There's a reference in Polybius (I believe, can check in the morning), that discusses Romans bringing in captured Carthaginian mercenaries in the First Punic War. In this, the Romans were said to have made note of physical attributes that the individuals had and put them in different roles depending on that. We do have to be careful about taking this as gospel for a couple of reasons, but it does at least tell us that Polybius didn't view this as an abnormal practice or out of the realm of possibility (or even his imagination). We have some Roman infantry specialists around here so hopefully someone can comment on the possible practice further.

So this is a good question, and I think there is some room for some discussion on this here.

I think mainly you need to look at how teachers approach this subject. At the early levels we do need to stick a bit to narratives. This does create some issues as it does simplify "history" to the point where a lot of people think that just telling the stories is what historians do, when in reality we just call that class "history" for simplicity's sake. Because what historians do is far more complex, and we try purposefully to avoid narratives and story-telling.

But this method is effective for younger kids for a few reasons. 1) It's simple. To compare it with science, it's a popular meme, but there's a reason people still remember things like "mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell"; that's effective teaching. Some kids are going to want to go "okay, but what does that actually mean, what's actually happening?" and learn more, but for the average person with no real desire to learn more about cells beyond the requirements this is ensuring that kids have a basic basic basic understanding.

So in comparison to history, we might say "Ostracism was a practice in Ancient Athens created by Cleisthenes in the late 6th century that allowed the people to remove politicians that they saw as dangerous which began in the early 5th century."

Anyone familiar with ostracism at an academic level would immediately go on about the weaponisation of ostracism, how it did pretty much nothing to help the Demos, and that its origins (while still more firmly in the Cleisthenic origin/Hipparchos camp) are murky when we take into account the problems of the fragmented statement of Androtion compared with that of Aristotle and the whole τοτε πρωτον debate.

But you've lost most kids, and most undergrads, at that point. That's point 2 about why narratives are good, they're a bit more accessible for everyone. If a student shows they're really keen on ostracism and really interested in ancient Greek and historiography and want to learn these things it's easy enough to open up and start going "well, it does get a bit complicated, but..." and scale up the lessons. But if kids walk away at the end of the term knowing "Cleisthenes. Ostracism. Athens. Politicians sent away" then that's a win.

And this is visible throughout most podcasts, most youtube videos, and Popular Histories. People tend to want the story told to them, and then allow themselves to branch out if something in particular piques their interest.

And after a long winding rant which ironically boils down to "get to the point, you'll keep people more interested in that way" I'll do so. The point being that you can still teach your kids the truth, and not hide the dark parts of history from them. But also you want them to be engaged, and you want them to learn early to start exploring, to start questioning. If you tell them a bit and they just respond "okay" then leave it at that. But ask them if they have any questions, ask them what they think, get them talking and if they show interest in developing a wider understanding then you can guide them towards that. And don't be afraid to say "You know, I don't know, but let's find out" and teach them how to find information, how to check out books from the library, etc. Hell, do that even if you do know the answer sometimes.

Being a kid is kinda like an internship. You want them to understand how to do the basics and get them to the point where they can take out the rubbish without accidentally starting a fire, but a lot of interns lead to great employees, and some even to bosses. But it's not going to happen all at once. Build that foundational knowledge, and let them add to it, guide them as you see fit, but don't pile things on if they're not keen. So discuss Columbus, discuss transatlantic trade, and even slaves, but let them start to connect the pieces and just facilitate their learning instead of just megaphoning knowledge at them. Eventually you could get to a point where a kid wants that, and wants to have in depth, lengthy, difficult conversations about the dark parts of history, but it won't be on day one.

Hope this helps and I've actually answered your question instead of just ranting away.

It's an incredible discovery.

They're not going to not report about it because some people might be upset by it.

This thread would be going very differently if it was "Proof of Spartan King deciphered on ancient rock inscription"

And people need to ask themselves why that is.

People that get upset every time anything remotely tied to religion is mentioned need to find a new hobby, because history cannot be separated from it.

100% write him off, at least any time he diverges into his alt-history.

