Ah, now you’re limiting it to just Northern European?
The Greeks and Romans had Science. Hell, they invented Science.
Celts? wiki: “Contradicting the Roman sources, more recent scholarship finds that “there is little archeological evidence” of human sacrifice by the Celts, and suggests the likelihood that Greeks and Romans disseminated negative information out of disdain for the barbarians.[43] There is no evidence of the practices Caesar described, and the stories of human sacrifice appear to derive from a single source, Poseidonius, whose claims are unsupported.[44]”
Iron Age Scandinavia or Britain? Why just them? I mean there are the great ag systems of the Romans, in the Middle east, China, etc.
Well, if you compare the two you will see the The Lascaux cave art is far superior to mesoAmerican, and you also have the statuary of the Greeks and the art of the Great Renaissance masters.
Sure, you can like or prefer MesoAmerican art, but it is two dimensional and hardly realistic. Technically it is far overshadowed by some 3D and realistic cave art and of course by the Masters. That’s Objective.
Saying that MesoAmerican art is better than say Botticelli or the Venus De Milo is indeed *“personal opinion and a personal taste *”.
Well, you moved the goalposts, so I moved them back. We were comparing Eurasia/Africa to America, same period. So yeah, I do know what “Iron Age” is but I do not accept your goalpost moving.:rolleyes:
Well, your first cite Wicker man - Wikipedia
*Archaeological evidence from the British Isles also indicate that human sacrifice may have been practiced, over times pre-dating any contact with Rome. Human remains have been found at the foundations of structures from the Neolithic time to the Roman era, with injuries and in positions that argue for their being foundation sacrifices. [1][unreliable source?]
*
Has unreliable source which is Caesar, Julius The Gallic War., which cite was debunked by my post. No one believes him any more. Contradicting the Roman sources, more recent scholarship finds that “there is little archeological evidence” of human sacrifice by the Celts, and suggests the likelihood that Greeks and Romans disseminated negative information out of disdain for the barbarians.[43] There is no evidence of the practices Caesar described, and the stories of human sacrifice appear to derive from a single source, Poseidonius, whose claims are unsupported.[44]"
We cannot compare Mesoamerica with coeval Europe, this of course will make them seem backwards and primitive, but we can compare them with early egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. No one compares Mesoamerica with the Europe of late Medieval Times or the Renaissance. Mesoamerica evolved more slowly, probably because humans colonized the continent much later than they did Eurasia.
That thread is the first and only place I found the Renaissance being included in the iron age. Funny. How recently does the iron age extend? Are we in the iron age?
I agree, the early Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures, which were bronze age or Chalcolithic are comparable to the height of Mesoamerican civilization, which occurred some 4000 years later.
I wasnt comparing them to Iron Age, I was comparing them to other civilizations from the same time period and before. The European Iron age ended somewhere around the time of the Roman Empire- the start of or the end of (Western) depending on who you listen to.
The height of Mesoamerican civilization arrived during the start of the Renaissance. Sometimes called the Age of Discovery.
Wasn’t the bog man in England strangled and found intact, evidence of a human sacrifice (most likely)? And DNA revealed him to be related to some nearby villagers of the present day…
No, the Mesoamerican cultures had some amazing art, which logically follow with a large civilization and surplus food to support the artists (and architects, builders, sculptors, stone masons, etc.) Lascaux is cartoony, primitive, and some proportions are all wrong (stick-figure legs, tiny heads, etc.); but considering this might have been, at most, a large band of hunters stopping by occasionally in the area (no evidence of agriculture back then), and probably zero support for dedicated art lessons or tradition, the logistics let alone the art of what they accomplished deserves admiration.
I guess my point too is that the generally flat, rolling plains of central Asia and Mesopotamia were more conducive to the use of wheeled vehicles, especially primitive ones. having large draft animals also helped. I just imagine pushing or pulling a cart with solid wood wheels with only animal grease for the axles was less appealing if the only labour was human and the ground was not flat and less overgrown. Just like the availability of draft animals, Asia was a better locale for the use of wheels. Perhaps if the Great Plains inhabitants had the tools and pack animals they too would have used the cart. The Metis of western Canada and the settlers in the American West did once the technology and animals were there; but in the eastern Americas, through forests and mountains, canoes and river rafts seemed to be the heavy transport of choice.
