I have this (propably false) idea, that the Sahara basically acted as a wall for cultural exchange with the exception of some traders, and the Central African jungle walling off Southwest Africa from the Northeast. This is propably not true.

Would a person or a ruler from Ethiopia know of Mali? How about Mali and Kongo, or Kongo and the Swahili states? Or Kilwa and the Zulu peoples? How interconnected was Africa really? I imagine the Nile would enable Egyptians to travel all the way down to Lake Victoria, but did they?

Any responses are appreciated.

And how much taller would a modern day person be compared to both?

Follow up question, in what situations would it have been used? Was it more popular among certain types of soldiers (i.e,. line infantry, skirmishers, cavalry, etc.)?

During the siege of Stalingrad did they just take anyone, give them a weapon and uniform. Essentially trial by fire or was there some form of boot camp

I've read that goth leader Alaric was one of the main causes of Roman collapse.

How did he defeat the Roman legion, which was indomitable for so long? I'm assuming it was outside forces, and that the legion itself was unstoppable; but bureaucracy which led to Rome's downfall.

This question is spurred on by some observations I have made. When I was in New Mexico last summer I had the chance to help construct a section of rail to be accurate to the early 1910s. On the straightaways each rail was held down by two spikes diagonal in the tie plate. The historical actors said that this was the norm at the time for straightaways, curves would use three or four spikes depending on the tightness of the curve. When I was a school trip to Auschwitz and a few other Nazi concentration camps, I noticed that their rails were held by a mixture of spikes and bolts. There were also three spikes or bolts to every tie plate with only three places for a spike or bolt, unlike the four spaces in the tie plates I saw in New Mexico. Is there a specific reason why these changes happened in the 30-40 years between the construction of the railroads in New Mexico for logging and the railroads in Europe for the transportation of detainees?

big fan of Griffin's definition but i'm wondering how uniformly that/other definitions are used.

Another side question, how did Byzantium manage to stay together while the WRE fell?

What times were gladiatorial games, chariot races, theater performances, etc. generally held in Ancient Rome? I would think without any kind of air conditioning they would be held around morning or evening- not in the heat if the afternoon.

they were very wrong by the way

Would he find anything relatable about its culture, or see any thing similar in the structure of the Byzantine government?

The concept of bows and arrows, while not too complicated to develop, doesn't seem like a technological advancement so natural to grasp for virtually every group of humans on Earth to have developed at some point. Even the North Sentinelese people, reportedly the most willingly isolated society in the world, have developed it. Why and how is that?

Just curious if a person in the Roman Army or other similar armies typically had one sword for most of their career, or if they needed to replace them over time. Thank you for anyone who contributes.