How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
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I see no reason why someone can't end up in Brittain just by accidentally falling in the north sea and maybe clinging to whatever floats around. You'd have to be lucky, but there is a lot of time to be lucky in (seen from the point of humanity of course, not from the individual dropping in the sea).
For the question: why would they want to do it, that's even more easy. Because they could. That has been plenty of reason for some adventurous people, always.
I would expect that even Paleolithic people could deliberately put together something better than that; e.g, a raft, kayak or coracle from wood bound with hide.
Once you have that skill, "some adventurous people" would of course try to achieve a landing on that island on the horizon.
It does happen a lot on evolutionary timescales; it's how lemurs got to Madagascar, for instance. But one would think humans have the situational awareness not to get stuck on a raft of vegetation drifting out to sea.
It only takes one small group over a timescale of thousands of years to make that decision. Dispersal is even more likely if people or stories are able to get back and forth; the issue of "we only have 8 people and not enough genetic diversity" is moot if the story or the rumor spreads that there's lots of land and lots of food on that fuzzy spot over there.
I’m no biologist, but I think you’d need at least two people to have a chance at sustainability.
That sounds fascinating. What species?
I am not fetching and rereading the paper now but even simpler genomes than ours required many more individuals not to go extinct.
The Origins of Genome Complexity
Abstract Complete genomic sequences from diverse phylogenetic lineages reveal notable increases in genome complexity from prokaryotes to multicellular eukaryotes. The changes include gradual increases in gene number, resulting from the retention of duplicate genes, and more abrupt increases in the abundance of spliceosomal introns and mobile genetic elements. We argue that many of these modifications emerged passively in response to the long-term population-size reductions that accompanied increases in organism size. According to this model, much of the restructuring of eukaryotic genomes was initiated by nonadaptive processes, and this in turn provided novel substrates for the secondary evolution of phenotypic complexity by natural selection. The enormous long-term effective population sizes of prokaryotes may impose a substantial barrier to the evolution of complex genomes and morphologies.
Lynch, M., & Conery, J. S. (2003). Science, 302(5649), 1401–1404. doi:10.1126/science.1089370
Isn't Britain still part of the European continent?.
Even 10K years ago, Britain was 'connected by land' to the rest of the European continent.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/doggerland
The author is likely referring to what is colloquially known in British English as "the continent", which means the mainland part of Europe.
Most people are also not aware that sea level will rise even more in the coming 20k years if we go on like that.
[1]: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-...
More to the point, Britain wasn't an island a mere 10k years ago. Why would we ever assume that Britain was difficult to reach 1M years ago?
Because we have a lot of geologic data to suggest that Britain alternated between difficult to reach and a frozen wasteland. This is the topic discussed in the article.
When the Isles were warm enough to live in, the English Channel would be full of water, and, whatever their other skills, Roger and his kind could not cross 34 km of open sea. But when Europe got cold enough for falling sea levels to turn the Channel into a land bridge, it was usually too cold for anyone to cross it and live in Proto-Britain.Trawlers still occasionally pull up tree stumps etc in their nets from the Doggerland area
Britain has never been cut off. As the cliche goes: "Storms in English Channel; continent cut off".
[Edit] So you must be either near Dover, or in the Channel Islands. And there's not much to see from Dover.
[Edit2] I think the "continent cut off" line perfectly epitomises and mocks English exceptionalism, which is why I find it funny. I was brought up before the UK joined the EU; in those days, we referred to the whole deal as "the continent". If we'd been there, we'd ironically refer to it as "Le cong-tee-nong".
I guess it sells better if you can make your audience believe that your theory explains "everything". Having read the book, it's a better feeling to think that you now understand the gears of history through this new lens, rather than it being just a complex jumble of interconnected stories/phenomena.
This is the thing, there's no harm in reading something like this where the author may be "pushing a narrative", but so long as the reader maintains a modicum of critical thinking I see no harm.
