'11", the Dutch 6'0", the Danes 6'0" and so on. And that's with many Italians having varying levels of Germanic ancestry due to the preceding few hundred to thousand years. If you have everyone on the other side just 2 inches taller than most of the people on your side, the overall effect is definitely going to be "those other guys are massive!" even though on the whole, they're not much larger. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 20:45
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It's commonly thought that ze Germans encountered by Italians were pastoralists, eating lots of beef and drinking milk from infancy.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:50
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Do you have sources for any of this stuff or are you just making things up again?
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Nov 5, 2013 20:58
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Install Windows posted:
What the hell are you talking about.
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Nov 5, 2013 21:01
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Didn't we speak about the size thing a few times over in this thread? Somebody pointed out that the average size dropped when people switched from hunting/gathering to farming, and then there was something about nomads being better fed in general b/c of  milk, meat, more milk and then some cheese?
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Nov 5, 2013 22:21
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Atlas Hugged posted: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. Well we have archeological evidence of the manufacture of complex pigments requiring multiple ingredients at least 100,000 years old, and according to this article http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1922.htm there's evidence humans were using colored pigments 200,000 years ago. The graves of neanderthals suggest ritual activity, so there's plenty of evidence that the "breakthrough" 50,000 years ago was preceded by a gradual increase in artistic/symbolic thought. Install Windows posted:or a long time the Romans still kept up with the ideals that everyone of a certain social class and up should be going out to fight, as a matter of principle. You'd expect them to have less of that effect. The empire had height restrictions for army recruits for all of classical history. 5ft 10in was the standard until 367, when it was lowered to 5ft 7in, according to wikipedia. Of course since the Germans who overthrew the western empire were mostly in the Roman army it's not unreasonable to assume they would have been taller than the average Roman observer, in late antiquity at least. Squalid fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 6, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 23:23
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Here's a question I've always been too embarrassed to ask - can someone explain to me how writing worked with the Romans? I've read that the Romans loving LOVED to write letters to each other, which is part of the reason we know so much about them (or at least the upper classes) but what did they write on? Writing paper is a relatively modern invention, isn't it? Did they have parchment? I've frequently seen "wax tablets" mentioned but how did these work in practice? Were letters between friends/orders for generals etc written on tablet and then raced to their location by a messenger? How did they prevent the message from being smudged/crushed/destroyed etc? I think important laws/records were inscribed on bronze? What about the wills held by the Vestal Virgins etc?
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Nov 6, 2013 02:06
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Presumably many would have written on papyrus sourced from the Nile, which doesn't survive too well since it's made from reeds. e: I know at least from Classical Greece (think 4th/5th century BCE) that the laws of a polis were often inscribed on bronze and then nailed to something close to where the citizens met. An example being the Temple of Zeus in Olympia had the laws of Elis nailed to it, since the Olympic complex functioned as their civic meeting space as well. ColtMcAsskick fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 6, 2013 |
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Nov 6, 2013 02:11
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Parchment and vellum, made from animal skins, was also widely available - but expensive.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:14
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Also the whole HOLY poo poo MASSIVE GERMANS thing is barbarian otherizing from the writers we have. There's also a common and false belief that Romans were tiny. I'd bet you that in reality, on average, there was little to no difference.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:15
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Jerusalem posted:I've frequently seen "wax tablets" mentioned but how did these work in practice?
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Nov 6, 2013 02:21
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Thanks for the answers - paper is just such a common every day part of life that it's really bizarre to think of how people wrote to each other before then. So I take it that based on the cost, letter writing was somewhat of a status symbol as well as mostly restricted to the upper classes? How widespread was literacy amongst the Romans as a whole, could the working class read/write or just rely on somebody to read out those bronze tablets to them or the local announcer to shout out what was going on in the Senate/the city etc?
