How did people get to Britain 950k years ago? • Hacker News Board

Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?

#91

Post by pyuser583 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

cnity wrote: post #5

rosetremiere wrote: post #2

As far as I understand, Ian Morris's books are not taken very seriously in the academic world. I've read the first part of /Why the West rules/ and must admit that it reads a bit like trying to push a narrative: spinning up facts the right way to make them support his ideas and asserting universal truths without much backing… but I think I'm biased by the reviews I checked before reading the (first part of the) book.

Genuine question: I've heard this criticism for literally every pop-history book I've read (Guns, Germs, and Steel; Sapiens; The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, etc). Are there any history books that are taken seriously in the academic world that are actually fun to read? If so, any recommendations? If not, is the issue basically that if you want some history book to be fun, you've got…

Modern historians are very cynical towards “big history” - grand narratives that explain everything.

Real history is weird and full of exceptions.

The sorts of books that are popular with both historians and the public focus on sepecific events in lots of detail: “Krakatoa: The Day the World Erupted” for example.

Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?

#92

Post by randomcarbloke » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 7:22 AM UTC

Pretty revisionist to strongly imply Thatcher’s pro EU stance was merely partisan contrarianism, she was a significant architect of the ecm and eec.

Notable also is that the article conflates the Europe in the quote with the EU which is very obviously not what is meant.

Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?

#93

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #51

A more pressing mystery is: how did Van Helsing hightail from London to Amsterdam and back every three days by land, when just a little while earlier in the nineteenth century literary personas dreaded the prospect of traveling fifteen miles by coach, and arrived all battered and exhausted.

Is 100 miles on horseback on roads in fall that hard?

If I told an experienced marathoner to run 20 miles and it was critical, they'd be done in 3-4 hours and shrug it off.

If I told a rando from the street to do that, well they'd look at me like I was insane.

I would posit a scout/cavalryman with a good horse with route experience could do that.

I guess a horse can do a "trot" at 8-12 mph for 20 miles. That's interesting, it's not substantially better than a marathoner, I have read that humans have advantages over other animals in speed over long distances.

https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/124606/how...

I guess 40 klicks is the general maximum distance by a horse. That's only 25 miles.

Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?

#94

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

hyperman1 wrote: post #34

It is possible for a well-trained human to swim the distance. In fact, it is possible to just see there is something across the north sea, if you are standing in the right place with the right weather. I see no reason why someone can't end up in Brittain just by accidentally falling in the north sea and maybe clinging to whatever floats around. You'd have to be lucky, but there is a lot of time to be lucky in (seen f…

There is also this thing called a raft. I would posit any somewhat modern human ancestor had tool use to make rafts or some sort of fishing craft.

Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?

#95

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #22

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #3

On foot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

I was going to post exactly the same. More to the point, Britain wasn't an island a mere 10k years ago. Why would we ever assume that Britain was difficult to reach 1M years ago?

>Why would we ever assume that Britain was difficult to reach 1M years ago?

Because we have a lot of geologic data to suggest that Britain alternated between difficult to reach and a frozen wasteland. This is the topic discussed in the article.

  When the Isles were warm enough to live in, the English Channel would be full of water, and, whatever their other skills, Roger and his kind could not cross 34 km of open sea. But when Europe got cold enough for falling sea levels to turn the Channel into a land bridge, it was usually too cold for anyone to cross it and live in Proto-Britain.