Bret Devereaux

Hah, that would be a cool thing to study, but so many unknowns. Paul halsteads ethnography shows that different groups swing scythes drastically differently. Without a clear sense of the way farmwork was done it's tough to compare to military motions

To say nothing of the endless debate about how they used their *weapons*, either... I would say this kind of research is a non-starter

Yup, equifinality at its finest

I have learned a word today.

same tbh

I can tell you that my Mongolian colleague, when I was there, told me that his boyhood tasks included milking the sheep most every day, most all year round, and they had several hundred, and the milking required that he lift each one to put it in place. Roughly 150# per sheep.

The problem with experimental archaeology is that you can’t recreate the key component to understanding the internality of combat: legitimate fear of death.

... and you just gave me the breakthrough I was missing to a novel plot that was falling flat. THANK YOU!