As for my personal experience, I've read parts of "Philosophy before the Greeks. The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia" and "A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 B.C" by Marc van de Mieroop and have quite enjoyed both. They both seem to have favourable reviews.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300240214/against-grain/
Consequently, if you're an author seeking to be absolutely fidelious to the known facts about some period of history somewhere, but nevertheless desire to spin a narrative from them, then frequently no matter what that narrative might be, you're crossing a line that many in academia don't think you should cross.
"Event A happened. Event B happened. Event C happened. In that order. Perhaps that means X"
The pop-history tone is closer to:
"Historical character M had plans to N, inspired by O. This is supported by the evidence we have for events A, B and C."
That's both academic and pop-history, where a better representation would be "A gazillion different events happened but let's talk about events A, B, and C." It's impossible to talk about all the events that happened, so everyone needs to select the "important" ones. Of course when selecting what's "important" the bias is employed. It's not uncommon to reach different conclusions when looking at certain events (while disregarding others).
There's no firm line between scholarly and pop history other than the reputation and credibility of the work, which often isn't obvious to lay readers.
I’m reading it now. Probably not as fun as the others you mentioned. But so far it’s very enlightening.
------------------------------------------ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a massive tome written by an American reporter who lived through the eponymous era. It has a great deal of detail which I had never heard of before, and shaped my understanding of WW2. It is also quite moralising, maintaining that Nazi Germany was inevitable because of a servile German character, that the depravity of the SS was in part due to their homosexual deviancy, and a little too focused on the personalities of individuals. Admittedly, the last part is quite interesting. Why do I still recommend it? Because I think there is enough depth there, and enough of a distinction in the text between the author's theories and the facts, that you can learn a great deal from it.
For instance, the sheer stupid chance that led to him waging such terrible war. How so many men could have prevented his rise to power. He might have died a soldier in the first world war, or the French or English could have crushed his open violations of the peace treaties, or how his takeover of multiple nations was facilitated by the petty racism of British diplomats. There's also detail concering the poltical, economic and social factors that allowed this chance to exist in the first place. Like the disconnect between the German military and the Weimar Republic who they were sworn to protect, or the war-weariness of Western Europe which was partially responsible for their leaders to continually cede ground to a madman who publically outlined his plans to genocide entire peoples. ------------------------------------------ The 10,000 Year Explosion is not widely accepted by academics, but is not widely panned either. And whilst it does seem to over-play its thesis, the core idea is quite sound: evolution still applies to modern humans, and the rapid growth of the species over the past 10k years has allowed for a great deal more variation and selection to occur, and as such we should see far more changes in human biology now than throughout the average 10k period of history. The exact mutations described and the hypothesis for why they occured are, of course, more conentious. I don't have much of a general opinion, as the authors go through a wide variety of population differences like lactose intolerance, diease immunity, hearing adaptations due to language use and, yes, IQ. The depth and quality of research on these varies, so the reliability of conclusions in the book does too. ------------------------------------------ "The Dawn of Everything" covers some interesting anthropological data, but the reviews I've read paint a poor picture of the author's interpretation of what the data means. Whilst it points to an important idea, that the human transition to agriculture was not nearly as sharp or uniform as is popularly believed, I think you'd be better served by reading this page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity and reading some of the cited papers and authors' works.
- On the one hand, Mommsen was a professional historian and his work was (and is[1]) highly acclaimed. [2] cites: “Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen lived to see the time when among students of Roman history he had pupils, followers, critics, but no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization and the capacity for tracing out the effects of thought on political and social life.”
- On the other hand, his History of Rome got the nobel prize for literatur, so at least some people found it fun to read, too. Again from [2]: “Its sureness of touch, its many-sided knowledge, its throbbing vitality and the Venetian colouring of its portraits left an ineffaceable impression on every reader.” “It was a work of genius and passion, the creation of a young man, and is as fresh and vital to-day as when it was written.”
Itʼs freely available at Project Gutenberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#Exte...
[1] “Still read and qualifiedly cited” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#firs...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#1902...
Real history is weird and full of exceptions.
