We've had several questions in the past day "Which is older, the wheel or the wall?" They keep getting removed for Basic Fact rule, but no one actually reposts it here. But eh, I'll answer it anyways.

The earliest known wheeled vehicles date to the mid-4th millennium BC, with evidence in several locations showing up around 3,500 BC. We can push that back a little if we are looser with some evidence, but it is ballpark.

The earliest evidence of the famed Walls of Jericho date to roughly 8,000 BC.

So walls well predate wheels.

Bakker, Jan Albert, Janusz Kruk, Albert E. Lanting, and Sarunas Milisauskas. "The earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles in Europe and the Near East." Antiquity 73, no. 282 (1999): 778-790.

Bar-Yosef, Ofer. "The walls of Jericho: an alternative interpretation." Current Anthropology 27, no. 2 (1986): 157-162.

cc /u/Frigorifico

How would someone refer to a future year in Ancient Rome?

Ancient Romans supposedly kept track of years by naming the men who were Consul that year. That works fine if you are talking about years in the past, but how does that work for talking about events in the future?

Today, if I want to talk about an event in the future, I can say that "I will retire in 2050". But how would someone in ancient Rome say a similar thing?

Especially for documents that need to be long lasting, like long duration contracts.

The United States Federal Government has a bicameral legislature as a result of the Connecticut Compromise to balance the interests of smaller and larger states, as well as to balance the issues of the states and the people.

Given that neither of these justifications apply at the state level, was there a reason why every state except Nebraska has itself a bicameral legislature? Was this just a matter of 'follow the leader' at the Federal level, or was there some underlying political theory that justified the redundancy?

I know the FAQ has sections about the credibility of books but i don't think this one is covered - I recently finished Norman Ohler's "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich" and was wondering if anyone can comment on this? It seems like if he was able to get such detailed records then surely the narcotics component of the war would get a mention way more often in media outside this specific book?

Does anyone have any book recommendations for learning about the Donner Party? I'd like something thoroughly researched and contextualized but also entertaining. There are a lot of books out there but I wanted something grounded in the facts.

Did the North Vietnamese ever used helicopters? If so, which? Thanks.

Can anyone recommend any books on the practices of the Manicheans?

In colonial times, was Florida a part of the Spanish territory?

If I remember correctly, Georgia was one of the original colonies, but it seems weird to me how almost all states in the East Coast were American colonies but Florida wasn't ever mentioned as one.

Why did the British/Americans stop at Georgia and didn't push to Florida?

Does anyone have some good sources and reading for learning more about ancient divination practices? I understand this being broad, but after light research I’ve found myself wanting more detailed descriptions of practices, cultural roles, and uses.

I'm currently reading on The Hundred Year's War (about which I know little) and am seeing that the English monarchs were often made to pay homage to the French king. I'm also realizing that I don't know what exactly it means to "pay homage".

So what exactly is happening? Is there a big to-do? Who's present? Is there a formalized ceremony? What's going on here?

Hello! Did state-sanctioned trade happen between Rome and Carthage during the Punic Wars? What about the areas they controlled, eg. trade between Greece and Carthage during the wars? Or would smuggling operations have been the only trade contact?

Thank you. :)

Could anyone give me a recommendation for a book, which goes through ancient Egypt and it's history in chronological order?

Im watching a history channel program that the literal translation would be Rome : ascencion and fall of an empire. And this is the first episode called (again translated) The first war.

They were talking about the armor roman soldiers used and someone talked about their chest piece and helmet, said it totaled about 25-30KG and that was about half of the soldiers weight.

Thats arround 55LBs. That would make a soldier a little over 100lbs. Is this right? Were they that light? Or is this some kind of error? Possibly translation?

They are talking about 113 before christ. For more context they mention Mario A battle where 8.000 roman soldiers died

What is the year on the longest spanning (Not necessarily the oldest, as not all are concurrent) calendar? In other words, what calendar begins the earliest & what year is lt on said calendar?

Are there any books on the ancient Pontic regions and/or Armenia, and even later periods in the region such as into the Byzantine era? Reading about Mithridates VI makes me very curious about the region’s history, thanks in advance!

