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Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

sciencemag.org

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Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#31

Post by smabie »

jjoonathan wrote: post #13
defen wrote: post #9

> Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” Is that really true (that "we" didn't believe in war in prehistory)? It seems like a case of taking…

Yeah, sounds like p-hacking. Still, supporting a proper army is a massive economic undertaking, so it seems likely that army sizes (and battle sizes) started relatively small and grew over time. Maybe this new finding actually does suggest that scale-up happened earlier than most previous legitimate estimates. My money's on p-hacking though.

P-hacking what?

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#33

Post by mcphage »

c-smile wrote: post #3
dang wrote: post #2

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11383601

I did not realize that Hacker News is that old ...

This is just to say: at least some people got your joke, and thought it was funny :-)

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#34

Post by credit_guy »

defen wrote: post #9

> Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” Is that really true (that "we" didn't believe in war in prehistory)? It seems like a case of taking…

This was not really "prehistory". About 100 years before the event here the battle of Kadesh [1] happened. Tens of thousands of soldiers are believed to have participated in that battle.

Not sure anyone "before the 1990s" was thinking that people were peaceful during the Bronze Age. 3200 years ago was almost to the day contemporaneous with the Trojan war [2]. That was not a time when people were peaceful and "concerned with trading and so on".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kadesh

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War#Historical_basis

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#35

Post by mc32 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #27
srveale wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second sentence contradicts your first sentence

It's a fringe viewpoint but some knowledgeable people have argued that Pan troglodytes is better called Homo troglodytes. Perhaps GP is among them. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2003/05/chimps-be...

I don' think it matters. Even if Chimps are put on the same branch, 'human', refers to homo sapiens.

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

Zippogriff wrote: post #10
defen wrote: post #9

> Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” Is that really true (that "we" didn't believe in war in prehistory)? It seems like a case of taking…

It's true enough that in the early 2000s one of my poli-sci professors devoted most of a course to the book War Before Civilization and kept hammering on the idea of prehistoric war being widespread and common as some kind of huge revelation and surprise. I found such intense and sustained focus baffling, since the point seemed obvious (though the evidence was interesting, at least). I've since come to understand thi…

[deleted]

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#37

Post by mncharity »

charlieflowers wrote: post #11

The article claims something I found surprising -- that the written word was not common near Germany until about 1000 AD.

Even being able to write your name was uncommon through the 1600's. Literacy has changed a lot in the last 200 years.

In 1500's(14?) Spain, being able to read and write got you better than "I'm a computer programmer in 2000" prospects. Being able to read silently, without even moving your lips(!?!), got you rumors of deals with the Devil. Now you get to graduate primary-school, and eventually learn programming. Before the recent vast expansion in programming jobs, lots of science phds were driving cabs. Veterinary masters clean cages in zoos. Minimum viable education has been seriously escalating. Even with everything still being taught very very badly. If education tech ever dramatically improves... that'll be interesting.

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#38

Post by golergka »

credit_guy wrote: post #34
defen wrote: post #9

> Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” Is that really true (that "we" didn't believe in war in prehistory)? It seems like a case of taking…

This was not really "prehistory". About 100 years before the event here the battle of Kadesh [1] happened. Tens of thousands of soldiers are believed to have participated in that battle. Not sure anyone "before the 1990s" was thinking that people were peaceful during the Bronze Age. 3200 years ago was almost to the day contemporaneous with the Trojan war [2]. That was not a time when people were peaceful and "concern…

> That was not a time when people were peaceful and "concerned with trading and so on".

In relative terms, Pax Romana definetly was such a time.

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#39

Post by jariel »

Zippogriff wrote: post #10
defen wrote: post #9

> Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” Is that really true (that "we" didn't believe in war in prehistory)? It seems like a case of taking…

It's true enough that in the early 2000s one of my poli-sci professors devoted most of a course to the book War Before Civilization and kept hammering on the idea of prehistoric war being widespread and common as some kind of huge revelation and surprise. I found such intense and sustained focus baffling, since the point seemed obvious (though the evidence was interesting, at least). I've since come to understand thi…

It should be a revelation because war is a civilizational concept - it's a form of organized violence, 'organization' being the keyword here.

If you're living in scattered, small tribes, then at most you can get into small tribal scuffles and vendetta ... but war requires planning, organization, support, possibly diplomacy, marshalling of resources - so it's hard to have proper war without the mechanisms in place to support it.

So maybe it's not quite so obvious.

Re: Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)

#40

Post by jariel »

mncharity wrote: post #37
charlieflowers wrote: post #11

The article claims something I found surprising -- that the written word was not common near Germany until about 1000 AD.

Even being able to write your name was uncommon through the 1600's. Literacy has changed a lot in the last 200 years. In 1500's(14?) Spain, being able to read and write got you better than "I'm a computer programmer in 2000" prospects. Being able to read silently , without even moving your lips(!?!), got you rumors of deals with the Devil. Now you get to graduate primary-school, and eventually learn programming. Befo…

The question isn't about common literacy, it's about literacy among the nobility, chieftains, clerics.

Much of that, among many other things like basic education, architecture, so many materials and methods, didn't happen until Latinization/Christianization of that part of Europe.

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