Kalkreise dates to 15-16 AD Germanicus Campaign-NOT Varus!

[Anonymous]

"It's also a warning about how difficult it is to prevent one's personal ideas, convictions and mentality from colouring the interpretation of the past"<br>
<br>
Chari is right on here, I believe, and I think he inadvertendly answered his own question about why Americans tend to point to the importance of ideological motives(which often manifests itself as political motives) in accepting or rejecting certain theories reagrding ancient times. One of the great illustrations of this is the study of military history itself, which has long been ideological battleground. John Keegan once noted that the German historian Hans Delbruck never became popular in the west(among scholars) because of his unflinching acceptance of war and military conflict in human history. Victor Davis Hansen today is often rejected or shunned by some modern scholars for having similar approach towards war. Both of these men have authored some of the finest analyses of ancient warfare out there, and luckily are popular enough that most of their works are still in print(which for Delbruck is quite a feat), yet they are rarely read in Universities. Keegan has found a niche because of his analysis of the effects of battle on indivduals(something that appeals to leftists who often view soldiers as passive victims of "government" sponsored violence, rather than active participants), but his other works are less popular in academic institutions as well, because they do not apologize for war either. In other words, because these men didn't preface their works or theories with the idea that war is somehow unnatural or something that can prevented, they are often shunned by academics. Why is this?<br>
<br>
Well as Chari points out, and as others have implied, there is a strain in historians and archaeologists to reject the notion that war, specifically, and violence, in general, is something that is a part of every civilization. Why does this view exist when, for both historians and archaeologists, the evidence is so overwhelming that the idea "peaceful savage" or the utopian society is a myth, along the same lines as the notion of the pure Aryan race? The only way to explain the continued, large scale acceptance of this myth, is ideology. In the US and elsewhere, those of a more Leftist world view tend to fall for the idea of the noble savage and the glorification of pre-industrial civilizations far more than do those of a Conservative or Libertarian worldview. Now I agree these lines aren't hard and fast :VD Hansen is a registered Democrat(the left leaning party in the US), who happens to support President Bush on many foreign policy decisions but is mostly left of center in his domestic views. Similarly, Hans Delbruck was a respected moderate in Germany who took part in the Paris Peace Accords in 1919. So clearly political divisions are not always helpful in deciphering ideological motivations of certain scholars. But I think it' s pretty clear that the mostly left leaning academic world, often colors historical events and archaeological finds through a more populist/socialist lens. This is part of the reason, why scholars(left, right and center) must do their best to keep their ideologies out of their studies, and be more open toward the theories of others who may not share their basic worldview. <p></p><i></i>

[Vincula]

Quote:</em></strong><hr>But the fact that I haven’t heard of Binford (well, I can’t remember his name, at least), may suggest that many of his ideas have simply been absorbed into the intellectual instrumentarium of modern archaeologists and used / adapted when needed.<hr><br>
See [url=http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/chap6.htm#3" target="top]www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/chap6.htm#3[/url] for Lewis Binford. <p></p><i></i>

[Chariovalda]

Vincula, thanks for the link. But I was a real doofus . I DID hear about Binford and about systems theory. Binford’s mentioned a gazillion times in Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn’s standard introductory text, “Archaeology. Theories Methods and Practice.â€ÂÂ

[JRSCline]

Yes, <strong>do</strong> get back to Kalkriese, not sure how we strayed quite so far afield, although it was pretty interesting reading.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Jenny <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Fascinating. I was supposed to go shopping for groceries today.. I guess it's going to be another chinese delivery dinner..<br>
That relativizes Kalkriese a lot.. <br>
Honestly there was a lot of very scholarly talk I didn't quite understand, but I love to make a fool out of myself..<br>
First, on the "good savage" and the politicization of archaeology, and ethnology. The first victim of that trend was Margaret Mead. A patron saint of ethnology who tried to prove for most of her life that there existed somewhere a culture that did not know war, following the Rousseau theory of the "good savage".<br>
She did not succeed but however she was the pioneer of the study of human development through a cross-cultural perspective. And that is useful.<br>
She believed that war, racism, environmental destruction were "learned" behaviour. She was a good person but unfortunately, modern psychiatry has demonstrated they are not "learned" behaviour, unfortunately, but quite the contrary.<br>
Kids have to be taught that it is bad to tear the wings off a fly. In medical terms, a child is a polymorphic pervert. Not immoral, but A-moral. Doesn't know morals yet.<br>
Contrary to what Rousseau and the left wing thinks, society, generally speaking, does not teach people to kill, it teaches them not to. Generally speaking. That needs to be stressed. Granted, there are numerous bugs.<br>
Simply because ever since we've been around, Mother Nature gave us the instinct to behave in a way that does not harm the group, the family, the clan, the tribe, the nation, the law firm.. <br>
Without that instinct we wouldn't be around. We'd have been eaten long ago by saber toothed tigers, or cave bears or other friendly, good natured rousseauists creatures.<br>
And now about culture and civilisation. I think that distinctions can clearly be made between those that concern us here, namely the Greco-latin, Celtic and Germanic cultures, with the help of well recognized terms. In the period we are talking about the greco-latin culture was an urban culture, the celtic culture was urban in the south and proto-urban up north and the german culture was pre-urban. I tend to associate the word "civilization" to an urban culture.<br>
..And now back to Kalkriese!<br>
Some of us are in the police forces and I'd like to ask them something: Imagine Varus has survived the disaster and he's in the interrogation room trying to explain what exactly the (bleep) happened?<br>
Think about him with your professionally suspicious, inquisitive way of thinking. Think about him as a suspect. Look at the crime scene, look at the clues, ask the witnesses. Use your investigation techniques.<br>
What kind of questions would you ask?<br>
The numismatic aspect of the question is also fascinating. There is one question however that no one asked: What if the VAR mark on the tiberian coins was the mark of another Varus?<br>
And a subsidiary question: if the VAR mark does not mean Varus, what could it mean?<br>
A final word on relativism and also because I can't help being silly at some point. It's a bug in my programs somewhere in my head: Relativism is like the story of the glass half-full or half-empty, but did it ever occur to you that maybe it's because the glass is too big... .<br>
Ah.. Realtivism..<br>
Omygosh I'm becoming a dylsexic.. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://b30.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 4/22/04 3:50 pm<br></i>

