Recent comments in /f/history

toyyya t1_ixcaxb2 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Ancient shipwreck sees light of day again, a major milestone for Chinese underwater archaeology by IslandChillin

Pretty darn cool, you can definitely tell the difference in the seas of how well it survived in the waters.

We raised the Vasa out of the Baltic Sea which isn't quite salty or quite fresh water (aka brackish water). Meaning that there are less creatures able to break it down living in the waters which is why it survived relatively intact.

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mauganra_it t1_ixc53ba wrote

Reply to comment by the_very_next_day in Ancient shipwreck sees light of day again, a major milestone for Chinese underwater archaeology by IslandChillin

The decline of Chinese civilization during the 19th century is a major departure from the flow of Chinese history until then. China has been conquered many times, but so far the conquerors always assimilated to Chinese civilization. Colonization by foreign powers and the Unequal Treaties were a new pattern, and these events still loom large in the collective psyche of the Chinese people.

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Northstar1989 t1_ixbr6xm wrote

Reply to comment by imperialus81 in what was the population of ancient Mesopotamia? by Omastnar

Tacitus was a late Imperial historian writing in a period of relative peace, and known to be subject to exaggeration and outright flattery at times to ingratiate himself with the powerful.

That being said, he was most definitely talking about garrison troops. Legions did occasionally travel with substantial swine herds to eat, but nowhere near the scale of 1 hog per day per 40 men. A figure of around 1 hog per day per 250 men might be more accurate for an army on a prolonged campaign.

Note that few legions in Tacitus' day actually went on such long campaigns. The legions were generally fairly sedentary at the time, only marching relatively short distances to deal with border incursions.

The Dacian Wars towards the end of Tacitus' life were one major exception to this rule: and although the legions were exceptionally well supplied during them as Dacia was quite close to major Greek and Illaryian holdings of Rome (and connected to them by navigable rivers), you'll likely find that meat consumption for the actively canpaigning legions even then fell substantially below this figure of 1 per 60 if you look into any reliable statistics available for the wars.

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[deleted] t1_ixbhgfg wrote

Reply to comment by mOdSolCrow in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

It's not known if L'Anse Aux Meadows was their only settlement in North America. From the descriptions of Vinland it seems likely that they explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. They might have gone further, we don't know.

Timber was very valuable to the Greenland settlements, but not valuable enough where you would export it to Europe. Vinland wasn't barren of forests. Perhaps you're thinking of Markland (Labrador)?

They took wood from Vinland to Greenland. They traded mass amounts of walrus ivory from Greenland to Europe (it was perhaps 99% of their exports), in exchange for tools and finished goods.

The Norse Greenlanders were a European civilization and it was very important to them to keep access to that European trade link. They were not fully self sufficient like Inuit people. So the Vinland settlement was perceived as just a source of materials for Greenland. I believe they likely explored further but any further settlements would have been perceived as too far from the civilizational link in Greenland.

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