Hello everyone

I was watching a documentary about ancient Mesopotamia and the narrator said that agriculture originated from the Levant. But then, how did agriculture reach the America's?

It's known that Ancient Egyptians and Mammoths coexisted on Earth until around 2000BC (albeit on opposite sides of a supercontinent), but did ancient societies, like the Egyptians or even Romans and Greeks, know about Mammoths as animals that used to live in Europe, as elephants did in Africa, but not anymore?

Whenever I read about Europe in the middle ages or renaissance period, there is usually talk of how high of a dowry a bride comes with, and that the higher it is, the better of a match she is likely to get.

But I just can't wrap my head around how such a system would make sense. Historically it's usually the women that's 'sold and bought'. Because they weren't allowed to work or inherit and their only value was in their reproduction ability.

It would make much more sense to me if it was the bride that was bought (and thus the bride's parents that receive dowry money), rather than the other way around. It kind of evens things out. You want boys to inherit and for labor. But for every boy you have you'd have to pay for their bride, so you can't afford too many. Girls on the other hand are then a way to earn money. Essentially, for every daughter you have, you can afford a bride for your son.

But if it's the daughters that you also have to pay for... How was having daughters anything but a complete disadvantage? Sure, by marrying them off you'd no longer have to pay for their living expenses, but that probably isn't much of a gain compared to the dowry you'd have to pay for them. So why would anyone marry off their daughters instead of keeping them all? In that way you'd at least get something back for it, by having them do household labor for you. While marrying them off would only cost you. And if no one is 'selling' their daughters, where would anyone get a bride?

I just don't understand how bride dowry's was a viable system at all. How did it maintain for so long?

I have recently read, and listended to podcast about the Inca. In all cases the quipu is talk about as definitively not a fully developed way of writing down the Inca language. In university (ca.10 years ago) we where hover thaught that the question was up for debate. So I wonder what has changed in the knowledge and understanding of the quipu in that time? What are the arguments for it being a fully developed way of writing the Inca language and what are the arguments against?

My wife has been watching an Australian period detective show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. In one episode a very respectable character eats several pieces of 'special' fudge, that as an audience we're to understand as being a cannabis edible.

Was cannabis use common, and if so how would it be consumed?

I have recently realized I know too little about the political and cultural landscapes of modern Russia. Can anybody offer any reading recommendations dealing with post-Soviet Union Russia?

It seems that they're finding a lot of different buildings and artifacts of historical importance underground in Rome, and I was just wondering how those got all the way below the surface. Evidently, sediment doesn't shift very much in Rome as buildings from the 1500s and such are still standing, so how did these ancient structures get down there?

Seems like theres a cult following nikola tesla, saying he was an under appreciated genius and that Edison cheated him. How accurate are these claims? Did he really create AC? Did Edison really cheat him off big? And did he really invent a lot of our modern world?

I recently started reading Man's Search For Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist and holocaust survivor. In the book, he recounts his experiences of daily life in a concentration camp.

In a passage near the beginning, he explains how he was waiting for a "shower" with several other prisoners, not knowing if it was real or whether it would bring death by gas. Everyone is told to strip to their shoes, belts, or suspenders.

"Where our shoes were concerned, matters were not so simple. Although we were supposed to keep them, those who had fairly decent pairs had to give them up after all and were given in exchange shoes that did not fit. In for real trouble were those prisoners who had followed the apparently well-meant advice (given in the anteroom) of the senior prisoners and had shortened their jackboots by cutting the tops off, then smearing soap on the cut edges to hide the sabotage. The SS men seem to have waited for just that. All suspected of this crime had to go into a small adjoining room. After a time we again heard the lashings of the strap, and the screams of tortured men."

Could someone please explain why a person would want to shorten their jackboots, or why it would be considered sabotage? I'd also like to understand why other prisoners would give such advice if it would potentially lead to someone being punished for it.

Im doing my dissertation on letters from the crusade era (1200-1300) regarding Mongols and the west, so far I've only been able to find religious letters to Mongols from the popes, however I need secular letters sent to Mongols like from King's. I have been trying to find letters from like philipe le bel and so forth but nothing comes up.

