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Brave chap! I'm sure everyone here will be courteous to you.
SH Archive Ask Pro | - Questions for History Professionals
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Absolutely, the beginning is always a good place to start.
I'm not an archaeologist, but I'll have a go.
Archaeology is a really varied discipline and it isn't all about digging, a lot of work is done above ground. Aerial archeology, building archaeology, experimental archeology, and other disciplines are all done above ground.
The reason for the accumulation of soil around objects really depends on where you are. Soil accumulation doesn't necessarily happen at the same rate across time. In some cases accumulation is sporadic like when raised cities are sometimes rebuilt on the debris, also the advent of new farming practices have effected soil accumulation, as has the advent of widespread road paving and maintenance. Basically, I would need a specific place and historic and contemporary geological data, as well as the history of the place to even begin to speculate about the reasons for that.
Sorry, I know that isn't a very satisfying answer, but there is anything that over a decade of research has taught me it is that there are no universal answers in history.
Most likely I'd ask about Giants. Why are there pictures of Giants, giant corpses, and buildings UNDOUBTEDLY to me anyhow, built for people of a larger stature than we are of?
Why are these buildings EVERYWHERE?
What were the world's fairs exactly?
Tell me about San Fran Sisco? .... Id listen for like three words of THAT answer and just call bullshit.
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codis
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At the moment, I would have two questions.
The first - what do you think of the carbon (C14) dating method ?
It sounds nice on paper, i.e. as a theory. The many assumption about unknown side conditions usually results in error estimates of several 100%. As engineer, I view the certainty with wich the results are usually presented as an insult to my intelligence.
Fomenko's book "History : Fiction or Science" has an interesting chapter about C14 dating.
My second one would be about "strange" archeological artifacts, like described in Cremo's book "Forbidden History". Such as iron tools embedded in black coal, of humanoid bones together with dinosaur bones in one strata. All fake, better not talk about it, or worth investigating ?
Third bonus question - what do history professionals think about people like Fomenko and Cremo ?
Not that I buy every idea they propose. But both report mostly facts, usually mark speculations as such, and provide reference for their statements. In difference to "popular science" articles and segments, with their inflationary use of "may have been" and "perhaps".
Welcome to the forum, Oisin. We certainly welcome your learned opinion and appreciate your willingness to share it. Many historical questions have been raised on this site and, the official narrative is a bit lacking and, frankly, unbelievable. It's possible we're not privy to certain facts that would clarify the issues we have with the historical records so your insights are welcome. If we challenge some of the explanations given, please don't take it personally as we're all here to learn. And yes, calling BS after 3 words of trying to answer a question is not very open-minded. I can't speak for others but I think the current explanation for findings of giant skeletons in our recent past as being gazillions of years old is misleading especially when they're found 1 shovel length deep. So thank you for sharing your insights with us.
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Hi Whitewave,
Thanks for your kind welcome. I absolutely welcome disagreements. All research (and I am including both academic work and forums like this) should be challenged. It’s important that researchers are supportive of each other (and there is no need for anyone to be a dick about challenging other people’s work), but when you find yourself someplace where you can make claims with tenuous support and not be challenged you know you are talking to the wrong people.
I am not familiar with the giant skeletons that you mentioned. I would be very grateful if you could share some sources so I could assess the evidence myself.
Thanks again.
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For the Giants
Photographs and images of the Giants
That's a specific thread inside the topical forum.
As for my question : Have you had a moment where you've questioned the narrative of what you're taught and seen it as improbable despite the academics unfailing acceptance of it? And if so what was your "Wait.. What?" moment.
And finally : Do you find science/History to be stagnant and stuck in presumptions or do you see a willingness from the inside individuals to challenge long held thoughts?
Also : Welcome to the forum mate. Hope you stick around and bring some friends in. I definitely look forward to seeing the discussion between conventionally educated individuals and those sitting here failing to find reasonable explanations for the questions that surround us.
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How come when a ‘fossil’ is found at a certain depth it’s bazillions of years old. But when cities and buildings, excuse me I mean temples and tombs, are found buried at the same depth or often times much deeper. They are thousands of years old at most. Or “intentionally buried”?
How do you know the fossils relatives didn’t “intentionally bury” them as well in a dino funeral?
(Didn’t realize someone was actually attempting answers ITT. Please don’t take my sarcasm to be directed at anyone. Just a silly thought I had)
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Hi Whitewave,
Thanks, I will try and make time to check out the giants page.
