[HN Gopher] Experimental archaeologist tested out Stone-Age livi...
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Experimental archaeologist tested out Stone-Age living on the
Thames
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 49 points
Date : 2023-09-04 21:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.com)
| kypro wrote:
| This is probably one of the better ways to understand how
| neolithic people lived.
|
| I visited a really interesting place last year that does similar
| reconstruction archaeology,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell_Henllys
|
| At one point I was in one of their reconstruction huts and they
| had a large open fire in the centre to keep warm. I was surprised
| to find they had no chimney system so the hut was full of smoke.
| If I recall correctly they said it was because the hut was made
| of wood so they couldn't build a chimney and it would be a fire
| risk if they put the fire closer to the edge. I questioned
| whether it was bad for their health that they were breathing in
| so much smoke and one of the researcher there said, "I don't
| know, but we'll find out".
|
| It's an interesting iterative approach to learning about history.
| johngossman wrote:
| She has an interesting website
| https://www.theresaemmerich.com/personal-bio
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I did a reasonable amount of "bushcraft" in my youth, and the
| academic community was just beginning to open up - but I miss the
| opportunities now.
|
| Fantastic to see this new wave of academic take up. Must dig out
| my back pack
| totetsu wrote:
| Not Neolithic, but the BBC did a great series of series of living
| history shows
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series
| arethuza wrote:
| The BBC had multiple families living for a year in Iron Age
| conditions back in the 1970s:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_in_the_Past_(TV_series)
|
| I can _just_ remember watching it as a child.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| The Thames as in the Thames where London, England is?
|
| That's a very different river now to what it was in the stone
| age. I know it's practically a canal along many parts of it,
| especially upstream around Henley.
| odiroot wrote:
| Especially that there's plenty of locks on the way.
| badcppdev wrote:
| The Thames is 215 miles long and while there are portions that
| are 100% wrapped in civilisation I think there are areas in
| both the tidal and non-tidal sections that are totally wild.
|
| Obviously experimental archaeologists have to try and ignore
| airplanes, plastic bag waste, and their own good health and
| shiny teeth but I think this kind of activity is amazing.
| scatters wrote:
| The nearly entire length of the river is navigable, with the
| flow controlled by locks and weirs. This isn't to minimize
| their achievement, but they didn't have to contend with
| rapids, shallows or swamps like the river would have had back
| in the stone age.
| shmageggy wrote:
| "Totally wild" is probably an exaggeration, considering there
| is virtually nowhere in southern England that could
| reasonably be considered totally wild.
| thworp wrote:
| There isn't a totally wild area larger than a few square
| kilometres anywhere west of Warsaw in Europe.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Huh no shiny teeth? Why?
|
| Weren't the teeth of the average person back then much
| shinier because... no sugar?
| tmoravec wrote:
| Not really, because:
|
| * No dentists
|
| * Not brushing teeth
|
| * Plenty of sand, stones etc. in food (in particular,
| grinding grain with traditional millstones introduces a ton
| of sand in the flour).
|
| * Many more diseases and infections that have negative
| impact on mouth biome and pH.
|
| It's a common trope to point out white teeth of Hollywood
| actors in historic films.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Not brushing teeth
|
| People have practiced dental hygiene since forever:
|
| > Since before recorded history, a variety of oral
| hygiene measures have been used for teeth cleaning. This
| has been verified by various excavations done throughout
| the world, in which chew sticks, tree twigs, bird
| feathers, animal bones and porcupine quills have been
| found. In historic times, different forms of tooth
| cleaning tools have been used. Indian medicine (Ayurveda)
| has used the neem tree, or daatun, and its products to
| create teeth cleaning twigs and similar products; a
| person chews one end of the neem twig until it somewhat
| resembles the bristles of a toothbrush, and then uses it
| to brush the teeth. In the Muslim world, the miswak, or
| siwak, made from a twig or root, has antiseptic
| properties and has been widely used since the Islamic
| Golden Age.
| greggsy wrote:
| use of the miswak is likely to be the only consistent
| practice though, mainly because it is so intertwined as a
| habitual religious practice.
| rprospero wrote:
| Also worth mentioning that Catullus[1] recorded
| performing oral hygiene with both water and... let's say
| ammonia.
|
| [1] http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e39.htm
| greggsy wrote:
| The damage caused by grit in ground grains is probably
| the most significant, and was also evident in Native
| American tribes.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| The Thames cuts across nearly the entire width of England
| regularfry wrote:
| I've rowed the Thames from Lechlade to Teddington, years ago
| now. The upper reaches are a bit hairy in terms of
| under/overgrowth but you're into something that's navigable and
| not over-managed quite quickly, from memory.
|
| There are very built-up stretches, but there are also parts
| where it's just... water. Going through green fields. For
| hours. The biggest difference I can imagine with the stone age
| isn't the river itself, it's what's on the banks. It would have
| been far more wooded than it is now; lots that's currently farm
| would have been forest, and from that point of view foraging
| would probably have been a lot easier.
| willis936 wrote:
| Little surprise this level of survivalist has been on Alone. I
| highly recommend the show.
| prawn wrote:
| She has a novel shelter structure too.
|
| (Have watched 12+ seasons of Alone. If you want to dip your
| toes in, seasons 6 and 7 are great, 3 and 8 half decent too.
| The Australian season is a bit miserly, while the UK version
| just finished was fairly budget/amateur.)
| [deleted]
| hamburga wrote:
| And apparently she was also on "Surviving the Stone Age."
| Fittingly.
| beezlewax wrote:
| There's a really great YouTube channel called Primative
| Technology where the guy without talking works his way through
| iron age tech. Building kilns and smelting iron eventually. Put
| the subtitles on for extra info. It'd be great to see something
| similar about the stone age. Obviously more basic but it'd give a
| great insight to how these people might have lived.
| hamburga wrote:
| The Stone Age is such a ridiculously broad time period.
|
| From Wikipedia[1]:
|
| > The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone
| was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a
| percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million
| years and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC.
|
| So, 3.4 million years out of (generously) the last (3.4 million +
| 6,023) years were the Stone Age. 99.82% of "human" history (of
| course appreciating that modern homo sapien didn't appear until
| 300,000-ish years ago).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Age
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(page generated 2023-09-06 20:02 UTC)