Prior to Reformation, was Latin the official religious language in the areas that would no longer be Catholic? If yes, how was it phased out?

When numbers are given for the dead and wounded of a battle, are people who die of infected wounds after the fact considered dead or wounded?

Historically accurate books on slave trade?

When did people start rotating their hand when bowing to a monarch (to indicate respect)?

Hard to describe, but it's when someone is bowing and, keeping their right hand parallel to their body, they rotate it forward a couple of rotations.

Seems like a very 16-18th century thing to do, but I don't know if I'm just making this up to be frank.

Did Ghengis Khan really kill men who were taller than him?

Who were the first to use credit in their economies? Why did they have to create the concept of credit in the first place?

What's Americanization? In the context of things like the Frontier Thesis, what specific shifts in ideology does Americanization refer to?

What happened to the Red Seal fleet? Before the Sakoku Japan had ships that sailed as far as India but what happened to them after the nation was closed?

I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of scholarship published (by historians) in the last 20 years that examine letters. There's a book I recently read by David Thelen, Becoming Citizens in the Age of Television (1996), that analyzes an archive of citizen letters. I like his book because it offers a people's history of sorts. I'm open to pretty much any topic provided it treats letters as a useful text to glean information from.

Hello! Does anyone know a ballpark estimation for how long it took for the Byzantine Empire to recover to pre-Justinian Plague population levels? Or how deep the population dip was during the plague, not for the general Mediterranean but for the Byzantine Empire specifically?

Thanks!

How did soldiers like hastati or similar carried their shields and spears when not in battle? Did they have to keep them in arms all the time and drop the spear on the ground if they had to use their sword?

I tried to find depictions or descriptions of it, but didn’t succeed.

Has the fact that Lincoln made the Gettysburg address after such a long speech help endear it to the people who witnessed it?

I'm going to be playing a historian who studies antiquity (and specifically the roman republic) in a Vampire the Masquerade game. What should I know to be able to play the character properly? Both in terms of 'what is academia like for historians?' and 'what sort of basic knowledge of the period should I have?'

Did hobos in the US form a unique culture/customs like other vagrant groups, such as Gyspies in the UK?

What was the date General Lyon camped in Stockton, MO during his march of 1961(Civil War)?

Can anyone recommend a good book on the history of colonialism in Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore?

How did Genghis Khan manage to get descendants in almost every corner on earth? Did he rape women while on his quests of conquering?

Edit: honest question. Or did he have many wives and consorts etc?

At what point does BC become AD? I understand that the historicity of Jesus is not very clear - so at what point does that "switch" take place?

Where can I find academic(-ish) reviews of different books on historical subjects?

I've been reading Settlers: The Mythology Of The White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern by J. Sakai but I've also read something from a random blog that criticizes the author's methodology and sourcing, reccomending instead The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen which also looks very interesting and I've seen recommended elsewhere.

Why did we settle on 4/4 time signatures when typically making songs? Why do we not see many other variations in popular music?

Let's suppose I'm a dual citizen of Italy and the United States, and I live in Italy in 1948. I'm almost 18, and I'm about to be conscripted into the Italian Army. Would I lose my American citizenship if I was conscripted?

It is obvious that geography has a big impact on what has happened in history. Just England and Japan being islands for instance, etc.
Are there good resources to learn on other less obvious yet interesting ways on which geography has had impact in history?

Who is this a bust of? Looks very familiar but I'm coming up blank. Philosopher, artist or writer presumably based on who owned it.

Did people from isolated Asian regions like Japan ever had a yellow skin tone?

I remember someone telling me that in the past this was the case because of an over reliance on sea-food produce and lack of access to vitamin-rich fruits in places like Japan, however, I often heard similar and obviously wrong lines of reasoning when speaking about other non-European populations like native Americans claiming that they had a lack of protein in their diets, which I know to be patently untrue.

So I've been wondering, was there a period in history in which the inhabitants of relatively isolated regions in East Asia (like Japan) displayed a yellowish skin pigmentation?, if not, were did this stereotype came to be in the West?