People like Hancock rely on people not knowing anything and trusting that he must know what he's talking about because look at how confidently he says stuff. But anyone who actually studies history, archaeology, and is even vaguely familiar with the evidence he uses can see right through it. He knows this, and that's why he targets amateurs and why he pretends there's some grand conspiracy against him from academia, that way when people call him out he can go "see, I told you, the academics are just out to get me!" it's very convenient for him.

https://theconversation.com/with-netflixs-ancient-apocalypse-graham-hancock-has-declared-war-on-archaeologists-194881

This bit in particular highlights the problems with him well

>From my perspective as an archaeologist, the show is surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) lacking in evidence to support Hancock’s theory of an advanced, global ice age civilisation. The only site Hancock visits that actually dates to near the end of the ice age is Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey.

>Instead, Hancock visits several North American mound sites, pyramids in Mexico, and sites stretching from Malta to Indonesia, which Hancock is convinced all help prove his theory. However, all of these sites have been published on in detail by archaeologists, and a plethora of evidence indicates they date thousands of years after the ice age.

Most people won't know when those sites date to, academics studying them do, but most people listening to Netflix won't, so when Graham uses them all to try and prove his point only those educated will go "hey, wait a second, that dating doesn't even match up with what you're arguing"

Upon which Hancock just pulls out the trustworthy "archaeologists don't know what they're talking about, but you can trust ME" Nothing you can really do about those types of people, they refuse to actually engage in debate or prove their points.

His whole premise is flawed, and he makes up evidence whenever he doesn't have any, and whenever there's any evidence that dismisses his points he just says that that evidence is made up by academics trying to cover things up.

It's the laziest hypothesis in the world, anything inconvenient to it is dismissed. There's not a single serious academic that thinks he knows what he's talking about, he's been a laughing stock for decades now but has gotten famous again due to the ease of spreading misinformation online, and him having a son working at Netflix who can give him a show.

Take him as seriously as you would the P.E. Teacher from Ancient Aliens.

Egypt is both Mediterranean and African though, and Egypt had long been influenced by other cultures, commuities, and networks and trades long before the Ptolemies. These communities never existed in vacuums. And while yes, Cleopatra's family was Greek/Macedonian in origin, you have to also consider the scope of the time. We're talking three hundred of year between Alexander becoming pharaoh and Cleopatra dying. At this point the family was also Egyptian. Even though Europeans forcefully took control of the Americas we wouldn't say that Tom Englishman who's family came to the Americas 300 years ago is English, not American.

And as Bentresh has already pointed out, you cannot judge by the appearances in the art as to whether those people had Greek origins or not. These things, as is often the case, are more complicated than they appear.

> there’s a long history of trying to make Egypt an extension of the Mediterranean

What do you mean by this?

The Ptolemaic Period is still very much considered ancient. Yes, Egyptian history goes back much further, but modern history goes ahead much longer. It was recognised during the time that the history was already so old though. There's the famous tidbit about Cleopatra (VII) living closer to the age of computers than the building of the Great Pyramid, which is true, but she still died (and effectively ended the Ptolemaic dynasty) ~2,050 years ago which was a time very much considered ancient.

Also considering the importance of the Ptolemies in Greek and Roman history, they are brought within those timeframes as well. The Ptolemies pre-date the Roman Empire and their downfall is part of the empire's rise.

They would drop them in isolated areas. Here's a map of all the sites. https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/test-sites/testing-map.html

Lots of them were in deserts, tundras, and a lot in isolated places in the middle of the ocean.

They also would conduct them underground to limit any radioactive fallout.

/u/bentresh

No, no it's literally not.

ἱστορία • (historíā) f (genitive ῐ̔στορῐ́ᾱς); first declension

From ῐ̔στορέω (historéō, “I inquire”), from ἵστωρ (hístōr, “one who knows, wise one”).

inquiry, examination, systematic observation, science body of knowledge obtained by systematic inquiry written account of such inquiries, narrative, history

Well, there's a lot. We don't know much about early Rome because there's not a great historiographical record left behind. We rely heavily on works written long after these events took place. People were writing, including those in Rome and those outside of it, but not all these writings survived into the modern day. Some of them may have been surpassed by later written works, some of them may have been a bit boring and just not enjoyed. We know that some of these works still existed when others were writing theirs, so they are maintained in that way (i.e. in fragments) But we run into a whole different set of complications when evaluating fragments.

Still, people in Rome during its heyday, and historians ever since, have done a good job at piecing together the little bits of information we do get to try and at least paint a picture of what was going on, even if there are still a lot of gaps, a lot of questions, and -- to a certain extent -- a lot of guesses.

