[deleted]

[removed]

I work in the field, basically where you want to draw the line is very variable depending on which academic groups you work with and what is classified as human comes down more to a discussion of behaviour than biology or genus.

Some people here say anything homo is human. But there are not many who would think of habilis and naledi as human. The Hobbit (can't be bothered spelling out the whole name) is often a more grey area. Denisovan, Neanderthal and Sapien are generally pretty safe to be considered as human, especially as we know we have genetic transgressions with them (i.e we fucked and made kids who also made kids). And atleast from a Neanderthal and Sapien stand point, much after the archaeological material contains evidence of behavioural traits we would say are human (Denisovan is harder as archaeology we think is denisovan probably shows the same, but we aren't sure the archaeology is denisovan linked).

Anyway big debate but short hand- most homo species of the middle Pleistocene onwards you can get away with calling Human with some major asterixs here and there.

[deleted]

Here’s the thing. People do not really care about the 16th century. They just are familiar and enjoy the Elizabethan esthetic and Shakespeare.

And do people really care about 1066? Or has school drilled into them the idea that it’s an Important Date that Should Be Remembered? Do they know actually what William or Henry Tudor did or do they just know the names because “it’s important”.

Not entirely sure what you mean, do you mean like calling people "gen X" "Millennials" or speaking of generations in general? Or "kids these days" type stuff?

It's so outdated that it would be hard to pass a viva if you did. So unless they somehow completely avoided it in their PhD thesis only to then come out with it afterwards, probably not. Then of course peer-review, getting work at a university, etc. Someone still following such old concepts wouldn't be a popular candidate.

We still see it a lot in amateur historian works though, in fact it's still very popular there. But I can't think of any recent works published by actual historians that maintain this -- though I can only go off of what I've come across in my own research which hasn't been looking for such a thing.

[removed]

They are hominid, part of the wider family, not homo sapiens like us.

But people to care about 16th century, they even care about 1066, so it’s not as simple as that. Fair points though. Personally think it it’s a shame as it’s the most important part of English history IMO

The English civil war is bad optics for a monarchy. The people killed the king, they would much prefer to talk about the birth of the English state (the Tudors) or the birth of modern British politics (the Glorious Revolution). When institutions want to hide under the rug a whole era it's difficult to get people excited about this. And at this point it's so far away that you would need to change the whole popular view of English history to put it at the forefront... and let's be honest not many people care about 17th century history.

[removed]

Thank you for correcting me.

I heard from somewhere that in medieval art they depicted soldiers as wolves, because "war turns good men into wolves", probably having to do with trauma or something similar. Any idea if this is true or not?

[removed]

Hominids include humans. Not all hominids are humans.

Chimps are hominids, for example.

[removed]

Due to the short half life of carbon 14, radio carbon dating is only useful for about 50,000 years.

> In this paper, we report new Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating that places the hominin footprints surface in the range of 295.8 ± 17 ka

[removed]

Why is the English (or British) civil war rarely talked about outside of history circles? It is one of the most important parts of history but most are barely aware of it, if it all. In contrast, the Tudor era for example is in the global conscience a lot more but no more important IMO

They use radio carbon dating of the sediment it was formed in. The sediment itself is formed from a mix of organic and inorganic material, including bacteria, or plant matter. Sometimes you find spores and seeds. The plant matter in the sediment can be accurately dated to when it stopped growing, because the carbon in it will begin to decay predictably at that moment.

So basically it’s the same as if you were studying a plant, but you’re relying on a relatively smaller sample size, and there’s some error because not all the organic matter dies at the same time. But it gives you a range that is pretty close, within a few thousand years.

(ETA: apparently not for things quite this old).

Hominin = human. “Homo” Neanderthalensis, habillus, denisovans, etc are all human.

Edit: hominin, not hominid.

[removed]

I traded a 1915 dime out of a checkstand earlier in the year

I'm not sure there's an official delineation but I think anything in the genus Homo tends to be described as "human."