(It can be in any language as I can get them translated) For example apparently there is a lwtter from Edward 1 of England to Mongols in Matthew paris's chronica majora but I could not find it and I check all 7 volumes)

Didn't find literally anything about it searching it. Got me thinking and it's pretty intresting to know the answer.

Greetings,

I was listening to a lecture on the topic of Post WW1 Europe and I asked professor this question and he couldn't answer this aside with some very unsatisfactory political claims of the time.

Many thanks in advance.

With everything going on in the USA today, I'm wondering if the world (or, more precisely, Europe) was somehow a part of the American civil war of 1861

I'm massively opposed to racism, I just have a hard time believing that previous eras where free from it.

So my question is about whether mail (aka chainmail in pop culture) from 1000 - 1250 was made from iron or steel?

The other answers I got from searching all talk armour from the later periods. I know that Alan William's The Knight and the Blast Furnace takes shows most plate armour from the late middle ages (1350 - 1500) to be made from steel, but he also states the armours pre 1350 in areas other than Milan were made from iron. Are there any other sources that describe the earlier armour pieces?

Hello Historians!

I'm still in college and fretting about whether or not to add a history major. I've always wanted to write a book on how money and banking systems have evolved into their current forms. I'd like to analyze the role that the monetary system has played in the formation and nature of power structures, and how money's role itself in this process has evolved.

I'm hoping for some advice from some historians on just how necessary a history degree would be for such a goal.

I studied history for 2 years at two German universities, specifically financial history, medieval history and some Roman antiquity. I received excellent feedback from my professors on the work I submitted. It was normal for me to sit and write a lengthy paper for 3 days straight, be exhausted, but feel fulfilled.

At some point, I got this fear into my head that I'd end up poor if I pursued history, that I wouldn't find appropriate work and be a failure to my family. I ended up transferring to a US university for family-related reasons and switched to physics which I've now studied for the past two years.

I've done really well in physics...but that alone isn't making me happy. My mind keeps wondering back to my original plan to write this big book, as touched upon above. I keep feeling like I might have made a terrible mistake to have left my original path.

To make it more difficult for me to decide, I have also taken a good number of political science courses and economics courses during my time here (the US university requires me to take courses from outside physics, too). Specifically, the poli sci courses have allowed me to write some papers on the history of the Bretton Woods system. So, it looks like a background in political science could also potentially contribute positively to my original goal.

I could add a poli sci major and be done with my degree faster than if I added a history major at this point. However, I'm concerned that research opportunities for my goal might be scarcer in poli sci than in history. I also worry people wouldn't take me seriously as the author of a book with so much money history, if I had more of a poli sci background than a history background.

• How reasonable are these concerns? Am I overthinking this? Does one of these two degrees matter so much more than the other (specifically regarding my area of interest)?

• Where would a political scientist possibly have to stop writing about such topics and the historian have to take over?

Thanks for any insights, opinions or suggestions you might have! Part of my problem is that I'm still rather blind to how the academic world works beyond a bachelor's degree. So, any relativizing from "the other side" is greatly appreciated. :)

The notion of a sunken lost city is just really cool. But how would verifying or falsifying its existence work academically?

Also, how do historians and archaeologists go about studying sunken human settlements in the sunken Doggerland area or other similar areas?

I’m looking for a book (hopefully audiobook) about Juana la Loca, daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand. I want to learn more about her life, her reign, her “treatment”. Podcast suggestions are also welcome - this desire for a book came from listening to a recent Noble Blood episode.

I've wanted to find out if it is at all possible to find out which German units passed through my grandmas village during WW2. She told me some soldiers would even come inside to eat. It would be absolutely cool to find out which units it could have been, who led them, where they fought and....well just the history all together, but for all I know it could be impossible to find out.

I found some slight clues but nothing I could say for sure as it seems most units came through Lviv and split, some going to Kyiv others down south (The ones I suspect). Im not sure about that though.

If anybody is an expert and might already know the village is Lypivka in Ivano Frankivsk, Tysmynetsky region.

More specifically I've heard the claim that Imperial Japan wanted to keep up its occupations in other nearby Asian countries in their agreement to surrender, does this claim have any truth to it?

This may seem like a bit of a simple question but I've seen many people dispute this despite me thinking it was universally accepted as fact. I get that Nazism is different to core fascism, but at its core, are they the same thing?