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Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#141

Post by jumasheff »

astine wrote: post #92
gmarx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure this explanation is just really old speculation. Even if the ancient greeks kept records of word origins, those documents would likely be lost by now

Judging by this link: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=barbarian , the reasoning is based on words in other indoeuropean languages having a similar root to 'barbarian' being used to refer to stammering or incoherent speech.

The most interesting part is this: `...meaning "rude, wild person" is from 1610s.`

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#142

Post by Steko »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #113
dghughes wrote: post #106

I've seen forensics shows where the person was identified using oxygen isotopes in the water the person drank. I wonder how mixed up we are now with bottled water from Fiji, strontium in toothpaste and other weird non-local molecules. Cops talking "Hey Frank He's from Fiji but seems to have lived in Siberia too."

I would love to see a cop procedural where all the science keeps leading them to the wrong conclusion. I presume it is easiest to write it as a comedy, but might be pulled off as a drama too.

How about a dystopian Law and Order where every week a new batch of innocent people are sent to prison based on dubious science and willful ignorance from police and prosecutors.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#143

Post by clw8 »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #84
tacomonstrous wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an unreasonable legend. Conventional wisdom is that all Indo-Europeans sprang from the steppes of Central Asia. Having it mentioned in a 14th century declaration is pretty fascinating!

The proto-indo-European migration is thought to have been a cultural and linguistic migration, not a mass physical migration or a conquest.

Source on that? IE spread from the Dnieper River area to Western Europe and Western China in a rather short amount of time. Clearly there was a lot of migration from the Urheimat.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#144

Post by clw8 »

Erik816 wrote: post #120
etrevino wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing. As someone who spent a lot of his PhD time with Late Antiquity as a secondary area of specialization, I can say that an enormous amount of this is "duh". It does not uproot the commonly accepted research by any stretch.

I'm sure most popular press articles are "duh" if you have PhD in the field or a closely related field ...

Indeed. I've spent many a Sunday at university libraries reading about history and this was interesting and largely new to me. That people with some expertise thinks it's a duh article makes me happy that I didn't just read a bunch of bullshit!

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#145

Post by clw8 »

vetinari wrote: post #87
marcosdumay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. History is written by... the people that cared to write it down. And Romans wrote a lot.

That and the random chance of having your writings preserved through centuries. Burning down the libraries in not something unheard of.

Burning wasn't necessary. Most texts that weren't copied continuously were simply lost. Our oldest sources for written Chinese are on dinosaur bones -- but the script already had characters that clearly show they also wrote with pen on bamboo slips, but we don't have any surviving examples of that until the Classical Chinese era.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#146

Post by jimmyk »

jacquesm wrote: post #139
jimmyk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about pollution, I'm talking about the rule "you break it you own it" applied to geopolitics.

Same principle, really. In geopolitics if you either go to war or you decide to do some empire building if you want things to remain stable after you turn your back you end up being responsible for the aftermath. And if things go pear shaped and you turn your back they likely will come to haunt you in one way or another. These are not laws, merely extracts from observable reality, from Roman times right up to the pre…

but 'you break it, you own it' is a good rule.

You are suggesting that westerners should, of their own accord, import millions of fighting age and potentially bitter men into their homelands. You admit this is a 'bit of a problem' for those westerners. Now you are suggesting that if westerners choose not to import these millions of people into their homelands, some nebulous force will haunt them. And your basis for this claim is, ultimately, the fact that civilizations tend to fall apart after a while? Given the enormous complexity of the causes of the downfall of great civilizations, do you realize how absurd that sounds? Given the enormous, albeit temporary (as all things are), success of civilizations that didn't feel bad about taking advantage of their neighbors, do you understand why your argument is so unpersuasive?

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#147

Post by jimmyk »

jacquesm wrote: post #138
jimmyk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think I'm talking about the way the skyline looks. I'm talking about the acceptance of modern Western values. Do you really think that has been the normal state of the middle east, and Islamic fundamentalism is the anomaly?

Define 'Western values'. Turkey was well underway to becoming a very modern state, Iran ditto. All this long before we began propping up the Shah and destabilizing the region around Turkey. The meddling began roughly around the time oil became important and really took off after World War II, in part accelerated because of the cold war. Yes, Islamic fundamentalism is the anomaly, and it would not nearly be as powerfu…

Define 'Western values'.

Let's just use this as an example, from the website you linked to above: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yOvi_Hupn0M/VA34gNyV1DI/AAAAAAAA8R...

Do you think that kind of thing was "normal" for the Islamic middle east?

Turkey was well underway to becoming a very modern state

The temporary modernization of Turkey was a result of having rulers and elites who looked to the west to copy their success. It was absolutely not a result of a popular movement. Modernization was not supported by the bulk of the population at any point in time.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#148

Post by cema »

clw8 wrote: post #144
Erik816 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure most popular press articles are "duh" if you have PhD in the field or a closely related field ...

Indeed. I've spent many a Sunday at university libraries reading about history and this was interesting and largely new to me. That people with some expertise thinks it's a duh article makes me happy that I didn't just read a bunch of bullshit!

  That people with some expertise thinks it's a duh article 
  makes me happy that I didn't just read a bunch of bullshit!
A good point, by the way.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#149

Post by srean »

viggity wrote: post #124
srean wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only one of these ideologies has a large constituency who condones the intentional targeting of innocent civilians You mean collaterals and the US ?

collateral damage is bound to happen. the difference is that the US doesn't intentionally target innocents like the jihadists do

Very convenient if one gets to choose who is innocent and who is a collateral :). Two japanese cities full of guilty I am sure.
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