Yeah, that ballplayer sculpture I posted was so very 2D…not.
Is objective, like Iron Age, another term you don’t know the meaning of?
Looks like “goalpost-moving” is another expression you’re unclear on. I made the original statement about the Iron Age, not you, so no, I didn’t move jack.
No, I was comparing them with civilizations from a range of periods, to counter your selective comparison to one set of Chalcolithic civilizations. That’s the best way to counter cherry-picked examples like that. But* I *stopped at the Iron Age, you’re the one who brought up the Renaissance, So who’s moving the goalposts, again? From Lascaux to da Vinci, that’s quite a field you have there.
I fail to see any evidence of that.
Errm, where did I cite that article in this argument? I haven’t mentioned Wicker Men at all in this thread, I know they’re contentious, but they were not the only described method of Celtic sacrifice and the other methods do have lots of evidence.
And in addition, a one-liner in one book about there being no archaeological evidence isn’t very convincing to me, given that we know that one previous Roman account of human sacrifice by their enemies, which had previously been dismissed as mere blood libel,turned out to have archaeological evidence after all.
I dunno about you, I think sculptures with arms are more realistic…
I’m just interested in how you can define “human sacrifice” in a way that’s both objective and also keeps, say, the Romans from meeting the definition. I mean, being cut open by an obsidian blade on top of a pyramid doesn’t make you any less dead than being torn apart by wild beasts in a stadium.
The ages should be just Stone Age and Metal Age when referring to the materials. Evidence has mounted that making iron began very early in what we call the Bronze Age, and there was a Copper Age that was the early part of what we call the Bronze Age. Metals allowed a greater range of weapons like swords to be made but stone points were effective at killing people and mammoths. The metal age changed the level of technology, new things were made that couldn’t be made from stone, for the simple stone items they weren’t a huge advancement. Metal did change a lot of technology just in the tools need to make metal and other metal objects though, ore needed to be collected or mined, charcoal was needed in quantity for smelting, bellows in various forms were developed to force air into furnaces, high quality mortar was needed to make furnaces, casting, hardening, and working techniques were all formed over time. But the transition from copper to iron occurred slowly over time without clearly distinguished lines between the ages as was once assumed.
Lindow Man* might** have been a lone human sacrifice. If so it occurred around 1500 years before the Aztecs, etc were slaughtering thousands a year. ** 80,400 in just one Temple Dedication. **
experts disagree on this, wiki: *The physical evidence allows a general reconstruction of how Lindow Man was killed, although some details are debated, but it does not explain why he was killed.[53] In North West England, there is little evidence for religious or ritual activity in the Iron Age period. What evidence does survive is usually in the form of artefacts recovered from peat bogs.[54] Late Iron Age burials in the region often took the form of a crouched inhumation, sometimes with personal ornaments. Although dated to the mid-1st century AD, the type of burial of Lindow Man was more common in the pre-historic period.[55] In the latter half of the 20th century, scholars widely believed that bog bodies demonstrating injuries to the neck or head area were examples of ritual sacrifice. Bog bodies were associated with Germanic and Celtic cultures, specifically relating to head worship.[56]
According to Brothwell, Lindow Man is one of the most complex examples of “overkill” in a bog body, and possibly has ritual meaning as it was “extravagant” for a straightforward murder.[57] Archaeologists John Hodgson and Mark Brennand suggest that bog bodies may have been related to religious practice, although there is division in the academic community over this issue.[54] In the case of Lindow Man, scholars debate whether the killing was murder or done as part of ritual.[55] Anne Ross, an expert on Iron Age religion, proposed that the death was an example of human sacrifice and that the “triple death” (throat cut, strangled, and hit on the head) was an offering to several different gods.[58] The wide date range for Lindow Man’s death (2 BC to 119 AD) means he may have met his demise after the Romans conquered northern England in the 60s AD. As the Romans outlawed human sacrifice, such timing would open up other possibilities.[33] This conclusion was emphasised by historian Ronald Hutton, who challenged the interpretation of sacrificial death.[59] Connolly suggests that as Lindow Man was found naked, he could have been the victim of a violent robbery.[15][49]
*
one maybe vs 80000 in one ceremony, and 1500 years later.
