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From around the 1960s onwards, academic history began to open up to new sub-fields, such as gender history, social history etc. And when I say oral history, sorry, I am not referring to the oral history of Homer, rather, that history focused on oral testimony (that was unclear above). This has particularly boomed in recent decades, in large part because of the rush to collect the source material before those who witnessed the definitive events of the twentieth century pass away, and also because of ever progressing technology. I would argue that pursuits like memory studies (which is now a massive part of professional history) owe their status to the (relatively) nascent focus on oral testimony.
Anyways, the above shifts were mainly brought about by history’s new found affinity for other fields, and an obsession with the ‘interdisciplinarity’ of historical research. The key drivers were anthropology and sociology (Weber and Geertz had huge impacts on Renaissance history, for example).
Academia had for 200-odd years been dominated by political, intellectual, religious, military history, hence the focus on those great men referred to above. As new approaches emerged, historians began more and more to think about and examine the experiences of the common person (men and women) in an attempt to write them into the historical record.
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But srsly…
Who gives a shit about that?? Rebekah Vardy just had a legal victory over Coleen Rooney!!!
Wagatha Christie…that is history!!!
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Hopefully the only victory the Vardys celebrate this weekend.
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whats a flushed?
What a great story. I agree about it making a great film. 
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“:Sigh, how to do think they made it?”
Just came across my reply which was never posted - my bad.
Think it is better to have an accurate representation of these builders from 5000 years ago to avoid any confusion. This is how it was made.
The stones were not hacked out by using hammers and chisels - doing so would result in the possible cracking of the stones - even if they could have found a chisel that was hard enough to use on the Bluestone - it’s not like they could pop down to B&Q to get a metal one because… this was built pre-metal tools. In response to your link which does not intimate or suggest that metal tools were used - Easy to see how someone could be confused.
“From their distinctive shapes these carvings represent axes and daggers that were in use around 1750-1500BC. The carvings were therefore made when the stones had already been standing for nearly 1,000 years.” https://heritagecalling.com/2015/09/23/7-new-discoveries-about-stonehenge/
Wedges were used to open up natural faultlines in the cliffs and then the stones were eased away from the bedrock. Some wedges may have been wooden and soaked to expand - thus opening up the faultline wider. Other wedges were a softer stone that could be hammered into the faultlines. Ropes were then used to lower the stones down to ground level for transportation.
Do I sigh now?
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One of my absolute favourites…if you haven’t stood in the Botticelli room in the Uffizi, you’re missing out, imho.
But fuck me dead…$92m…
Where’s that inequality thread???
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That’s a pair of CB 
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Looking forward to this!!!
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Yeah, Cahokia is pretty impressive. Not sure I heard about it not having a market place before though.
Ken Feder is an archeologist I like reading who has written about a number of sites across the US.
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Posted this in th US politics thread, but maybe more fitting here. Well worth a read, especially in light of recent (and future) events…
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Ok, I’m going to end up posting it in the unreliable rumours thread at this rate
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No archaeology thread, so I am placing the article here.
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Dunno why I just thought of this, but I did…a quote from Machiavelli’s letter to Francesco Vettori.
This is in 1513, after the Florentine state he had devoted his life to decided to arrest and torture him. For those so inclined, they bound his hands behind his back and then hung him from his wrists. His reward after that was exile, forever removed from the affairs of state he loved.
He also in this letter refers to a little book he had written, De Principatibus…I wonder if anything ever came of it??
When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me. I deliver myself entirely to them.
Pretty touching stuff, in my humble opinion.
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Ah…so he did do something with it then…good.
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I loaded that picture too quickly. A book like that shouldn’t be so easily to hand…