Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[Razgovory]

Jos was right after all. Cars will be seen as the root cause of the end of Western civilization by future historians.

The article (and your comment) reminds me of one of my favourite theories - that the 90s drop in the crime rate was caused by banning leaded gasoline in the 1970s.

It would be interesting to see if the crime rate dropped first in countries that first banned lead in gasoline.

[viper37]

Jos was right after all. Cars will be seen as the root cause of the end of Western civilization by future historians.

The article (and your comment) reminds me of one of my favourite theories - that the 90s drop in the crime rate was caused by banning leaded gasoline in the 1970s.

It would be interesting to see if the crime rate dropped first in countries that first banned lead in gasoline.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/crime-rate-statistics

The ban took effect in 1990.

We're off topic, but I'm never a fan of these "one factor" to define huge societal changes.

I think it's a major influence, but not all of it.

[HVC]

I still prefer the abortion explanation.

Although Americas imprison everyone strategy started around the same time too, right?

[Sheilbh]

I think the lead one could be something to do with it because it's not just America - my understanding is the decline in crime is more or less all around the world in countries with loads of different criminal justice systems and approaches.

It's something that sounds mad but might actually be true.

[Barrister]

Jos was right after all. Cars will be seen as the root cause of the end of Western civilization by future historians.

The article (and your comment) reminds me of one of my favourite theories - that the 90s drop in the crime rate was caused by banning leaded gasoline in the 1970s.

It would be interesting to see if the crime rate dropped first in countries that first banned lead in gasoline.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/crime-rate-statistics

The ban took effect in 1990.

We're off topic, but I'm never a fan of these "one factor" to define huge societal changes.

I think it's a major influence, but not all of it.

I think that 1990 may have been the final, 100% "ban" - but that leaded gasoline has been phased out for a long time before that.  In particular cars had been designed to use unleaded gas since the 1970s (which is part of why car horsepower took such a huge drop in that time period).

[Razgovory]

I think the lead one could be something to do with it because it's not just America - my understanding is the decline in crime is more or less all around the world in countries with loads of different criminal justice systems and approaches.

It's something that sounds mad but might actually be true.

Well in the West.  I have a feeling that Russia did not experience a decline in crime in the 1990's.

[crazy canuck]

I think the lead one could be something to do with it because it's not just America - my understanding is the decline in crime is more or less all around the world in countries with loads of different criminal justice systems and approaches.

It's something that sounds mad but might actually be true.

That is not accurate.  world wide crime rates did not uniformly decrease.  In some areas the crime rate shot up. 

I posted an academic paper showing the problems with the leaded gas hypothesis the last time this came up.  The better explanation for decreasing rates of crime in the US, Canada, and Western Europe is an aging population.

[viper37]

Jos was right after all. Cars will be seen as the root cause of the end of Western civilization by future historians.

The article (and your comment) reminds me of one of my favourite theories - that the 90s drop in the crime rate was caused by banning leaded gasoline in the 1970s.

It would be interesting to see if the crime rate dropped first in countries that first banned lead in gasoline.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/crime-rate-statistics

The ban took effect in 1990.

We're off topic, but I'm never a fan of these "one factor" to define huge societal changes.

I think it's a major influence, but not all of it.

I think that 1990 may have been the final, 100% "ban" - but that leaded gasoline has been phased out for a long time before that.  In particular cars had been designed to use unleaded gas since the 1970s (which is part of why car horsepower took such a huge drop in that time period).

Yes, there were a lot of cars on the market using unleaded gas by then.  IIRC, when I bought my first car in 1990, it was unleaded gas, and so was dad's personal car from 2 years earlier.  Pick up trucks were either diesel or regular "leaded" fuel.

I

[Sheilbh]

Well in the West.  I have a feeling that Russia did not experience a decline in crime in the 1990's.

Yeah - in countries that banned leaded petrol and rich countries went first. I think Russia's quite late (I checked: 2003 apparently) - we've only just completely got rid of it globally in the last few years.

That is not accurate.  world wide crime rates did not uniformly decrease.  In some areas the crime rate shot up.

I posted an academic paper showing the problems with the leaded gas hypothesis the last time this came up.  The better explanation for decreasing rates of crime in the US, Canada, and Western Europe is an aging population.

Well that's disappointing

It still feels like there must be some link if not to crime then perhaps education - my understanding was a big part of the move to ban it was that it was toxic, particularly on children and their cognitive development. So you'd feel like banning it would then have an impact 18 years later.

[mongers]

Women-centered Celtic society unearthed in 2,000-year-old cemetery

DNA analysis indicates that a Celtic tribe in Iron Age Britain was matrilocal, meaning men relocated to live with women's families.
January 15, 2025 at 11:00 a.m. ESTToday at 11:00 a.m. EST
By Carolyn Y. Johnson

DNA recovered from an Iron Age burial ground in southern England reveals a Celtic community where husbands moved to join their wives' families — a rare sign of female influence and empowerment in the ancient world.

The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, brings to light an unusual society that defied the norm by centering female economic and social power. The DNA recovered from 55 individuals buried at a cemetery in use from around 100 B.C. to A.D. 100 instead suggests a matrilocal social network, in which women married outsiders — and their male partners moved in and left their homes behind.

For these people, thought to be members of a Celtic tribe known as the Durotriges, the bonds of kinship inherited through mothers determined where they lived.

"From what we know ... patrilocality is the prevailing pattern, where wives move to be with their husbands. And that isn't always beneficial to women — it separates them from their families, their support networks," said Lara Cassidy, a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin and lead author of the study published in Nature. "Matrilocality is the mirror image. ... Women in matrilocal societies tend to be empowered."

