What's the most Cringeworthy take on Actual History/Archeology you've ever read? Discussion (2024)

It genuinely might not seem like it if one is from the first world and is aboard on a modern crusieliner, but crossing oceans is inherently fraught with danger.

All the more so if the best ways you have of keeping your food supplies steady are rain-barrels, large amounts of salt and live animals who will poop.
Even more so if you are on a wooden vessel and need to contend with barnacles and ship-worms.

Simon_Jester said:

True. On the other hand, ships were making the Atlantic crossing fairly regularly only a few centuries later. It's not surprising that people often imagine, hope, or speculate on people having done it prior to 1492, and the idea of an entire fleet simply vanishing may incorrectly trigger their suspicion.

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I mean, i don't think people get how f*cking scary and unsafe the sea actually is. Or how scary being surrounded on all sides by water without certainty you'll make it to safe land with everything ready for you there even is.

I find the sea beautiful, but I'd only want to see it from the shore. Much like a big river, I prefer to view it, not be caught up in it. Too many ways something can go wrong. So my hat is tipped to people who braved the seas in the old days, and the kinds of crazy people who dare it now in less than ideal circ*mstances.

Balmung1 said:

Something I find s annoying find it very annoying that in some WW2 books they complain about Stillwell not liking Chiang Kai Shek even though from everything I've read Chiang seemed to piss nearly everyone off thanks to his authoritarian tendencies, very obvious corruption and a refusal to even pretend that he was going to use lend lease stuff on the Chinese first rather than embezzle it/use it against the Communists

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Im guessing its because Stillwell was the guy in the room who actually gave a sh*t about China's abilitu to fight Japan, while all the other americabs being consulted on the matter saw china as being barely able to wipe their own ass. Note that at the same time, Japanese as a race were seen as incapable of the act of innovating and that therefor according to American intelligence agencies basically all innovative designs of the japanese were either just knockoffs of "better" european designs or just outright lies. For example, Long Lance was considered one of those "outright lies. This should get across the idea of just how poorly Asians were seen by Americans.

So the mere fact that Stillwell, who is noted as actually being rather sinophobic himself, was advocating in favor of China at all nade in by far one of the most pro-China people in the Department of State. Making his dislike of Chiang all the more noticable.

chornedsnorkack said:

For example, a teen bride is bringing her health, youth and long years ahead. Optionally social/political alliance with her natal family, optionally dowry - but a lot of societies found teen brides worth brideprice instead.
Accumulated skills and training in women´s crafts mattered and were a major asset... but a teen bride would be learning/adding to them in her marital home, as apprentice of her husband´s mother rather than her own mother after marriage.
Of course, since children of both sexes did work at crafts and received training in crafts as preteens already, a prospective mother-in-law might assess the skills and prospects of her prospective daughter-in-law/apprentice/employee as a consideration to decide who her son should marry...
In English, the word "apprentice" itself is not gendered. I cannot talk about it in my language - in my language, the corresponding word specifically refers to "boy". Yet something that showed up in history... Roman Egypt turned out to have quite a number of apprenticeship contracts for girls. Both slave and free girls, including man teaching girl apprentice.
A girl having formal apprenticeship outside family is historically rare (as pointed out, my language lacks a word for it), yet Roman Egypt turned out to have that.

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My apologies. I'm having trouble understanding your post. I appreciate the information provided but am struggling to find how it connects to what you quoted and so am at a loss for a worthy response. Again, apologies. I don't intend any disrespect.

I am always sort of mildly darkly amused that North America at least in part seems to have been known to be there in Northern Europe as welll as a monastery in Milian and prehaps maybe some fishing villages in the Basque country and England but nobody cared after the disappearance of the Greenlandic Norse in the 15th century until Columbus made grand claims about wealth.

Part of me wonders how long that status quo would have gone on if Columbus had just never returned.

Widowmaker said:

I mean, i don't think people get how f*cking scary and unsafe the sea actually is. Or how scary being surrounded on all sides by water without certainty you'll make it to safe land with everything ready for you there even is.

I find the sea beautiful, but I'd only want to see it from the shore. Much like a big river, I prefer to view it, not be caught up in it. Too many ways something can go wrong. So my hat is tipped to people who braved the seas in the old days, and the kinds of crazy people who dare it now in less than ideal circ*mstances.

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Having, just a few years ago, seen with my own eyes a sizeable sailing ship that is now at the bottom of the Atlantic following a sudden squall, I certainly concur on the danger of such ventures; though being on the water is a fantastic feeling nonetheless.

Space Murica said:

Probably would have continued until Portugal bumped into Brazil while trying to find the fastest sea currents around Africa.

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So, about eight years then.

Grytorm said:

I don't know. I don't think Brazil was particularly profitable right away.

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Yeah, but the point is that people knew it was there, and once it was encountered, there was inevitably going to be some curiosity as to just how much of "there" there was.

Grytorm said:

I don't know. I don't think Brazil was particularly profitable right away.