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Nov 6, 2013 02:38
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Grand Fromage posted:Also the whole HOLY poo poo MASSIVE GERMANS thing is barbarian otherizing from the writers we have. There's also a common and false belief that Romans were tiny. I'd bet you that in reality, on average, there was little to no difference. From what we know of them it's entirely reasonable to expect the Germanic tribes actually were an inch or two taller on average, and that this was hyped up by the Roman writers.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:43
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They used bits of wood too. The Vindolanda tablets are those sort of letters. They're also one of the many pieces of evidence that literacy was widespread, since they're mostly letters to/from common soldiers and their families. There were public libraries, and Roman cities had written announcements/news/advertisement/etc everywhere. Literacy for peasants in the countryside was probably poor, but for city dwellers all the evidence suggests it was common enough. Certainly nothing like universal literacy today, but far more than medieval Europe.Install Windows posted:From what we know of them it's entirely reasonable to expect the Germanic tribes actually were an inch or two taller on average, and that this was hyped up by the Roman writers. An inch or two pretty well describes "little to no difference" to me.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:44
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I don't know about anything specific regarding literacy, but I do know the Marian reforms included mandatory literacy lessons for those who never learned to read before they joined up. So among the lower classes it was uncommon enough to be a problem for when they joined the highly organized roman army.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:46
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VanSandman posted:I don't know about anything specific regarding literacy, but I do know the Marian reforms included mandatory literacy lessons for those who never learned to read before they joined up. So among the lower classes it was uncommon enough to be a problem for when they joined the highly organized roman army. I bet at least some of that was teaching the non-Romans who joined the auxilia, too.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:47
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Grand Fromage posted:The Vindolanda tablets Oh wow, only discovered in the 70s and more still being unearthed today, it must be amazing to unearth these.
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Nov 6, 2013 02:59
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Jerusalem posted:Oh wow, only discovered in the 70s and more still being unearthed today, it must be amazing to unearth these. Yep, they're awesome as poo poo. Also the only example of a woman's direct writing we have from classical history, as far as I know. I always liked this one: "... I have sent (?) you ... pairs of socks from Sattua, two pairs of sandals and two pairs of underpants, two pairs of sandals ... Greet ...ndes, Elpis, Iu..., ...enus, Tetricus and all your messmates with whom I pray that you live in the greatest good fortune."
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Nov 6, 2013 03:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep, they're awesome as poo poo. Also the only example of a woman's direct writing we have from classical history, as far as I know. I liked this one:  (1st hand) Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present (?). Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him (?) their greetings. (2nd hand) I shall expect you sister. Farewell, sister my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail. (1st hand = household scribe, 2nd hand = Claudia Severa herself)
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Nov 6, 2013 03:35
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Ras Het posted:If someone wants to read our last argument about bicameralism, it's somewhere in my post history in this thread. I've read all of Jaynes' book since then, and I gotta repeat, while his arguments range from bizarre to spurious to a few seeming outright falsifications, it is at least an extremely stimulating idea. And an utterly, utterly terrifying one. I for one find the explanation for this kind increased sophistication over time better explained, not by genetics, but memetics. Humans, being social animals, are extremely good at transmitting information and behaviours between individuals and generations. Non-human animals are also capable of such inter-generational learning, but not to our same extent. So you have some guys planting some edible seeds in the ground, and this meme has a selective advantage because people who do so instead of eating them immediately have more to eat in the end, and other people copy that behaviour and that innovation propagates through communities and along trade routes. And that behaviour gets refined, you need to manipulate the ground in some particular ways to get more food, or you need to heat rocks in certain ways to get better iron. And sometimes these memes never take root thanks to the conceptual niche being occupied by other memes, such as metal working never advancing far in mesoamerica because of the abundance of highly sophisticated obsidian tools. In general, later generations have more to work with the further along in time and the more exposure they have with meme-propagating trade routes. And pressure to select for better methods is what drives innovation, as otherwise it is easy to fall into evolutionary dead ends. So in the old days, it was often warfare that applied selective pressure on memes, these days it is the global economy and the abundance of research academies all competing against and bouncing ideas off one another.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:01
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm no expert, but I believe industrialized agriculture made it easy to grow large amounts of various grains, which provide plenty of calories but not necessarily the nutrients to nourish fit, disease-resistant people. For example, pellagra, a vitamin deficiency common in times and places where people were getting most of their calories from corn. Except in central and south America, where pellagra has almost never occurred in the past and almost never occurs today, despite corn making up a huge part of the diet. This is because treating corn with lime (the mineral, not the fruit) releases vitamin B3, preventing pellagra. While virtually all native American peoples had mastered the process in in prehistory, western society would be plagued by pellagra until the 20th century, when modern science finally discovered the cause of the illness. At times it reached endemic levels in Northern Italy, Southern France, and the American South, and is still a serious problem in parts of Subsaharan Africa.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:02
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I always love reading about Mesoamerica, because it's basically a society that evolved completely isolated from the other hemisphere, so it's interesting where memes underwent evolutionary convergence.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:07
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