Cassidy was quick to clarify that a matrilocal society doesn't mean a matriarchy, in which women have higher status than men. Instead, it often reflects a culture in which women play a central role. They are involved in food production and labor or play a role in land inheritance. When men are absent, possibly because of warfare, matrilocal social organization is theorized to develop.
An important person's wife, or someone important herself?

Much remains mysterious about society in Iron Age Britain. Human remains from this period are rare. The acidic soil is not suited for preservation, and the bodies of many individuals may have been burned, not buried.

That's part of what made the discovery of the burial ground near the village of Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, England, so exciting. Previous archaeological studies had revealed Iron Age women buried along with prestige items: "the girl with the chariot medallion," for example. But the interpretation of such discoveries has been open to debate.

"Whenever you find a wealthy female burial," Cassidy said, people assume it must have been an important person's wife, "instead of someone important herself."

The study adds a new line of evidence to the debate, showing definitively that a pattern of female power existed. Archaeologists at Bournemouth University have spent years excavating the cemetery. To learn more about these individuals, they partnered with experts in ancient DNA, recovering sufficient genetic material from 55 individuals to analyze whether they were related.

This confirmed they had found an extended kin group — 34 people had a genetic relative at the site. The surprise came from the analysis of their mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mother to child. Two dozen of them traced their maternal lineage to a common female ancestor.

The researchers then reexamined other burial sites and found 10 other communities from Iron Age Britain where maternal lineage dominated, suggesting the pattern of female power was more widespread.

Lindsay Allason-Jones, an archaeologist and honorary fellow at Newcastle University who was not involved in the study, said the research was "fascinating," especially given how little is definitively known about this time period in Britain, when many different chiefdoms or tribes of Celtic peoples existed.

"It's very interesting when you get something solid like this," Allason-Jones said. But was it the dominant pattern of societal organization across Iron Age Britain? She hopes to see more evidence before making a generalization.

"Given the paucity of Iron Age bodies, it's really quite hard to say whether this covers the whole country," Allason-Jones said.
Roman writers chronicled powerful women leaders

Another line of evidence on powerful Celtic women comes from classical texts, from potentially unreliable narrators — the Romans.

Julius Caesar wrote that British women could take multiple husbands. Descriptions of Cartimandua, a warrior-queen who ruled a tribe in the north called the Brigantes, showed that women could inherit property and divorce. Boudica of Iceni was portrayed as a tall, fierce woman, who led an uprising against the Romans.
......

Not a million miles away from Shelf's parents, full article here:
Iron Age Women in Britain

[Valmy]

I don't know. If one were to dig up the massive statues of goddesses in ancient Greece one would be very mistaken to assume this was an especially pro-woman society even by ancient world standards.

I am always skeptical about pre-historic societies having values we might find nice projected back on them. It would sure be nice to have a more female friendly society give a more detailed historical account about how they actually worked. Though I guess we sort of have the Iroquois so that's cool.

Another line of evidence on powerful Celtic women comes from classical texts, from potentially unreliable narrators — the Romans.

Julius Caesar wrote that British women could take multiple husbands. Descriptions of Cartimandua, a warrior-queen who ruled a tribe in the north called the Brigantes, showed that women could inherit property and divorce. Boudica of Iceni was portrayed as a tall, fierce woman, who led an uprising against the Romans.

And this is one of the reasons I am a bit skeptical. The Greeks and Romans had such very...um...obsessive and specific ideas about gender roles that they would make some society sound like it was matriarchal but when you actually look at that society you find out it is just as patriarchal as any other in the ancient world. The Greeks and Romans just didn't really see it that way from their cultural perspective.

But hey it is cool they potentially found a matrilocal society. Though I am curious about this:

"Matrilocality is the mirror image. ... Women in matrilocal societies tend to be empowered."

It would be cool to hear about some well known and documented examples there.

[Valmy]

Also for much of human history where families lived in a fixed place, everybody was mostly in a small village where everybody was closely related and close by anyway. Is it really that big of a deal which part of the small village one lived in? Would you really be cut off from your kinship and support network?

[crazy canuck]

Valmy, did you even read the article or is this just a case of you reading a headline that was contrary the way you think about things?

It wasn't just about digging up a statue and if you did read the article, it's entirely intellectually dishonest for you to characterize it that way.

[Valmy]

Valmy, did you even read the article or is this just a case of you reading a headline that was contrary the way you think about things?

It wasn't just about digging up a statue and if you did read the article, it's entirely intellectually dishonest for you to characterize it that way.

Of course I fucking read it. I quoted the fucking thing. MULTIPLE TIMES.

I was just saying that if we didn't have extensive writings by the Greeks explaining themselves we might interpret their physical evidence in a different way. And it would sure be cool if these other societies that appear to have a radically different social structure left detailed accounts so we could understand exactly what they thought they were doing and how they worked. That was all I was getting at. Maybe things are not as progressive as they appear.

Jesus. You don't have to make everything a personal attack.

[crazy canuck]

Valmy, did you even read the article or is this just a case of you reading a headline that was contrary the way you think about things?

It wasn't just about digging up a statue and if you did read the article, it's entirely intellectually dishonest for you to characterize it that way.

Of course I fucking read it. I quoted the fucking thing. MULTIPLE TIMES.

I was just saying that if we didn't have extensive writings by the Greeks explaining themselves we might interpret their physical evidence in a different way. And it would sure be cool if these other societies that appear to have a radically different social structure left detailed accounts so we could understand exactly what they thought they were doing and how they worked. That was all I was getting at. Maybe things are not as progressive as they appear.

Jesus. You don't have to make everything a personal attack.

You missed the bit about the DNA analysis.  You know, the thing the scientists were doing to reach their conclusions.