You know, snarky personal attacks like that are not very helpful in GQ. You are apparently not reading the thread, either. Do you disagree with my Iron Age time given?
Maybe you wanted to start the goalposts at Iron age for Europe, but I was comparing *them to other civilizations from the same time period and before. *
Remember this wiki cite you gave? "Archaeological evidence from the British Isles seems to indicate that human sacrifice may have been practised, over times long pre-dating any contact with Rome. Human remains have been found at the foundations of structures from the Neolithic time to the Roman era, with injuries and in positions that argue for their being foundation sacrifices.[…] It also is used in the wiki page for Wicker man. The "human sacrifice " they are talking about and the cite they used is the debunked “wicker man” propaganda promulgated by the Romans. * " Contradicting the Roman sources, more recent scholarship finds that “there is little archeological evidence” of human sacrifice by the Celts, and suggests the likelihood that Greeks and Romans disseminated negative information out of disdain for the barbarians.[3] There is no evidence of the practices Julius Caesar described, and the stories of human sacrifice appear to be derived a single source, Poseidonius, whose claims are unsupported.[4]*
Neither is attributing posts to me that I didn’t make…
You posted your definition of Iron Age after the post I replied to.
Not much, although it’s only accurate for Southern Europe, the Northern European Iron Age continues onafter Rome.
“Chalcolithic” isn’t the same time period, and Iron Age was where I ended the comparison, not started it. I also included the Bronze Age in my comparison
You mean the cite you gave? That I just quoted (the bits you ignored) from?
Erm, no. Because the Wicker Man was not the same thing as burial in foundations or beheading. They are talking about 3 different modes of sacrifice,4 if you include bog sacrifices (and Lindow Man is not the sole example of such) only one mode of which is questionable.
Much of this is different from what my reading has gleaned. Have I misread?
Early copper and bronze goods were mainly for prestige items and a few specialized uses; stone continued to be the main material for weapons and tools. The emphasis on “bronze age” arose mainly because bronze artifacts are so distinctive in archaeological sites. The availability of cheap iron, OTOH, led to major change.
My impression is that the transition to iron was relatively sudden. As late as 1250 BC, King Hattusili III of the Hittites was unable to gift the King of Assyria with more than a single iron dagger. A century before that, IIRC, iron was said to be more valuable than gold! But by 1100 BC, iron was common in Syria and Cyprus; the Central European Iron Age began about 800 BC.
The sudden rise in iron production coincided with the unexplained collapse of the Hittite Empire. Since the Hittites were the first iron producers, some have speculated a causal link involving secret recipes! (Cf, advances in rocket technology after the collapse of Hitler’s Germany! :smack: )
Again, what is the actual difference? In both cases, war captives were brought back to the city and killed in public. Exactly what makes one ‘human sacrifice’ and one not?
Otzi the Iceman was found with a copper ax. Other metals were alloyed with copper so pure copper tools would have been rare but for items that would wear rapidly work hardened copper was used. Tin was expensive and the best hard bronze alloys wer the prestige material used for weapons like swords. Over time bronze use increased as the tin trade grew, but the apparent sudden change to iron now seems to be a matter of economics. The limited supplies of tin increased in cost as demand increased making iron more economical. Copper and tin ores aren’t often found near each other, so extensive trade was needed to produce bronze in quantity. Increasing evidence shows iron smelting began early in the Bronze Age, copper and bronze were preferred because of their lower melting points requiring less fuel to process. But as the cost of tin rose iron making increased and eventually rapidly displaced bronze and copper as a strong metal. The temperature needed to smelt iron in a bloomery is around the same as needed to melt copper and bronze. The iron wouldn’t turn liquid at that temperature, but it would become very soft and workable, and slag and iron would begin to separate, and under the right conditions steel could be produced also. It was only the longer heating time and increased fuel cost that made copper and bronze preferable as a hard metal after that was discovered. The use of copper and bronze for decorative purposes continued long after the increased production of iron.
