Recent comments in /f/history

Sgt_Colon t1_j9wt06z wrote

Reply to comment by Malris6 in Weekly History Questions Thread. by AutoModerator

I'm guessing this is for some alternate history thing?

The first image for 1100 would have been broadly accurate for western Europe during the preceding 11^th C, while regional variations existed, they tend to be not overly pronounced unless economic factors (like in the celtic fringe) enter play. Later English plate armour did see variation from continental patterns, favouring longer rerebraces than other continental styles, perhaps as a reflection of the English predilection for fighting on foot at the time, but were at a glance similar to the general trend of plate armours. While Peter Jackson's Rohirrim are fictional, the use of leather over maille in the form of cuir boiulle was an actual historical trend during the late 13^th to early 14^th C as a sort of proto plate armour during the transitional period with some extent pieces surviving.

Regarding archery, while the Normans seem to have imported the Frankish custom of the poorest levies being armed as bowmen, the Saxons too practiced archery and seemed to have incorporated it into the 'shieldwall'. Archery for both peoples wasn't very respected, even compared to fighting in the main line of battle as a common levy and would only see a greater degree of use following the battle of Falkirk and the effective display of archery by the welsh brought along by Edward I. Prior to this, archers were seen as being of limited overall importance (see the ineffective stopping power against even unarmoured targets such as that at the battle of the standard for example) albeit a necessary one, being valued significantly less than crossbowmen who performed far better in terms of range and power. Clifford Rogers goes into some detail regarding what I've written. What the course of English warfare may have been had the Saxons repulsed the Normans is uncertain, although it is possible if the tradition of fighting on foot continued that it may have mirrored the latter English practice during the Hundred Years wars with massed archers and well armed heavy infantry although it may have just as likely have went the same path as Denmark and adopted aristocratic heavy cavalry in some form.

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Cleistheknees t1_j9wety8 wrote

Reply to comment by AquaVada in Homo sapiens may have brought archery to Europe about 54,000 years ago by Yazan_Research

> They are injured or bled to death, I don’t imagine a zebra walking away with a 1foot stick inside it’s bowels,

You would be amazed at what a wild animal is capable of in the most dire circumstances. I have personally shot a prairie elk through both lungs and had to track it about 2km before finding it. There’s all kinds of footage from various sources like wildlife documentaries and whatnot of animals with dramatic and mortal injuries pushing on for hours.

> humans have evolved to hunt down their injured prays over long distances while inflicting multiple shots from safe distances. You spend your precious arrows but get rewarded afterwards.

This is called persistence hunting theory, and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it’s really just a theory at this point. There is virtually no material evidence of it being a consistent selection pressure across human evolutionary history. It was presented as fact in a book called Born to Run in 2009, and unfortunately got picked up by the lay public as if it was a settled question.

We do indeed have material evidence of consistent butchery going back ~2 million years, which much farther into our genus than sapiens, but putting a narrative of persistence hunting onto that is still a speculative leap. It could just as easily be opportunism, ambushes, scavenging, some mix of all three, etc.

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