The sorts of books that are popular with both historians and the public focus on sepecific events in lots of detail: “Krakatoa: The Day the World Erupted” for example.
> Like all scientific laws, Thatcher’s has exceptions. Britain has not really “always been” in Europe, because there has not always been a Europe to be in. Our planet has existed for 4.6 billion years, but shifting continental plates only began creating what we now call Europe about 200 million years ago.
- a "scientifc law" (nope!) you invented in the previous paragraph predicated on a blatantly incorrect interpretation of a statement someone made about something unrelated to whatever you are talking about
> Britain has not really “always been” in Europe, because there has not always been a Europe to be in. Our planet has existed for 4.6 billion years, but shifting continental plates only began creating what we now call Europe about 200 million years ago.
- North America was also in Pangea. So what? I can't tell if this is failed wit or failed attempts at engineering some kind of moral highground based on geography?
All that before you mention the pompous political shoehorning.
I should have kept the writing up if this meets a publisher's standards
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/timi4/the_as...
That settles the matter then
> was more deeply based in academia.
You surely can't read the above article and believe that?
I don't see any problems with Ian Morris' article here. He is a writer, as well as an academic. The audience for the article seems to be for well-informed, non-specialised intellectuals. As such the article seems well pitched.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
> whatever their other skills, Roger and his kind could not cross 34 km of open sea.
We see similar arguments with respect to the Bering Sea land bridge, despite the fact that Siberians and Alaska Natives had seaworthy vessels that were crossing the Bering Strait (~80 km) on a regular basis long before European contact, and continue to do so to this day (there are still a few groups constructing traditional vessels for cultural reasons).
While I'm sure some of the indigenous people of the Americas did cross during "land bridge" periods, I'm equally sure that many arrived by boat.
I was thinking more in terms of the Neanderthals he was talking about later in the article, rather than the million-year-old ones.
I feel confident that Neanderthals could make boats (certainly rafts) if they were of a mind to do so.
If I told an experienced marathoner to run 20 miles and it was critical, they'd be done in 3-4 hours and shrug it off.
If I told a rando from the street to do that, well they'd look at me like I was insane.
I would posit a scout/cavalryman with a good horse with route experience could do that.
I guess a horse can do a "trot" at 8-12 mph for 20 miles. That's interesting, it's not substantially better than a marathoner, I have read that humans have advantages over other animals in speed over long distances.
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/124606/how...
I guess 40 klicks is the general maximum distance by a horse. That's only 25 miles.
Notable also is that the article conflates the Europe in the quote with the EU which is very obviously not what is meant.
The real trick is how monkeys got from Africa to South America about 40 million years ago.
Kindly ask her majesty the queen if she fancied a swim that day, or if the mood suited her more for a brisk walk.
Great Britain is an island that is a lot older than 1707 :)
Britain is an island
Great Britain: the island that contains the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales (throw in Cornwall as a separate country if you're of a mind, I'm fine with that).
Less Britain: an old name for Brittany in what is now France. The native language there is Breton, a Celtic language related to Welsh.
England: One country within Great Britain.
United Kingdom: The countries of Great Britain, plus Northern Ireland, plus some of the surrounding islands -- but not all! Ireland (excluding Northern Ireland) is obviously not part of the United Kingdom, nor are the Channel Islands (in some of which Queen Elizabeth is the Duke of Normandy, rather than the Queen per se), nor numerous others.
The British Isles: Great Britain, Ireland, and all of the surrounding islands. This is a geographic designation, not a political one, as there is no unitary government.
Yes, it's confusing.
But seeing as everyone's in the mood for educating me, here's the logic behind it:
Britain was an invention of a King that wanted rule of the whole. Great Britain is the island (which didn't exist when you could walk to it). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island is the political entity. The Romans called it Brittania. After the Romans left, it stopped being called Britain (as it was separate countries and principalities) until the act of Union in 1707 removed Scottish parliament and the King proclaimed that it came under a single rule for the first time.