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Archaeologists believed that the women hairstyles depicted in ancient Roman statues were far too complicated, and therefore had to be elaborate wigs.
Janet Stephens, a hairdresser, took one look at the back of a bust, and immediately saw the underlying logic of the styles and how they could be achieved with a needle and thread.
When she got home, she found that archaeologists had consistently mistranslated the Latin phrase for “acus” which can mean needle and thread or single prone hairpin as only single prong hairpin. She goes on to film herself recreating all sorts elaborate hairstyles in Roman busts, and changed archeological viewpoint from then on.
Janet Stephens - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Stephens
EDIT: Janet Stephens uploads recreations of ancient Roman hairstyles on her YouTube channel if you are interested
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhacomyGRF2PBSm-ByuuNup6TGB3B8aAI
Exoticizing ancient and foreign cultures is bullshit.
Yeah they believe dtuffthat sounds crazy to you,but they aren’t fucking aliens. Having people with actual relevant experience participate in archaeology is essential. Wjenlooking at stonework, bring a mason. When looking at hair, bring a barber. When looking at textiles, bring a seamstress.
Early humans are just that, humans. Their brains worked basically identically to how ours work, they just had wildly different lives. If you plucked a baby from today and time swapped it with a baby born 10,000 years ago, they’d be fine and grow up as if they didn’t know (disease notwithstanding)
You say aliens but there are many archaeological engineering marvels from the ancient world that don’t fit the “primitive” narrative and so there are conspiracy theorists that believe it must have been aliens. One example would be the Kailasa temple in India which was carved out of the face of a cliff
It almost always boils down to “nonwhite people couldn’t have done this” and it pisses me the hell off
Yeah, because they’re racist as fuck
Carving stone isn’t even really that hard.
I know you are partly joking but there are three reasons why this a marvel of the ancient world.
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It is carved from Deccan Trap basalt, a volcanic rock that is extremely hard and dense, far tougher to work than softer limestones used in many other rock‑cut monuments.
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The construction method is unique: artisans began at the top of the cliff and excavated downward, removing material from a single massive block rather than assembling stones piece by piece. This top‑down approach required careful and unconventional forethought in order to maintain structural integrity and for efficient systems of removing debris. The debris is thought to have been moved particularly effectively as it has never been found.
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It the largest monolithic rock‑cut temple in the world at 100 by 300 feet.
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You do it then
If I didn’t have to pay these damn taxes maybe I would
No, but it takes years of full time labor in a time where most human labor had to be spent on subsistence. That a community at that low tech level would feed and house someone doing something decorative for that many years is really cool. And I guess to some not believable.
that’s the thing though, humans spent the most time on just baseline survival during the agricultural revolution.
Hunter-gatherers actually have quite a lot of downtime, since they’d generally travel to follow food sources and thus food was readily available to them. There’s also very clear archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers straight up carrying and hand-feeding people who would have been completely unable to care for themselves due to severe injuries, so clearly they weren’t opposed to “wasting” efforts.Charity food and health care is generally accepted as a good thing. By contrast, the idea of some kind of UBI (universal basic income) as a floor - where a person could have food and housing while pursuing a dream like creating art - is widely opposed (“paid work gives dignity!”).
Disbelief that our distant ancestors paid labor “taxes” to support artists in their community (which they definitely did) might be some psychological projection.
When looking at statues of “fertility goddesses”, bring a teenage boy. That shit wasn’t evidence of a “cult of fertility”, it was porn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution
That you think there must be a separation of sexuality and religion is a product of your own cultural biases
Also, archaeologists found the ruins of huts which had a curious circle of bricks, one brick in height, in the middle of the floor. They were stumped, and probably ready to declare it a ceremonial shrine of some sort, until one of them asked the local hired help, who immediately pointed out that the peasants in the area today have similar circles in their dwellings for penning up new-born chicks whilst allowing adult chickens to cross.
