What questions do you have about stuff from History, or am I the only one?

[EverySongbirdSays]

Hi all, HQ here. We're moving this thread over to History Club now where Songbird will be starting a Part 2 thread for more History quizzical shenanigans

The main history thing I've been pondering for the last couple of days since the weather shifted is the history of clothes.

So... how did Early Man manage in the winter, how did they make clothes out of animal skin?

After that, I understand that clothes production as we know it today began with the industrial revolution.

But how did people manage for clothes you know before we had cotton or machinery

How/when did we realise you could knit wool to make a jumper?

I'm sorry if it's a bit of a stupid question

Has anyone got any stupid questions I might know the answer to ?

As well as streets ending in -gate from Norse (with the exceptions of ones that were actual gates, as in the City of London's Aldgate etc), place names ending -by or -thorpe indicate Viking control - and you can still see a sharp northwest to southeast line across England showing places with -by and -thorpe on one side and not on the other.

(by and torp are town and village in modern Norwegian).

1472 is an excellent book about the Chinese journeys round the world that were then forgotten about. The maps they produced were thought to be fiction or fakes until a chap who had travelled the world in a submarine realised the mistakes in them were exactly the ones that someone travelling near sea level, but without the ability to accurately measure longitude, would make. And then goes into the huge amount of circumstantial evidence that suggests the Chinese did indeed discover the Americas and Australia and other places well before Columbus or Cook.

Columbus and Cook discovered American and Australia for Europeans. Both were already inhabited, anyway.

But, whether they did go there or not, they didn't leave settlers nor established routine commerce routes. So, hardly matter, really.

If you ignore Leif Eriksson that is.

But they're fair points about the existing inhabitants and trade routes.

Prehistoric people travelled much more than we think (remains of Scottish cattle eaten at Durrington Walls), there's tin in Britain and not much in Continental Europe, so we traded a lot, so I think our image of people as not moving far from their place of origin is a bit wrong.

There might not have been much in the way of roads, but most long distance journeys were undertaken by boat, across the Channel and up and down rivers. Bronze Age boats have been excavated near Flag Fen.

There might not have been much in the way of roads

Have you seen Britain from the air ? It's criss crossed with ancient droveways that go for miles and miles.

Plant hedgerows either side of a track, and it becomes trivial to move herds of around with minimal manpower.

Aerial - and now satellite - archaeology is fascinating.

Droveways, Yes. But there wasn't a great deal in the way of roads that could be travelled by cart or carriage until quite late in the day.

And have you ever tried to drive a herd of cattle or flock of sheep? It's not for the fainthearted even with trained dogs.

And have you ever tried to drive a herd of cattle or flock of sheep? It's not for the fainthearted even with trained dogs.

Ah, I must admit not . Although breeds today are nothing like prehistoric breeds, I believe ? Long time since Aurochs roamed free ...

I though that Native Americans were descendants of a tribe of Chinese people who had crossed the land bridge to Alaska?

Maybe so - although 'Chinese' is a bit of a broad term, I think.

Thank you for such an informative and interesting thread

Yet more Alice Roberts on Lost Tribes of Humanity - sobering to know that Homo Sapiens wasn't the only game in town ...

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z8034

human migration - now confirmed (and confused !) by DNA analysis is fascinating. Whether global, or local (looks at the Yorkshire vikings).

We are 60 posts away from the end of the thread - do people want a part 2 and do we want in Chat or History.

Historical Ponderings Society

Ah. Rescuing HPS!

Oh yes, didn't mean to suggest that no-one had reached the Americas/Australia before Columbus and Cook, just that it's now reasonably accepted that the Chinese did also, with some plants and some people's DNA left behind.

The Michael Wood China series was good, even though I find his style annoying.

Waterways were more efficient transport than roads until motor vehicles came in - hence building canals across the country rather than roads to reach ports or other cities. Given how slow canal boat travel is, it shows how slow, uncomfortable or expensive road travel must have been in comparison - not sure which.

OP - if you want this thread moved to somewhere permanent - report it to MNHQ and they'll move it for you (they won't move threads if anyone who's no the OP asks, sadly)

Maybe Classics?

LurkingHusband - thank you for the series link. I've chrome cast it to TV and whole family watched first episode immediately wanted the second .

.

Yes please to part two!

Oh - it's being moved, there were requests apparently they (Alice) contacted me. I think it's going to History. The question is do we want a Part 2 and if we do, do we want it here in Chat or in history?

Boat travel is really efficient in terms of the amount you can move. We had a day boat on the Broads a few years ago, and one person could get it shifting with the mooring rope. So if you needed big quantities moving with as few horses as possible, water was a good bet. Or even without horses - in tunnels, the boatmen used to lie on top of the boat and walk the thing along the side of the tunnel! Slow, but you'd get a lot of raw materials, or coal or whatever when it got there.

Yes to Classics please.

Part two in Chat, then it gets lots of traffic/contributions and ask for it to be moved when it gets almost full.

I think many people are enjoying having a general HPS topic, Songbird - so a Part 2 is probably on. Faced with that choice, I'd say History, I think. (Then posters don't need to worry about the 30 day rule.)

Yes Bear that's what I think about traffic, I delayed them moving it because of traffic. But I see cozies point also.

I'm really chuffed about the Classics noms, but it's up to HQ