The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

I guess the bit about it being more successful from a DNA perspective would explain why farming became the normal way of doing things for humans.

I was wondering there how come farming took off if was a step back healthwise.

he also talks about how these things happen in small incremental steps, over a number of generations and then you can't go back, even if you were able to realise that this was not a good development.

I'm also about half way through Sapiens! Must find where it went...

Sorry, off-topic now but I've been meaning to come back and add something prompted by the mention of storing food, and the difficulty of doing so in times past.

In Europe, for centuries, there were numerous outbreaks of very nasty diseases caused by rye contaminated with ergot, a kind of fungus that can survive over winter (and therefore in stored grain stocks - and the bread of the general population was made of that grain). The symptoms could be gruesome, including gangrene and convulsive fits. There have even been suggestions that ergot poisoning was implicated in the so-called 'witchcraft' incidents at Salem. It wasn't until the 19thc that it was proved that ergot on rye caused all this awful suffering (although another scientist had twigged what was happening 200 years earlier, but couldn't convince anyone else).
The reason I'm interested in this is that ergot was, much later obvs, found to be an effective remedy for migraine - as a child, I was prescribed ergotamine tablets for my chronic migraine problem. Sorry, long post but fascinating, to me at least!

The poster who wanted to know more about religious dietary laws, I found this podcast very interesting. I'd recommend the whole series, but this is the episode on Kosher.
[Gastropod] Keeping Kosher: When Jewish Law Met Processed Food
podplayer.net/#/?id=18457876 via @PodcastAddict

someone asked about the authornof the book:
Sapiens A brief history of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Brillig, ergot for migraine reminds me - I think some of the chemicals in mustard gas of WW1 are now used in chemotherapy.

Lorelei I hadn't heard that, but it's logical, I suppose, that as our understanding of medicine advances, things that were once thought to be totally harmful are discovered to have beneficial effects in some circumstances/doses.

I've read around a bit more and apparently ergot is also a key ingredient in LSD, which was originally developed to be....a cure for migraine.

Lucy Worsley has a new series about historical fibs coming out!

Thanks for that, steppe. Sounds interesting.

Still reading through the thread but I want to know how an arctic animal came to have a Welsh name.

Penguin

Pen means head and guin means white. How did that happen?

Really enjoying this thread (and the previous thread). Makes me realise how rubbish my history lessons were in school!

Raven, I think it's something to do with Latin origins - meaning fat? Not sure.

That Lucy W thing is on tonight I think. I have been so sleep deprived the last few nights i might have to record it and lie in a darkened room....! Not sure if she is looking at one issue per week or what but I like the idea.

I just read this on buzzfeed I always thought Yankee Doodle was being funny!

The acaronis, were the foppish, bewigged ones, which people confuse with the dandies. Dandies were actually elegantly dressed, in the height of good taste for the time. People would actually turn up to watch Beau Brummell get dressed!

I've only recently discovered this thread, and I'm finding it fascinating.

Ravenclaw, penguins are from the southern hemisphere, so a Welsh name may seem even less likely. But the OED suggests that the name was originally given in the 16th century to the great auks hunted off Newfoundland. And then, when mariners came across the (similar looking) penguin in southern seas, they gave them the same name:

"It appears that the name was first given to the Great Auk of the seas of Newfoundland ...

The penguin resembles the Great Auk closely both in appearance and in its habits. Both birds are large, flightless waterfowl with similar black and white coats adapted to life in circumpolar waters. It is therefore possible that the penguin, which was first named thus by British sailors, was mistaken for the Great Auk, or that a term for the most similar known bird was applied ...

Since Breton fishermen were fishing the Grand Banks [of Newfoundland] in the first half of the 16th cent. or earlier, the name ... may also have been coined in Breton, from elements cognate with the Welsh."