Yup. That definitely happened.
This is some facebook boomer shit.
What makes it truly Facebook boomer slop isn’t that the story is implausible (because such a misunderstanding and then correction is perfectly likely) but the lack of sources, the anecdotal and vague nature of the post, and the slightly misguided message of “motherly experience will always beat studies and expertise” which is only pandering to the mothers who read this stuff.
If this actually happened, give that woman a name and tell us who she was, don’t just call her “a mother”.
No don’t you see, they ran their findings past a mother, as all archaeologists do (the implication of course being none of those dumb science idiots could handle being a mom as people can’t do 2 things). The mother then corrected them, likely with folded arms, likely going “mmmhmmm” once they realized that her wisdom beat their book learnin’
thus, she cemented her legashe. And that is why we all know her today: random nameless mother.
Did homes in pre-Colombian America even have rafters?
Longhouses probably would have, but Tipi’s definitely didn’t.
That said, putting sharp objects where children can’t reach them seems like a pretty universal solution to a common problem. Rafters or not
Couldn’t find anything to validate this specific claim of archeologists claiming obsidian blades were kept close to the sun (under a roof???) to keep them sharp, but you see things like this pop up from time to time, wherein specialists or people from the region point out that a poorly-understood archeological find is just a specialist tool or regional practice that’s still in use.
It’s interesting because I would expect the opposite to be true, that archeologists would struggle to find a practical reason for everything when sometimes the people in question just thought the thing was neat.
There was a similar story about a tool no one could figure out. They showed it to a leather worker and the worker pulled out a similar tool.
Then there’s the Roman dodecahedron, which truly seems to be a mystery with no modern equivalent, but lots of theories.
The latest theory seems to indicate that they were for knitting gloves. The different size holes create the different size fingers for the gloves. They work perfectly for that purpose.
That kind of knitting hadn’t been invented yet by the time the dodecahedrons stopped being made, they didn’t all have different size holes, and they don’t show signs of wear.
How do we know that that type hadn’t been invented?
Knitted socks were a huge deal when they became a thing in the 1500s - enabled by smooth uniformly sized thin metal knitting needles, which were just then possible with metal technology. We take for granted now that socks are stretchy, but for most of human history socks were stiff like any other fabric without any elastic threads as part of the fabric blend. Or sometimes cloth wraps were used instead of a shaped garment - the Russian military didn’t replace portyanki with socks until 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/jan/16/russian-soldiers-replacing-foot-wraps-socks
The somewhat similar process of nalbinding was a thing as far back as ancient Egypt, and became common for socks and mittens in Medieval Scandinavia, but isn’t as flexible a technique as knitting, and doesn’t seem to have ever been used for gloves.
That knitting (and thus knitted socks) was invented in the 200s (when the dodecahedra were made) - and was used for gloves, somehow, and not socks - and yet didn’t make societal waves until the 1500s is a wild idea.
We take for granted now that socks are stretchy, but for most of human history socks were stiff like any other fabric without any elastic threads as part of the fabric blend.
This paper proposes that the bone needles, especially those with three holes, could have been used to make fabrics using the nålbinding technique. With this technique, many items could have been made without sewing, as it creates a very stretchy fabric, which would have been particularly useful for socks and other garments. To test our hypothesis, we conducted an experiment to create fabric using copies of Roman bone needles. Bone needles were very common, and their occurrence could be explained by use of the nalbinding technique to produce fabrics both in the familia and in textile workshops.
That kind of knitting hadn’t been invented yet by the time the dodecahedrons stopped being made
Except that these devices perform the action perfectly, illustrating that perhaps the claim that this kind of knitting hadn’t been invented yet, was wrong.
It’s like how they keep moving the date for when people first came to the Americas. At first, they thought it happened several thousand years ago, and now it’s something like 25,000 years or more ago. They didn’t ignore the evidence of earlier migration because they already had a date they were comfortable with. As new evidence was discovered, their story changed.