I will also add that these things didn't just pop up from day one fully formed. No one's first ship was a tessarakonter. They would have started with some proto-ships, basically anything that could float, and overtime learn what makes the best floating stuff, perfect it, build upon it, etc.

Same with bridges, no one's building the Golden Gate on their first attempt. Early ones would have been very temporary, and quite even just "well we can walk across that spot that has a tree down, so why not just bring a tree down ourselves here?" Overtime you can learn to make them stronger, to bring more supplies over, to bring more people over, and eventually you might say "hey, we cross over this exact spot 7 times a week, but we're always replacing this wood, what else can we do here?"

While it would be mistaken to try and understand technology in a technology tree sort of way where it's all linear and constantly improving upon itself, especially in these prehistorical and ancient history societies, it might be okay to sorta imagine it like that if it helps gain a wider understanding. Better bridges required a better understanding of things like maths, physics, etc. Combining the understanding of building materials, purpose, arches, over time throughout many generations. The more a society grew, the more information they learnt, the better things could potentially be.

None of this is really surprising, nor anything we would expect to be unique to one culture -- therefore they can all come about independently and when you think about what a society needs to do to survive it's no surprise that they did.

Housing: need places to live safely, need a place live securely, need strong and easy to find materials. Rocks are abundant and hard. Pyramids are the easiest shape to build tall things. Start with a big foundation and build on top of it, and add less as you go up so there's less and less weight to support. Look actually here at the earlier pyramids in Egypt for great examples of what didn't work, they didn't start with the Great Pyramid, there was a lot of trial and error.

Food: You need food and materials to provide for a civilisation, the jump to agriculture is an early one for civilisation and not that surprising. Finding out how to ensure a regularly and steady food supply rather than just relying on nature to provide it. It also means you can stay in one place instead of constantly moving around throughout the year, and therefore be close to your protective dwellings at all times (even more reason to have one then too).

Societal factors: Religion comes as a result of the unknown, so we can't both expect that things would be unknown, and that religion appeared. It's a universal experience across civilisations. "Why is this happening? Why does the sun move each day? Why does thunder exist? What the hell is causing this flooding and why is it happening to us?"

Social Structures also exist in animals. Humans didn't invent the concept of leaders, and leaders will form naturally if a gap is present. You could take 10 fry-cooks from Maccas and drop them on an island, if they're going to survive someone is going to try to take charge (whether efficient or not). But if someone is efficient, and even good, people will be more likely to continue following them. And there comes in warfare. What if someone doesn't like that group, what if rival factions split up, what if a new party shows up and decides that they already have a leader and won't respect the way of things done on the island -- or have arrived with supplies that would be greatly useful? etc.

With war comes loot, you can destroy everything they have, or you can take it and benefit off of that. That includes humans. Humans can farm, humans can build, humans can even teach. We have use. So it's no surprise slavery is common.

Want a stronger system? Create markets, create a central place where you can sell your goods, and people can get them. It benefits everyone.

And then bridges, boats, irrigation, is just a natural extension. River in the way, but there's some good hunting grounds just beyond it? Well, we gotta get over that river. Back to our island buddies, fish may be the best supply they have, need to get in the water to get them? Or maybe to another nearby island? Boats. It's overcoming obstacles, ones that would have been obvious to the people. It's very much "if there's a will, there's a way" we recognise we need to get past this natural wall, how do we do it? Well...

What's obscure to one person won't be to another. What sort of topics have you already enjoyed?

How's your Italian?

I haven't read them, but I was curious if it was an academic vs casual deal as that's fairly common and you can usually tell with the publishers.

However, just looking them up quickly to check that I see one is subtitled "1776-1787" and the other "1789-1815" so while close in area, one seems to be a continuation of the other chronologically.

An American Historian might have to fact check me here, but 1776 to 87 would cover the American Revolution and the Articles of Confederation (the first US Constitution) up until around the Constitutional Convention in 1787 which set to revise the Articles (but in reality started writing the new Constitution) while the second book would begin in 1789 when the US Constitution (the one presently used) was put in effect up until the end of the war of 1812, a period which saw a lot of early ideas of US Government get tested and altered with experience -- such as the creation of a standing military. So both, in my mind, would show the reasons for how both constitutions were created, and how they evolved and discussions around them continued in each one's early years.

So unless those subtitles are very misleading, I imagine that's what Wood is doing there.

"Is it possible?" Sure, why not. But possible doesn't mean likely.

