I learned in my scandinavian class in college that they dug up a nordic tavern ruin, and inside found a stick with carved runes on it. When translated, it said something to the effect of “HELGA SAYS COME HOME RIGHT NOW.”
would sub c/ancient_shitposting so hard
I always liked how archaeologists would dig up ancient statues of big-breasted and big-butted women and call them evidence of a “cult of fertility”. I guess that sounds better than “porn”.
Hmm. Interesting, indeed. Now please excuse me while I, once again, sacrifice my own bodily fluids on the modern-age altar of fertility which has been optimized over ages and ages into the convenient shape of a… sock.
I never quite understood that. Why a sock? Why not anything else?
Man has felt the need to leave his mark on this world since the very beginning. Not likely to ever change
Nowadays though, we (or some of us at least) wish to leave less of a mark.
I visited a 17,000 year old cave painting site in France, and the whole walk into the cave there are modern day graffiti signatures like “Bob, 1992” etc. but then you start to notice that the years go back further and further…1827…1761…1597. Then you get to the old cave art and it kind of feels like a continuation of the same shit, just some people leaving their scribbles on a rock like they have been probably since they discovered how to do it.
Do you remember any of the older names?
I don’t know, can you make them out?
Cool, thanks for sharing!!
Galluspetat
I had a book of graffiti, one of them was described as an arrow written up a wall next to a urinal up to the ceiling where a message read “by the time you’ve read this message, you have pissed on your shoes.”
My favorite was “a sucking chest wound is Nature’s Way of telling you you’ve been in a firefight”.
Yep, same graffiti means people haven’t changed at all. It’s so obvious!
Probably not “Marcus is gay” since they didn’t have a similar idea of sexuality, it being more or less a free-for-all.
Oh my sweet summer child…
Bad use of the meme.
Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this.
Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
I have buggered men
Secundus likes to screw boys.
If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.
The one who buggers a fire burns his penis
Yo Imma need Attice’s digits, and a bag of sestertii
these are the greatest receipts I could ever dream of.
I would unironically watch something called ‘Ancient Shitposting’ that focused on old graffiti and pisstakes. It would still be more relevant to history than most of what is on channels with History in the name these days.
I want a spinoff focusing on animals fucking with humans in ancient times, like paw prints in bricks or on documents. Must be a treasure trove of hilarious antics throughout the times
I know a number of Roman and medieval European tiles have been found. I’m sure there’s more around the world because cats gonna cat.
The only exception would be in places like the Americas where they didnt have any domestic cats, though who knows maybe someone tried domesticating mountain lions which are in the same family as housecats.
Well, there’s more than just cats, but true. Wolves, dogs, monkeys, and just about anything else could be traipsing about.
Commit to the bit. The bit is eternal.
Try finger but hole
Shoutout to c/ancientinternet@lemmy.world
People think humanity is so much more evolved now but it has been actually the same shit from thousands ago or whenever recorded history goes back.
Also: portuga was here
Our ancestors’ brains went from chimpanzee-sized to modern-sized (actually slightly bigger than today) between two million and one million years ago, and more importantly the language-governing areas increased in size during that stretch. So human beings a million years ago were very much like us today, just without the advanced technology.
Millions of years, likely. The whole reason we’re successful is because our pre-human ancestors were empathetic and cooperative enough to build societies.
We see those same traits in many other primates, and they’re not something it makes sense to evolve, lose, and evolve again. Those traits predate us.
Language almost certainly predates us, since we see it not only in other primates, but in non-primate species, too. And based on the humour we see in many animals, you can bet we were making dick jokes nearly out of the gate.
Societies weren’t built on empathy, they were built on security. Not just physical security but food as well. No society in history was built on empathy, ever.
What the hell do you think sharing food is all about?
Sharing food is keeping alliances, is security.
What about caring for the elderly and disabled? We see anthropological evidence of many behaviours that can only be explained by compassion and empathy, some of which would have actually detracted from security.
The notion that the early formation of societies was based on security rather than empathy is outdated. Compassion has many evolutionary advantages, especially in primate species where offspring are born vulnerable. It’s clearly evident in other primates who live in groups (or ‘societies’), as a driving force of cooperation and group cohesion.
Here’s a recent paper (2022) by Penny Spikins, PhD at the University of York, Department of Archaeology, that explores how compassion shaped early human evolution and the formation of societies: The Evolutionary Basis for Human Empathy, Compassion and Generosity.
And here’s another from 2011 by Goetz et al that explores in detail the evolutionary advantages of compassion: Compassion: An Evolutionary Analysis and Empirical Review.
Those papers are both fascinating reads, and I highly recommend them both for a deeper understanding of why and how empathy is crucial to our success as a species.
e: a word
Always has been. This is where the whole “Dark Ages” idea comes from, IIRC: people further on in time wanting to separate themselves as special and more advanced.
We’ve evolved technologically, not psychologically
Same moneys, fancier tools.
Those who forget the past, are condemed to repeat it.
Let’s just forget everything, ok?