Nobody knew what these things were for, until someone started to make gloves with them. It’s kind of hard to dismiss that, when it works so well for that purpose, especially when the alternative explanation is “I don’t know.”
Just because an explanation fits well doesn’t mean it’s the best one, or even correct. According to the Wikipedia article there have been 50 proposed explanations. Did you read through all of them and evaluate them in the historical context, reaching the conclusion that the glove explanation is by far the most likely? Or did you hear that story and think “yeah, that sounds vaguely correct”, so now it must be the one explanation you’ve heard?
Did you even try to look up why we think that kind of knitting hadn’t been invented yet?
I haven’t seen ALL the explanations, but I’ve been tracking these things for a few years, and I’ve seen quite a few explanations, and most of them have seemed more like non-explanations.
When you have an explanation that works, and it produces a product that everybody would have needed on a daily basis (at least during part of the year), it has more credibility than explanations like it was used for gambling, although nobody can explain how or why, which is most of the explanations I’ve seen.
I’ve certainly never heard a BETTER explanation. If you have an idea that you think is better than this one, one that scholars have tested and proven, then let’s hear it. But until then, this is the BEST explanation that I heard, and demonstrations have proven that it works. So until someone comes up with a better, proven concept, I’m buying this one.
When you have an explanation that works, and it produces a product that everybody would have needed on a daily basis (at least during part of the year), it has more credibility[…]
First: we’ve only found a few of these objects, in a few areas. Why weren’t they more widespread? Either 99.999% of Romans had gloves made some other way, or they didn’t have gloves. Why didn’t they share this development? Why didn’t it spread when it was so obviously better?
Second: why can’t we find any evidence of the required type of stitching, or of gloves being produced this way? Either they must have discovered a new type of stitching and then discovered these things and never mentioned them to outsiders, or nobody saw the obvious advantages. Which of these makes sense to you?
It’s completely fine to simply admit: we don’t know. The glove hypothesis makes sense, but it’s simply wrong to determine it as the correct solution without any actual evidence.
They look gambling related to me, but I don’t know why that would be in a burial.
dodecahedron,
I hope my family buries me with my favorite dice set
As I recall, the bones were identified as gaming pieces. there’s a similar game played in the area, and the winner gets to keep the losers playing pieces.
Put it in your will, and they’ll have to.
Reminds me of like a caliper but for checking girth and like hole size if the holes and nipples are different sizes
Some people honor their loved ones by burying them with the things that made them happy. We buried my grandmother with her porn tapes and dildo/vibrator collection.
I don’t know if that last part is a joke, but my buddy and his brothers slipped the porn VHS that was still in the VCR when his grandfather died in his casket along with a bottle of Crown Royal.
Not a joke at all. Also, being the fucked up family we are, we weren’t not gonna watch it at least for a moment.
My review of Titty Fuck Follies: not my thing, but great fun for the family.
But for serious, being Jewish, they won’t let you bury synthetic materials. But when my uncle was asked to bring an outfit for my grandmother to the funeral home, he also packed up the porn and paraphernalia in an HEB grocery bag and took it on down. He asked them to not look at it, but just to bury it with her. They later told us that they had to look at it for liability reasons, but since they knew my grandmother, they totally understood and just casually tossed it in her casket.
Note: my grandmother was well known at her condo for telling all the new residents how to use the bubble jets in the hot tub to have an orgasm.
Ah yes, religious rituals recorded on tape and an offering for the dead soul to carry with him to the afterlife.
Gambling would require they be standardized, and we have enough examples that aren’t similarly sized or constructed that seems unlikely.
Unless they had a governing body it’s probably more natural to see a diverse set of sizes and constructions. When you’re shooting dice in the street it’s more fun to have (or make) your own for luck/cheating
It looks like you would wrap fibers around the vertices to make something 3d out of frabric tbh.