There's absolutely no way for a historian to answer what if questions. I've seen it best explained through an example of going to the grocery store.

Say you need groceries, you realise this at 7 o clock at night after getting home from a long day at work. You've got enough to last you til tomorrow, but not ideally. You could go to the store tonight, or you could wait until tomorrow. It's a scenario every adult has experienced.

So what happens if you go tonight, versus going tomorrow? In 99.9999% of the scenarios there's absolutely no difference maybe other than a bit of annoyance. But, for those small chances there are people that go out and get in a life changing car accident, or get food poisoning from stock that would have been replaced overnight, or run into an ex, or meet the person of their dreams in the queue, or a million different highly unlikely but entirely possible scenarios.

If you play that game for just ONE person it's highly unlikely that anything will change. But if you play that game with an entire population for hundreds of years, you're going to hit a lot of crazy odds.

So when we play the game of "what would happen if this entire group of people and this entire group of people combined with this entire group of people matched up differently..." we get into an absolutely unimaginable amount of scenarios and probabilities. Expand that over many generations and it's even more so. What if one of those people who would have been a great leader never existed because their parent died, etc. etc.

It may be fun to imagine, but there's no academic way of answering it. There is /r/HistoryWhatIf where they have a bit more fun with this, but again, take every answer with a dumptruck of salt.

"Bro, if you do that again I'm gonna shake your outfit"

"Bro, I'll shake your fucking outfit"

"I mean it bro, I'm gonna SHAKES"

"OH YOU WANNA? shakes"

Sport brawls are so fucking boring.

Historians don't pick "good guys" or "bad guys" in fact, we're trained to purposefully avoid doing that.

And we have a lot of evidence from the German side of WWII, you can buy Mein Kampf in many bookstores (some country's don't allow it, but it's easy enough to find if you do). Our archives are also full of Nazi Germany plans, journals, manuscripts, etc. We really couldn't ask for more when it comes to WWII.

As for how to do we identify propaganda? Well, that's a huge part of what historians do. We don't just look at a source and say "well it says here that.." we need to take what the source is arguing, and investigate it. We need to compare it with other works, we need to compare it with other sciences and approaches. We can then analyse the data and produce an argument with that evidence. It's a process, but it's why there's so much training and credentials that historians need to acquire and why there's systems in place to make sure historians have followed the proper steps and didn't get caught up or tricked.

Imperialism doesn't always require the actual taking or claiming of land. US Imperialism can include things like McDonalds and Starbucks on every street (cultural imperialism). It can include things like bringing a region of countries under your political control so they'll be more likely to support your wider positions in things like the UN (think the Cold War and the First and Second World countries). Throwing your weight around to expand your own personal power in the global world falls under this.

Of course this can absolutely be achieved directly through expansionism, colonialism, invasion, coups, etc. So there are wavelengths where these things do match up in some sort of evil Venn Diagram, but there are still distinct factors which can separate the concepts to keep them from being one-to-one synonyms.

If I were to put it as briefly as possible: Expansionism is the means, Imperialism is the effect that is had on the affected people, the culture, etc. and the benefits given to the driving-power after the fact.

A news agency reporting the news shouldn't be surprising. Hell, that's what we need more of.

"Napoleonic Era" includes the tail end of the Revolution and Napoleon as a whole.

"Revolutionary France" includes the Revolution and early stages of Napoleon.

There's enough overlap and short time frames in both regards that using either to date something wouldn't be blasphemous if it crawled into one or the other category a bit more than normal. And there's nothing wrong with applying both labels if something fits into both categories perfectly. "blah blah blah during Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era France.."

Yeah I've never heard of anyone having a topic for a PhD in History chosen for them. If someone has ended up in that situation they really didn't try hard to find a supervisor.

Typically how this works is you recognise an area where there is a gap, this is typically something that comes up during your MA research, or otherwise something you've been thinking of for a bit before then. You build up a good base knowledge of the historiography surrounding that topic, and then reach out to those working on or around that topic and see if they would be interested in supervising.

Sometimes it's an outright "sorry, no" for a variety of reasons, and usually there is some discussion and debate about how the project will go, "have you thought of this, have you read this, this has already been done but if you approach it from this angle then..." etc. but not outright "you do this project instead".

There are research projects that professors may be looking for help in that are specific, but that's not PhD level. I.e. "I need a summer researcher to go through these coins and look for x, y, z; build a database that filters a, b, c" or whatever. But that's a different area completely.