Hi AnthemofChao,
Thanks for the welcome and for sending the link to the forum, I will do my best to check it out.
I want to circle back later to the idea of the narrative which academics unfailingly accept, but in answer to your questions:
1. I have certainly had moments where I questioned narratives that lecturers have constructed. Several of my lecturers, for instance, were arch capitalists and I firmly disagreed with their understanding of 19th and twentieth century economic and social history. When I studied in the UK I encountered several lecturers who took a positive view of the impact of the British Empire and even the Elizabethan and Cromwellian plantations in Ireland, which I vehemently rejected. I also had a lecturer who, I thought, relied too much on medieval and early-modern literary texts without properly addressing how their content was shaped by period-specific genre rules and historically conditioned understandings of what is real. We had a lot of arguments about all of those things. A good university education is built on students questioning the narratives of their teachers and their peers. In fact the entire idea of academic rigour is based on people questioning each other.
2. There are certainly historians who are set in their ways, but I don’t think that as a discipline history is stagnant. Actually, it is a really exciting moment to be a historian right now. The amount of new work that is being done to recover what are called ‘subaltern voices’, the histories of people who have been traditionally excluded from historical narratives like women, LGBT+ people, people of colour, people in poverty, etc., means that the discipline is changing very rapidly and new vistas of opening up all the time. The reason I love being a historian is that every day I work with documents and objects that give me insights into the lives of people who have been systematically ignored, and whose stories I have the chance to bring to light.
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New work?
But do you show how the sources support what you say about 'women, LGBT+ people, people of colour, people in poverty, etc'? I mean, is it evidence or theory first?
From what you say, it sounds to me like you could simply be creating new stories to fit the modern agenda, rather than revealing an underlying truth. Do you see that? Is that a fair criticism?
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Hi Feralimal,
Yes, new work.
I would say it is neither evidence or theory first, but question first. In my case I started out by asking what evidence can I find about non-political prisoners in Ireland in the late-twentieth century? I knew they existed, I knew nothing had been written about them so I went looking for the evidence. It is the same basic method as, for instance, going looking for women or people of colour in a medieval context. You know they exist, so you look through the sources for evidence of them and if you find it you try and interpret it.
Sometimes this means finding new sources, and sometimes it means setting aside the assumptions with which you, and historians before you, have previously read historical texts. A really good example of the latter is Louis-Georges Tin's The Invention of Heterosexual Culture. It was controversial when it came out and its conclusions are by no means universally accepted, but I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in premodern European society, it is quite accessibly written and really challenges commonly held assumptions about about the past. Tin offers new interpretations of historical sources, and some previously rarely used sources, to argue that heterosexual love, as we currently understand it, is a relatively modern concept at odds with what he characterises as homosocial premodern society.
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Did "women or people of colour in a medieval context" live in a medieval British context? And "You know they exist"??! What is medieval anyway?
Ok - so I would have thought that it would be a case of evidence first - ie that the evidence drives what theories we may or not have. By having it as questions first, that allows you to drive an agenda. You can ask questions about the issues of the day - climate change, religion, terrorism, sexuality, etc and frame any historical context along those terms. Eg, you could no doubt express the 2-toed, "1600" year old socks that KD posted a pic of, in the terms of any issue you like. But that wouldn't really explain anything about them, would it?
I think the historical interpretation you outline, doesn't help increase understanding about the past. It really only says something about us in the present. It seems to me that all it does is provide greater historical 'camouflage' for what what might be a totally modern point of view. So if some elite group chooses to promote a viewpoint, eg social justice warriors, they can also call up an interpretation of history that better suits their agenda, and the history department will provide it.
It sounds to me like you are applying personal perspectives onto the historical narrative. Perhaps you have lots of work, on account of your perspective meeting the current bill. Your perspective doesn't sound unbiased, but then whose isn't?
To be honest, I am not surprised.
Framing it another way, it sounds to me like there are multiple narratives and interpretations - I'm sure it was ever thus - but the underlying reality has nothing to do with it. Probably for some of us on this site, we do try to get to an underlying truth - we do try to let the evidence do the talking. But I think we're on our own. I think I can also see how in only a few years the (poor) interpretation of history we were taught at school will be replaced by another (equally poor) history for our children/grandchildren.