[Anonymous]

Was actually fought in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, since a Roman coin was found there a few years back, dating to VARvS his time.....<br>
<br>
hehehehehehe<br>
<br>
HE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!<br>
<br>
GREETS:.........<br>
<br>
M.VIB.M. <p>V COH II<br>
LEGIO X GEMINA<br>
EX GER INF</p><i></i>

[caiusbeerquitius]

Hey Dan!<br>
What are you presenting us next? Hitler's Diaries?<br>
The REAL Troy? Or Maybe Alexander's Bones?<br>
(I was always wondering whether you are a personal friend of E. van Daeniken, but I have found solid proof, that this cannot be true. More evidence later...)<br>
Very curious,<br>
Caius <p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Ahem, Caius,....<br>
Dan won't be able to answer you for several months, not in this forum at least...<br>
He's been banned. You can take a look at eh Off-Topic section for more details...<br>
BTW, could you do something on that caseine paints for my group?<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[caiusbeerquitius]

Hi Aitor!<br>
Yes, I can get you some. But hurry to lmk what colors you want. I can only rarely get access to this board... most of the time i get a timeout... please e-mail me!<br>
[email protected] <br>
<br>
*edited* I just read some of the stuff in the off-topic section, so I deleted what I wrote here. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=caiustarquitius>caiustarquitius</A> at: 5/3/04 2:35 am<br></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Well, Caius,<br>
It will be a difficult task to recover from my computer that e-mail where I specified the colours we needed. I'll try it anyway or maybe I'll go into the company's webpage (I think that I've saved the link somewhere... )<br>
Didn't you receive my e-mail (perhaps a stupid question...)?<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>

[DECIMvS MERCATIvS VARIANvS]

Aitor,<br>
Was going to e-mail you, but your website seems to be down, can you send me an e-mail?<br>
[email protected] <br>
Best, DMV <p>DECIMUS MERCATIUS VARIANUS<br>
<br>
LEGIO IX HISPANA<br>
NorCal Chapter<br>
<br>
Netscape Aim/AOL screen name: Sturmkatze<br>
<br>
Alteris renumera duplum de quoquo tibi numeraverunt.</p><i></i>

[caiusbeerquitius]

No, did not receive it.<br>
Use my adress above.<br>
Best, Caius <p></p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Let's follow with this off-Kalkriese!<br>
Yes, I've noticed that my web pages are down, alongside with the whole site of Kurt Suleski (aka Darius Architectus) my webmaster. I don't know what has happened, if I were not so busy/lazy I'd have e-mailed Kurt...<br>
DMV, don't worry, at least I've already e-mailed you!<br>
I'll e-mail you tomorrow with the renewed paint order, Caius!<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=aitoririarte>Aitor Iriarte</A> at: 5/3/04 7:59 pm<br></i>

[Anonymous]

Oddly enough Aitor, I thought I saw Kurt's 3/4 ton Ballista in the backround of Legio XIV's page (the US one). I had thought that maybe they became one unit. <p>Magnus/Matt<br>
Legio XXX "Ulpia Victrix"<br>
Niagara Falls, Canada</p><i></i>

[aitor iriarte]

Thanks Matt,<br>
I've checked the site and there is a link to Kurt's site at the bottom but, unfortunately, it doesn't work either!<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i></i>