Posted on 10/31/2015 8:11:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The excavator smashed the prehistoric ceremonial burial chamber in the Altai Mountains, wrecking the grave of a suspected the grave of a suspected 16 to 20 year old combatant from the colourful Pazyryk culture. Local culture heritage official Dr Vasily Oinoshev said: 'Only the human head and upper part of the horse remained intact in the burial ground.Unfortunately, the rest was destroyed by heavy machinery.
'Apparently, this was a young woman, judging by the teeth. All of them are intact and in good condition. We attribute her to Pazyryk culture, and we have preliminarily dated the burial as being 2,500 years old.'
There is evidence in the shattered grave that indicates the woman was a 'warlike' fighter, with a seemingly elite status in her society, a standing that intrigues archeologists after previous similar finds -- and has been linked by one noted scientist to descriptions from Greek physician Hippocrates about the Sarmatians, which, like the Pazyryks, were a Scythian grouping famed for their mastery of mounted warfare...
There was an embossed cheek piece made of antler -- part of the ancient bridle set. This was to obscure her horse's hind view, to allow it to race...
Dr Oinoshev, head of the Agency for Cultural and Historical Heritage in the Altai Republic, explained: 'The mound was 8 to 10 metres in diameter, the depth of the burial was 3.2 meters. There was also a wooden construction -- 2 x 2 metres. We presume that this was a rather wealthy girl, but that the burial chamber was robbed in ancient times.'
In other words, the grave would have had more valuable items in it -- as found in a handful of similar burials which remained intact -- but that these were stolen by ancient raiders.
(Excerpt) Read more at siberiantimes.com ...
So let’s see. The first efforts made it out to be a female. I’m guessing there was not conclusive evidence that the remains were female. I’m guessing there was evidence indicating the person was some sort of warrior.
Taking today’s leftism, then it just had to be a female. I mean, look at TV, you have 90 pound little hot babes just kicking the holly hell out of armed 250 pound muscle men, throwing them about and killing them with their tiny little hands.
And let’s not forget the lezzies in our armed forces, who are all truly fit for the Navy seals or Army special forces simply because they are leftist warriors.
So it’s only fitting the remains be declared female.
Until science once again rains on the lefties parade and proves it to be male.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0047248480900512
It is a theory and probably not a very good one...............
Did I say they were fighting with Hoplite equipment?
Hoplites were heavy infantry found in Greece. That it was said of the Amazons that they took certain measures (cutting off a breast IIRC) to permit them to be better archers would indicate that they weren’t fighting as heavy infantry but as light.
Light troops can still do lots of damage and in particular they can be good at exactly what the Amazons were attributed with, raiding, because of their greater speed.
It would explain the mannish facial reconstruction.
“Light troops can still do lots of damage and in particular they can be good at exactly what the Amazons were attributed with, raiding, because of their greater speed.”
While women would seemingly capable of firing arrows from horseback, women warriors as a concept remains contrary to human nature.
People point to the Israelis, but they don’t put women into front-line combat any more. They discovered that it is a bad idea.
There may have been aberrations in the past, as there are today, but I do not believe that any culture was happy enough with young girls dying in battle that they continued it for any protracted period.
She didn’t seem to mind.
“It would explain the mannish facial reconstruction.”
Apparently those pictures were prepared for an article on a different grave, and re-used here.
As far as explaining the mannish features, how about “That’s a man, man”?
The article doesn’t offer any conclusive, or even persuasive, evidence that it was a woman.
I’ve not been even remotely arguing what you seem to think I might be.
But if I were to: have you never heard it said that a people’s greatest madness will seem most normal to them?
Yes, madness can be sustained. That doesn’t mean it isn’t madness, but unless it is actually got some sort of self destructive feed back action going on that must end badly(like federal spending, for example) it might even be sustained for a long while.
We live in a society that basically celebrates any unfaithfulness, any unrighteousness, and out-right perversion and murder of the innocent just so long as sex is involved so the only way someone couldn’t be unaware that there are cultural “aberrations” is if they have their head shoved up their can for ideological reasons so they can’t see what’s going on around them.
“Yes, madness can be sustained. That doesn’t mean it isn’t madness, but unless it is actually got some sort of self destructive feed back action going on that must end badly(like federal spending, for example) it might even be sustained for a long while.”
That’s all true, but in this case the mathematics of procreation provides the feedback.
Until a population reaches a certain size, it is at risk of extinction. The loss of ten men is a disaster, but the loss of ten women can spell the end of the tribe.
What happens to the population if 20 babies aren’t born for ten consecutive years? Only a large population could endure that kind of hit, particularly in the days before modern medicine.
Oh, btw, sorry if I seemed argumentative. I didn’t mean to seem like I was contradicting you. I was just saying...
Thank you for that update.
I don’t think size matters so much as percentage. The US population is huge but without immigration we’d be unable to ensure the population of the country from Citizens given how we are murdering the unborn.
About troops, ironically, it’s arguable that being sensitive to losses is what inspired the development of things like heavy infantry or light “mobile” forces. Both maximize the use of (and even help preserve) scarce human resources even though they may be fairly economically or time-investment expensive on an individual basis.
I personally find it interesting, just now in light of this exchange, that the warlike activity of the Amazons was raiding rather than conquest. There is a big difference between what is required for one vs the other. Having only light troops would be ‘good’ for the former only when soldiers are considered expendable (unless the other guy only has light troops). They actually excel at the latter.
No biggie. It’s how conversations happen.
... so ...
A woman and her 9 year old granddaughter were sitting at the breakfast table one February 15. The woman asked the girl if she knew what the day was.
“Oh, yes,” the girl chimed, “it’s President’s Day: the day the president walks out of the White House and if he sees his shadow there’ll be another year of BS in Washington!”
And grandma just about fell out of her chair.
That’s a man, baby.
Egg on their faces.
Thank you.
That abstract implies that there is not a specific sexual dimorphism in teeth, but that tooth size is related to overall body size. And humans do show distinct size differences between males and females. That young man was probably smaller than average, leading to his initial misclassification as female.
“And grandma just about fell out of her chair.”
So did I. Thanks.
Ahhh! Dude! See, I *knew* that shnozz and chin were weird.
If this is the same burial reported elsewhere at FR that the female was in fact a male, it is more likely that the young male lover/war companion, protege of an older warrior was buried with his mentor. This relationship was common among the Greeks of that era.
If this is the same burial reported elsewhere at FR that the female was in fact a male, it is more likely that the young male lover/war companion, protege of an older warrior was buried with his mentor. This relationship was common among the Greeks of that era. It was particularly strong among the Spartans. See the section on Life in Ancient Sparta and Role of Women where the unusual aspects of sexual and marriage customs are quite different from other Greek cities and seem to me to resemble some of what has been suggested about the steppe cultures of that period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta
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