Edit: it seems my theory has been largely discounted 😔
I wonder if we have any computer code today where a lack of documentation will bring about similar issues hundreds of years down the line
I have already encountered this
I have created plenty of this, but I’d be surprised if any of it exists in even the next 5 years.
I remember speculation that this could have been used to make gloves. That was discounted?
as spool knitting devices for making gloves (though the earliest known reference to spool knitting is from 1535, and this would neither explain the use of bronze, nor the apparently similar icosahedron which is missing the holes necessary for spool knitting)
From the wikipedia
Not entirely discounted but considered unlikely
“Local mom reveals one weird trick that archeologists hate!”
I’m not saying something like this has never happened but I expect that such claims are simply anti-intellectual urban legends more often than not.
(How would we even know where pre-Columbian people stored knives? The sort of structure that would survive for centuries seems like it would be a palace or a temple made of stone, rather than a common kitchen. There the blades presumably would serve a ritual purpose.)
100%. I used to work in a museum. We had an exhibit come through all about Bog People. People killed and thrown in a bog, which preserved their bodies.
Most bodies were stabbed or hit on the head thrown into the bog with nothing on them. Not even clothing some times.
Anthrpologists: Sacrifices to the gods! Each person was chosen by a religious leader and carefully, lovingly, killed as a sacrifice to the gods to ensure the village had a good agriclutral season. Of course! So obvious.
Me: These dudes got robbed and murdered. Maybe not in that order.
https://cora.ucc.ie/server/api/core/bitstreams/dc72e910-2a89-440e-a643-cbb94d323766/content
I’ve also worked at a lot of museums. Some things are not quite so simple.
I don’t know a lot about the subject, but from what I’ve heard in many cases there are indications that bog bodies were people of high social status. so not the kind of people who were likely to be assaulted by bandits, but the kind of people who might shoulder blame for societal issues. that’s (at least in part) where the assumption that they are ritual sacrifices rather than random murders comes from
This but with bogs: “A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes.” -Nicky Santoro, “Casino”
I’ve heard that it is actually almost impossible to dig a hole in the ground around Las Vegas because a couple inches down it becomes solid rock. Most of those problems were tossed in a lake.
US Government: Impounds Colorado River
Mafia: “Well would you look at that. Someone put this nice lake here just for us.”
This is why smug and archeology never go together. Literally I never bought Graham Hancock until smug archeologists admitted to ignoring evidence. Like wtf no shit he believes civilization is way older than we say because we are sitting on evidence waiting for it to be smug-worthy wtf!
Ok but Hancock is a fucking clown who is extremely wrong
I prefer this version. Also, as someone quite close to the field, there’s an awful lot of misinformation in this thread. Tread carefully, readers.
Your sharepic is also quite misleading - yes, menstruation occurs approx. every 28 days, but the lunar month is also 29,5 days and we know of many calendar systems and ancient cultures that used lunar months. Which makes sense as moon phases are easy to observe and kind of align with the year. So that could be some stone age woman tracking her period, but it could also be a male priest tracking the moon.
Pretty sure thats the point tho, there are often multiple different explanations for each mystery. So having a diverse group of archeologists is beneficial to get as many theories as possible.
So the ‘gotcha’ by the professor probs isnt a ‘this is definitely the only explanation’, it’s just to have the students question their biases and seek diverse opinions.
That does read a little bit different to me - but let’s not argue about a tumblr screenshot
ITT: Lemmites upset that a WOMEN would dare say a man is wrong.
as a man I invite a WOMEN to tell me I’m wrong.
Yeah calling bullshit on this entire thing is misogynistic. Sure Jan.
Any skepticism here falls downstream of the initial failure to credit that woman’s contribution. Accepting the reduction of a contributor’s identity to “a mother” would be more misogynistic than the responses I’m seeing.
Asking for a source and raising legitimate points is now misogynistic!
A WOMAN, singular.
Shhhh you’ll upset the manosphere
I am imagining a giant spherical manatee.
