06-27-2019, 03:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-27-2019, 03:32 PM by Sean Manning.)
In the thread on Alaric, I mentioned that my colleagues who study the 4th-5th-6th-7th centuries CE see signs that as Roman rule collapsed, people were better fed with less infections and parasites. My main source for that is listening to what people who know way more about that period and that culture than I do have to say (I work on Mesopotamia in the long sixth century BCE!), but I tracked down two references to get people started. The height people grow to has a very good correlation with how healthy and well fed they were growing up, how respected they felt, and so on, and bones and teeth survive pretty well in the ground, at least in cultures which practice inhumation.
Geoffrey Kron, “Anthropometry, Physical Anthropology, and the Reconstruction of Ancient Health, Nutrition, and Living Standards,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 54, H. 1 (2005), pp. 68-83 {he thinks that small farms and classical civilization could deliver the good life as long as kings and aristocrats didn’t steal too much of it}
Walter Scheidel, “Physical wellbeing in the Roman world,” Version 2.0 September 2010. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/sc...091001.pdf “A recent study of 1,021 skeletons from seventy-four sites in central Italy reveals that mean stature in the Roman period was lower than both before (during the Iron Age) and after (in the Middle Ages). In the same vein, an alternative survey of 2,609 skeletons from twenty-six Italian sites ranging from the Roman period to the late Middle Ages shows a strong increase in body height in the late Roman and early medieval periods. An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule.”
Kron likes classical urban civilization and focusing on specific forms of evidence such as fish-farming and comparisons, Scheidel is more pessimistic and likes trying to estimate GDP and other numbers that economists want to have, so they are a good base to start your research from.
And just for connections to another debate ... on page 166 of Men of Bronze Adam Schwartz argues that Argive shields with a diameter of 80-100 cm were too big for their wearers, based on studies estimating the height of men and women buried in ancient Greece by John Lawrence Angel from 1944 and 1945. But Angel's estimate of an average adult male height of 162 cm is much lower than the estimates of 170-172 cm in current research, and Schwartz does not address these newer studies. Obviously both archaeology and statistics were much less developed in 1945 than today, and people like Roland Warzecha have no problem using an 85-90 cm diameter round shield in an agile way for single combat.
Geoffrey Kron, “Anthropometry, Physical Anthropology, and the Reconstruction of Ancient Health, Nutrition, and Living Standards,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 54, H. 1 (2005), pp. 68-83 {he thinks that small farms and classical civilization could deliver the good life as long as kings and aristocrats didn’t steal too much of it}
Walter Scheidel, “Physical wellbeing in the Roman world,” Version 2.0 September 2010. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/sc...091001.pdf “A recent study of 1,021 skeletons from seventy-four sites in central Italy reveals that mean stature in the Roman period was lower than both before (during the Iron Age) and after (in the Middle Ages). In the same vein, an alternative survey of 2,609 skeletons from twenty-six Italian sites ranging from the Roman period to the late Middle Ages shows a strong increase in body height in the late Roman and early medieval periods. An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule.”
Kron likes classical urban civilization and focusing on specific forms of evidence such as fish-farming and comparisons, Scheidel is more pessimistic and likes trying to estimate GDP and other numbers that economists want to have, so they are a good base to start your research from.
And just for connections to another debate ... on page 166 of Men of Bronze Adam Schwartz argues that Argive shields with a diameter of 80-100 cm were too big for their wearers, based on studies estimating the height of men and women buried in ancient Greece by John Lawrence Angel from 1944 and 1945. But Angel's estimate of an average adult male height of 162 cm is much lower than the estimates of 170-172 cm in current research, and Schwartz does not address these newer studies. Obviously both archaeology and statistics were much less developed in 1945 than today, and people like Roland Warzecha have no problem using an 85-90 cm diameter round shield in an agile way for single combat.
Nullis in verba
I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