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It was actually. The felling of the Brazilwood tree and shipping it back to Europe to make red dye was immediately profitable. As in large scale harvesting was underway within 2-3 years of the discovery.

From what I recall Portugal knew of Brazil but only formally claimed it after the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided up the new world between Spain and Portugal and even then it was several decades before they started to try to colonize.

One wonders if they would have bothered otherwise if Spain wasn't in the picture and trying to claim so much of the new world.

Ophelia said:

My apologies. I'm having trouble understanding your post. I appreciate the information provided but am struggling to find how it connects to what you quoted and so am at a loss for a worthy response. Again, apologies. I don't intend any disrespect.

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Your quote was about how parents would want financial security for their children, and the spouse to contribute to it.
The implication, from your previous posts, was that parents should want their children-in-law to be older, with skills/formal education outside birth home, and assets saved up by herself/himself as a young adult.
That´s the Northwest European marriage pattern. Attested by 15th century in Northwest Europe.
Basically everywhere else, whether south of Hajnal Line (Italy etc.), India, China, nearly anywhere there are data - first time brides were teens. Clearly the parents-in-law wanted teen brides, not old maids.
Grooms varied more widely. Renaissance Italy had older grooms marrying teen brides, this was also common (but not universal) for Rome. But see Gandhis for an example of early teen groom.
Going back to why parents wanted teen brides. Especially lower class parents, who actually needed everyone in the home to work?
Well, if there were no schools, does not mean there was no teaching. Like teaching crafts from mother to daughter - or mother-in-law to daughter-in-law.
But a teen girl might be taught either by her own mother or her husband´s mother. Now to think of it, a mother-in-law might prefer her apprentice/daughter-in-law to be early teen. After all, if the bride´s mother practices a slightly different style of weaving than groom´s mother, the bride may have to waste time relearning. Better to take her early, and teach her the mother-in-law´s style all along... Any financial implications of early marriage would be compensated by the dowry/brideprice arrangements.

Simon_Jester said:

True. On the other hand, ships were making the Atlantic crossing fairly regularly only a few centuries later. It's not surprising that people often imagine, hope, or speculate on people having done it prior to 1492, and the idea of an entire fleet simply vanishing may incorrectly trigger their suspicion.

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I should probably mention that this was in the context of one of those conspiracy theorists who think that Africa was waaaaay more advanced than it actually was and that Europe stole all of Africa's achievements and then meddled with the history books to hide these great achievements from us.

chornedsnorkack said:

Your quote was about how parents would want financial security for their children, and the spouse to contribute to it.
The implication, from your previous posts, was that parents should want their children-in-law to be older, with skills/formal education outside birth home, and assets saved up by herself/himself as a young adult.
That´s the Northwest European marriage pattern. Attested by 15th century in Northwest Europe.
Basically everywhere else, whether south of Hajnal Line (Italy etc.), India, China, nearly anywhere there are data - first time brides were teens. Clearly the parents-in-law wanted teen brides, not old maids.
Grooms varied more widely. Renaissance Italy had older grooms marrying teen brides, this was also common (but not universal) for Rome. But see Gandhis for an example of early teen groom.
Going back to why parents wanted teen brides. Especially lower class parents, who actually needed everyone in the home to work?
Well, if there were no schools, does not mean there was no teaching. Like teaching crafts from mother to daughter - or mother-in-law to daughter-in-law.
But a teen girl might be taught either by her own mother or her husband´s mother. Now to think of it, a mother-in-law might prefer her apprentice/daughter-in-law to be early teen. After all, if the bride´s mother practices a slightly different style of weaving than groom´s mother, the bride may have to waste time relearning. Better to take her early, and teach her the mother-in-law´s style all along... Any financial implications of early marriage would be compensated by the dowry/brideprice arrangements.

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Ah, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Astrid Fornhoff said:

Well, t'was an open demand of several U.S. administrations (Roosevelt 2, Truman and Eisenhower) during and after round 2 that if Britain wanted help, Britain (and the other wallies for that matter) would dismantle their empire(s), or else.

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My impression, however, is that that was never actually enforced. And, I've seen argued but I forget where, Britain in fact went on to sink its post-war recovery support into imperial expenses.

To sum up some of the commonsense objections to historic prevalence of teen marriage:
there indeed were common sense objections about

1. A couple of teens playing home with no adults in charge. (If both are poor, who´s supporting them? If either or both have inherited wealth, is it responsible use of that inheritance?). But there were two common alternatives...
2. Just one spouse, usually the wife, is a teen, and the other is much older, and the adult in charge
3. The couple of teens are living in home and under tight supervision of adults, mostly parents of one spouse

Gandhi family had examples of both 2 and 3. Karamchand and Putlibai were 35 and 13 when married, 38 and 16 when they had their first child - but it was Karamchand´s fourth marriage. Mohandas and Kasturba were 13 and 14 when married, 16 when they had their first child - but the household was headed by Karamchand and then Putlibai till Mohandas returned from study abroad, aged about 21.