8 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
    1. While there is no clear evidence of palaces, kings, or warfare, Caral had monuments and sunken plazas that seem to have been used for community rituals. Coordinated projects such as the building of extensive irrigation systems

      I think it is really interesting how this place had no signs of kings or rulers. That means that potentially there were leaders of some sort, but more importantly everyone worked as a community. I feel like this probably wasn't as common back then. There were also things like mutilated bodies and warfare items that were not found, suggesting there might not have been much violence like that.

    1. As in Uruk, families responsible for storing grain accumulated social power, although they lessened the sting of the inequality by brewing beer and baking bread for the people.

      I kind of just find it crazy how the "inequality" can be changed by brewed beer and bread. It's similar nowadays where providing services or goods to the community could also change or lessen the feeling of inequality.

    2. These are defined as effects that are not the main point of the economic activity, and are typically NOT reflected in prices or other economic measures.

      It's interesting how economic changes and innovations can lead to non-economic results. I think you would also be able to do non-economic things like cleaning up their yard. This makes the whole block look better, possibly upping the property values.

    1. In order to organize the building and maintenance of the irrigation system, and to keep records of the extensive grain business, the people running the Temples developed cuneiform writing on clay tablets by about 5,200 years ago.

      I think it was crucial back then to have a form of document and writing. Without this, records of the entire business wouldn't be kept track of, causing confusion, chaos, and maybe even trouble for some.

  2. Sep 2025
    1. The large stones visible in this photo of Stonehenge are "Sarsen" stones erected by the people who were replaced by the Bell Beaker culture.

      Maybe it's just me but I have always wondered what is the point of these stones. Were they for a use or purpose? Were they a sacred space for something like worship?

    2. This means that the people who built most of Stonehenge between 5,100 and 4,600 years ago disappeared and were almost entirely replaced by a new, Yamnaya-descended population, just a century later.

      Just the fact that these people disappeared basically without a trace is really interesting to me. Where did they go?

    3. What if people who gathered plant foods noticed that seeds they dropped in camp grew into the very plants they had found and brought back home with them?

      I feel like this could really be an actual reason and it seems interesting. I feel like majority of people spend time trying to find out other complex reasons for this but it actually takes more thinking and being more creative to come up with the idea that it literally could have been an accident.

    1. a 5,300 year old mummified body discovered in a melting glacier in the Alps between Austria and Italy in 1991. Ötzi was about 45 years old at the time of his death, and had lived on a diet of ibex, chamois, and red deer meat, einkorn wheat, roots, and fruits. Ötzi’s genes show a very high proportion (over 90%) of Anatolian farmer ancestry

      I just find it really interesting how a mummified body over 5,300 can be discovered and still tell a lot of information. Like the age of death and his diet.