# When Did "Ancient Times" End; Modern Times Begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685 "2007-02-11T01:38:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685/41 "2007-02-12T23:13:29Z")
[QUOTE=Throatwarbler Mangrove] I’m saying that chariots ceased to be a major or pivotal weapon on the ancient battlefield long before 500AD. The fact that the Celts/Britons continued to use them for some time after most of the world stopped does nothing to change this. [/QUOTE] Look, your own words (_and_ your ever-so condescending “Uh…what?”) are right there for anyone to see - this in reply to **Lumpy** ’s very specific [QUOTE=Lumpy] The ancient times were over when **no one** used chariots any more. [/QUOTE] (my bolding). You’re the one reading “no-one” as “no-one of consequence”, me, I’m just addressing what I read, not inserting half the context in my head. As far as I could tell (especially, in context, with the trousers vs. togas thing) **Lumpy** was making an aesthetic statement (I’m sure he/she could clarify). You’re the one making it all about the minutae of military history. Not your fault you got even that wrong, though. Now, you have to justify it, by adding to the original statement things that weren’t there? If it makes you feel like you have more military history cred than anyone else, go ahead, but this could all have gone a bit smoother if you were less condescending to start with. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685/42 "2007-02-12T23:36:45Z")
I may have to stand corrected as to when chariots ceased to be widely used militarily; I knew they were still around in a few places like the British isles comparitively late. I had simply assumed that cavalry didn’t get it’s big boost until the introduction of the stirrup. **Throatwarbler Mangrove** , I’d be interested to hear why chariots did get phased out, if it wasn’t the stirrup. It can’t be that no one for thousands of years ever thought to try _riding_ the horse… ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685/43 "2007-02-13T00:08:12Z")
_shrug_ As long as everyone understands my point and ignorance has been fought. I’m not here for the popularity contest, what **MrDribble** thinks of my tone or credentials does not concern me in the slightest. I’m sure he’ll find someone else to nitpick a fight with soon enough. **Lumpy** , from my understanding, chariots were first used because at the time, horse breeders had not managed to come up with a model of horse that could efficiently bear the weight of a rider. The horses that they did have had some of the same problems as donkeys - They couldn’t run very fast, and their spines were structured in such a way that the rider would have to sit very far back, on the hips (Is that the right term? I’m not an equestrian expert by any means) limiting the amount of control the rider had. Thus a chariot was the only effective way to harness the power of the early horses. It was only after hundreds of years that breeders were able to come up with the modern cavalry horse, and even then they could only be raised in large numbers on the steppes. Alexander had to import his cavalry horses from the shores of the Black Sea, IIRC. There was a link posted in a thread from years back, that I would be loathed to locate presently, telling of the experiments of some SCA types recreating riding without stirrups, and reporting that it was not nearly as difficult as historians would have you believe. Certainly, charging with a lance is possible without stirrups. I’m inclined to think (I haven’t done any serious research into this, it’s mostly conjecture) that stirrups were actually the fundamental technology for horse ARCHERS, and not spear carrying cavalry. With stirrups a rider could drop the reins (still controlling the horse with the stirrups, stand up in the stirrups with some degree of stability, and loose arrows from his bow with both hands, something that wasn’t possible(or at least, not very effective) before. The horse archer was the true superweapon of the time that gave steppe armies such an edge over settled urban armies. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685/44 "2007-02-13T02:53:24Z")
[QUOTE=Ravenman] I really can’t say when it began, but I was told in graduate school that the modern era [/quote] for architecture > [@](#): > > ended precisely at 3:32 pm on July 15, 1972, at which point the post-modern era for architecture > [@](#): > > was ushered in. Emphasis on architecture, because that was how I first encountered the term “postmodern” in the mid-1980s. It was only a bit later that I noticed the term spreading to the general culture. At first I think it was an architectural term. I always read Pruitt-Igoe as the downfall of Le Corbusier and everything he stood for, to put it into historical context. > [@](#): > > That is the time at which a large housing project was destroyed in St Louis. IIRC, when that structure was built, it was supposed to be the first step towards Jetsons style living, leading the way to food pills and everything being engineered to suit people’s precise needs. Then, in the early 1970s, the building was deemed to be uninhabitable, or so the story goes. That was Pruitt-Igoe. I remember in 1980 I went to see Scott Joplin’s house on Delmar, which was neglected and falling into disrepair (but is now an official Missouri Historic Site). A lot of the older areas of St. Louis had totally gone to pot in the '70s. Across the street I saw this huge wasteland. But fortunately since then it’s been reborn as the Gateway School Complex – a public magnet elementary and middle school, as well as a school for children with mobility issues. Someone in St. Louis updated me on it. It sounds really cool: “All three form a continuous rectangle surrounding a two-acre courtyard. The courtyard, an outdoor learning area, features a pond with aquatic life, a math and science playground, amphitheater, Missouri native rock outcroppings, a windmill, hydraulics laboratory, and gardens plush with Missouri plants and trees.” You can see footage of the abandoned Pruitt-Igoe, and its demolition, in the film _Koyaanisqatsi_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-times-end-modern-times-begin/391685.md?page=2)