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So how did we all get here then? Was there also a pre-modern test-tube baby program?
We have a thread on here that might be a good introductory thread for a historian but I can't remember the exact name of it. Something about no original documents. If someone knows which one I'm talking about, could you kindly post the link? I think it might give a good frame of reference for our poor picked on new member. We all come to our truths at our own pace and I, for one, have been fortunate enough to have helpers along the way to gently point out any flaws in my logic. I hope our historian does invite other academics to this site as a safe place to question the official narrative. I'm sure most academics have unanswered questions of their own. Isn't that why we're all here?
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Yes, absolutely! I didn't mean to be harsh, if that's how it comes across, only robust!
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Sorry, Felixnoille. I wasn't very clear in that bit. Tin is not saying that men and women didn't have sex. His argument is that men's primary emotional bonds were non-sexual relationships with other men (these are called homosocial relationships), while marriages and other sexual relationships were based on various material and power exchanges. He goes on to argue that the idea that heterosexual love should be a man's primary emotional bond is a relatively new idea.
I wasn't singling out any particular individuals, friend. I know how it feels to suddenly be the center of unexpected attention when you show up at a party expecting to just have a good time. We have several people on this site with specialized knowledge (linguistics, photographer, construction, etc). I certainly am not versed in those fields so when I have questions regarding those subjects I'm happy to have someone who may increase my understanding. I may not agree with the answers provided but at least I've gained new insight into why it's accepted as "professional opinions" and I can go from there. For example, I have no knowledge of photography so when I see a picture with what I consider incongruities, I can point out the troublesome parts and our resident photographer can explain why it looks the way it does. We're lucky to have such an eclectic group of intelligent people all contributing to our robust search for answers.
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Hi Feralimal,
Thanks for your response.
Yes, we know women and people of colour existed in the medieval period. The world didn’t consist solely of white men until the 15th or 16th century. I wouldn’t have thought that is too surprising.
Medieval is a rough periodisation of the time between the end of the classical period in the fifth century and the beginning of the early-modern period in the 15th century. It applies to Europe, and parts of north Africa and western Asia.
Sorry if those answers are a bit abrupt, but I don’t know how else to respond to your initial questions.
Evidence certainly drives theory formation, but the entire world is evidence of something. So, before you can begin your research you need some way of deciding where to start looking at evidence. For instance, I just glanced back through a few of your recent posts and noticed you said you have looked into the history of the Parthenon (Acropolis aka Necropolis, Schliemann and 1877 Cremation Temple). Why? Unless you woke up that morning in the Parthenon, I’m sure there were a whole host of more immediate things you could have looked into – the histories of beds, cotton, duvets, bedrooms, toothbrushes, cereal, sausages… etc. All of them are valid areas of study, so why did you ignore all of the bits of evidence around you and go looking into the Parthenon instead? This is not an attack on you, by the way. The Parthenon is fascinating and there is nothing wrong with being interested in it. My point is that we all choose a starting point based on our interests and the questions we want answered. You want to know more about the Parthenon, so you look for evidence relating to it; I want to know more about prisoners, so I look for evidence relating to them; etc.
I’m sorry to be abrupt again, but have you read Tin’s work? If not how can you decide whether it helps our understanding of the past? On what do you base that assumption?
If you have read it, great, I would love to hear what specifically you disagree with.
Naturally my perspective is not unbiased, as you say yourself everybody is biased. However, what I have worked on consistently over the last decade, and indeed what my training as a historian has taught me to do, is to be aware of my biases and to try and keep them out of my research.
It is true that you can interpret evidence in different ways, but then it is also true that things can have multiple meanings. A painting may be a family heirloom, a symbol of wealth and power, a coded message about the artists beliefs, etc. It can be all those things at once and each of this things may evidence in the telling of different histories.
I absolutely respect your desire to get to an underlying truth, that is, in a sense, what we are all trying to get to. But I’m sure you see that the second you try understand any evidence of that truth, you too are interpreting, and the second you start telling a friend about it or posting about it here, you start constructing a narrative. Multiple narratives and interpretations are just different ways of looking at the same evidence.
If it's not too surprising and if you don't mind me asking, what kind of evidence do you have for this? Is it a primary source?Yes, we know women and people of colour existed in the medieval period. The world didn’t consist solely of white men until the 15th or 16th century. I wouldn’t have thought that is too surprising.
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