newbie here, not sure how to pose this question, but I'm really into ancient human culture, but I'm not into the history of dates and names. Mainly, what it was like to live thousands of years ago, what it was like to be a human
Stuff that interests me is mesopotamian culture, prehistoric 'caveman' culture, and anything similar. Are there any good resources or documentaries for getting immersed in these cultures without being bothered with the boring dates and kings?
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Nope living as small tribes is very boring
truly a horrifying existence
he'd be screaming in agony after being impaled by the ooga booga tribe over the hill if modern civilization hadn't swept over his lands
I'm shit at math so I don't have a good way of actually evaluating the numbers given here intuitively, but any source talking about Mesoamerican violence is almost always pulling shit out of their ass or from massively inflated colonial accounts where they say the Mexica sacrificed hundreds of thousands a year.
I went ahead and downloaded the sources this is pulling from, and literally within the first Ctrl+F search for "Mesoamerica" in "War in Human Civilization", it's already repeating Harner's debunked protein hypothesis for Aztec cannibalism and exaggerating it's scale, and the myth that the Mexica of the Aztec capital demanded sacrifices as tribute (in reality, only a single province among dozens was required to provide sacrifices as taxes, and it was of war captives they collected in battle, not their own people. A few more then that had to offer slaves as taxes and some of them may have ended up as sacrifices, but the vast, vast majority of subject states were paying taxes in economic goods or military/public labor service).
It also classifies them as Stone/Copper age civilizations due to reasoning that doesn't make any fricking sense, and then repeats what is largerly considered outdated and criticized theories about the Toltec
I'm busy and I don't have time to look into this further, I think ctrl+fing for mesoamerica is causing me to miss meso. related pages where the term simply isn't mentioned, but I stand by my assessment that the data it's pulling from is probably bullshit
That being said, I don't doubt that Mesoamerica had a fair amount of deaths inflicted in warfare, and while sacrifice by the Mexica and other groups is exaggerated, it did still happen, with the Mexica probably sacrificing a few hundred to a few thousand people a year, and all towns and cities did some amount of sacrifice, even if not on the scales of the Mexica. Would it have been more deaths total per capita then other ancient/medeviaial socities? I don't know, maybe
It might seem boring because we live in an autistic ADHD ass world with constant stimulation and media, but im sure for people that grow up in simple villages, they dont mind and live very happy lives
Checking your local library for books on pre-history might be a start. Stuff about Upper Paleolithic is fascinating.
Another solution might be looking into native american books. There's thousands of them that talk about everything, from cultural practices, tools, houses, etc.-- and a lot more accurate as native americans were more recent than cavemen.
as for mesopotamia, i'm unsure. you could check wikipedia-- they have a lot of good portals, and their links at the bottom can send you to better info.
There's a lot of pretty cool YouTube channels on prehistory
>I'm really into x
>proceeds to prove he's completely clueless about x
does this happen in your field of study?
I don't know much about it, but I wanna learn more.
homosexual
Mary Beard's documentaries on Rome are quite good for everyday life of the proles, etc.
What you're looking for is called "ethnography."
There's a lot of great stuff out there, good luck.
ooh i finally have a name for it thank you so much
>Stuff that interests me is mesopotamian culture, prehistoric 'caveman' culture, and anything similar. Are there any good resources or documentaries for getting immersed in these cultures without being bothered with the boring dates and kings?
Try this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DanDavisAuthorChannel
At least a few of the topics he covers are sure to interest you
I'll try to give a full reply later, but look up "At Home with the Aztecs", it's a book by an archeologist about excavating and research from commoner residences and small towns and villages rather then royal palaces and large capital cities.
there is a classic book, not completely outdated, called History begins at Sumer, Kramer is the surname of the writer
Read it, and try searching newer stuff afterwards.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts on the King of Kings is good.
Frick you it's good not everything reddit likes is reddit tier
For most of post-Agricultural human history life for 99% of people was:
>get up at dawn
>drink some water and eat something small that happens to be on hand
>go out and work in the fields or with the animals or at a trade until noon
>drink some more water and rest in the shade for an hour or two during the hottest part of the day
>go back out to the field, fishing vessel, workshop, etc, until evening
>go home and have the main meal of the day with the family, usually bread and some veggies, maybe some fruit or fish you foraged/caught, wine or beer to drink
>Go to sleep at nightfall
Also, in most agricultural societies like every other day is a holiday or feast day of some kind where you work only as absolutely necessary and practice religious observances, spend some free time, etc.
Also in such civilizations a large (but still minority) subset of Men would be engaged in military and civil engineering work for pay or as corvee labor for some part of the year.