I’m not sure that’s the case.
I think that should tell us something about the nature of European historiography in the national era (Hegel to you know, the post-WW2 period), that they probably over focused on conflict to the exclusion of much else. Even if a war is happening one part of a country or a part of Europe, life would continue to go on elsewhere, even if some of the men go off to war.
There can be only one.
That’s true, but I’ve also gone down rabbit holes of metal detecting sights and there is just a ton of shit left over from WWII and even WWI in the forests and field of Europe. And when they have drained lakes they would find whole jeeps and airplanes and tanks some times. And not just WWII, but there were tons of wars in the 1700 and 1800s.
I was just surprised it didn’t have more debris from those things in the river on the page I easily found. But apparently, it only showed SOME of the stuff, as the page @AlexG55 pointed me to has the dozens of musket balls and other things I would expect to find. (Though I have to wonder if they edited out redundant modern brass cases. That seems low considering how many musket balls).
https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten?niveau1=Arms%20%26%20Armour
Sure, but those are 2 wars that very much engulfed much of the continent. Even the 20th century has other influential parts of history we don’t ignore - rich cultural and intellectual history, interesting economy and political histories (outside of the wars)… people are going to be doing dissertations for decades on everyday life in the 20th century in Europe outside of the wars.
Think about it… let’s be generous and include the Balkan wars prior to WW1 - so 1912- 1919, and if we include things like the population exchange, which was pretty violent at times, we can push that out to 1923 - 11 years. And then world war 2 in Europe is 1938 (if we include the Anschluss) to 1945, but we’ll say 46, to include some of the post-war pogroms in Eastern Europe, that’s 8 years. Now, this is only in Europe, mind you. 19 years of war, out of a single century. Although if you count the disintegration of Yugoslavia, you can tack on another decade or so. That’s a hell of a lot of war, sure and those wars were incredibly important political, socially, and economically. That still leaves 71 years of non-war time history to cover. Even the 100 years war wasn’t a continuous fight - it came in fits and starts over 116 years, and the wars weren’t in every place around Europe (contained to the low countries, France, and GB, mainly).
But either way, being able to find old artifacts, of any kind if very neat and gives us a picture of the world at on particular point. I just think it’s very useful to remember that war isn’t all the leaves this sort of detritus. I just really rebel against the idea that the only “real” history is war and diplomacy. Even wars themselves are far more complicated affairs when viewed from the battle field up instead of from the halls of power down.
Relatedly, GSU has a huge collection of artifacts from the excavation for the MARTA line:
https://news.gsu.edu/magazine/summer2018/treasures-of-terminus
No of course not. As that one page shows there is a plethora of more “mundane”, but just as interesting things found. So. Many. Boathooks. And It isn’t labeled, but that big thing on the left I think is a sarcophagus or crypt lid.
And I can understand that, and a lot of history and history buffs do seem to overly focus on war. And the rulers and higher ups of the times as well. But that was who was making records and kept them and ended up surviving. And of the “boring, every day stuff” people didn’t think to write down as much. (My uncle had our linage traced back when he visited the Czech Republic with the help of someone who does that sort of thing, and thanks to copious church records got the names and births and marriages back to the late 1500s. No real details on who they were, though.)
Fortunately, with Facebook and Instagram and the like, assuming we back up this data, people 1000 years from now will know exactly how we lived. So. Many. Selfies.
Like I said, the previous comment condensing European history down to “wars, kings, and churches” was hyperbolic. I was just puzzled at how artifacts of war seems to be largely absent from the exhibit I was looking at, but it appears the one I saw only had part of what was found. You would have to admit if you had a historical overview of Europe and it lacked nearly any mention of war it would be a bit odd.
OH I totally agree and didn’t mean to insinuate that.
Pocket detritus gives these artifacts an almost mundane banal feel. Random mostly hand sized artifacts people have tossed, dropped or thrown away on their way to and fro. Pockets haven’t gotten much bigger since.
Depending on how things play out they may be thrilled to find valuable resources.
If only there were some sort of device, maybe a rudder, they could use to navigate the waterway
I was really hoping to see some old Dutch Leeuwendaalder (“Lion dollar”) coins, also known in Colonial America as “dog dollars” because people didn’t see much of a resemblance to a lion on the coins. The Dutch coins, alongside Spanish colonial dollars (ocho reales), were accepted as legal tender in the early history of the US, since we weren’t able to produce enough of our own silver coins to keep up with the demand for money for daily commerce and International trade.
This link has better photos:
Last time I was in Amsterdam I visited the pipe museum, pretty cool. Paul’s Pipe Shop in Flint, Michigan has a good one too, but it’s not open to the public.
Y’know, I have met real working archaeologists, and finding stuff like this actually gets them really, really excited. My friend Dai gets all happy when regaling how they found a Bronze Age latrine once, with all sorts of stuff thrown into it.
‘Pieces of eight’, and ‘2 bits’, ‘4 bits’, etc.
The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (Spanish: peso de ocho or real de a ocho), is a silver coin, of approximately 38 mm diameter, worth eight Spanish reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after 1598. Its purpose was to correspond to the German thaler.
2 bits
The origin of bit comes from the practice of cutting the Spanish dollar (peso) into eight radial pieces to make change. The term persists colloquially in the United States as a holdover from colonial America when Spanish dollars minted in Mexico, Bolivia and other Spanish colonies were the widest circulating coin.
That reminds me of an episode of Time Team, in which the Schliemannesque archaeotainers traveled to an early Colonial graveyard in America. Looking at an unusual coffin, they were asked, by a local expert, if they found similar things on digs in British graveyards of the same vintage. The team looked a bit sheepish and effectively said, “We don’t tend to dig up graveyards that are this recent. Where we come from this isn’t archaeology, this is history.”
Yeah, in America, my house is considered old, but my sister lives in a 600 year old house in England that is not even the oldest house in her neighborhood.
As Eddie Izzard says in a bit, “I’m from Europe, where the history comes from.”
I used to live in Nottingham where there was a pub over 800 years old, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. Some of the beer tasted like it…
In a comic book called “The Books of Magic”, by Neil Gaiman, a character states that in England they have history, but in US they have geography. I think It is the famous British Sense of humour.
Built into Castle Rock! That is so cool. I want to go there.
I stayed at the Red Lion in Laycock village once, but that’s only 200 years old or thereabouts.
It is a good pub, worth a visit.
Although at one point three pints of Stella Artois cost £6.66 which was a bit weird…
Nottingham has some of the oldest pubs in the country, I think the next oldest in the country is also in the city if I remember correctly.
