MEN FROM EARLY MIDDLE AGES WERE NEARLY AS TALL AS MODERN PEOPLE

eurekalert.com ohio state university ^ | Richard Steckel

[ckilmer]

if you look over at asians. you'll notice that the japanese are the tallest. They've been well fed since wwII.

say how do you even find a 2 year old thread.

[Rockpile]

Future researchers examining current airline seating will conclude that we were all short and thin.

[little jeremiah]

Also, some of the suits of armour on display are fancy ones that weren't really worn much. At least that's what I've read.

[Doctor Stochastic]

This was known many years ago. At least that's what I learned in the 1960s. Of course, popular views of science have not advanced since the Hundred Years War.

[petro45acp]

"Does not sound right - every knight's armor I have ever seen is built for smaller men - and they would have been the ones to live a "good" life."

That is because every suit of armor you have seen on display was a piece created specifically for display, as an example of the craftsman's skill (usually 3/4 or 1/2 size, much like miniatures by other artisans). It is very unlikely that any real, working armor from the period is extant. The metalurgy of the time would have produced a very stain-able, rust-hungry product. It would have required regular replacing and would likely have been percieved as disposable, whereas a display piece would have been polished, oiled, waxed, and preserved.

Some armor was even made of leather using a boiling process (cuir bolli - "boiled leather") that made it shapeable, very hard when dried, and inexpensive next to the smith's product.

As to height, the showpiece armor, "berths" on sailing ships (likely storage shelves as most navies slept in hammocks), and small furniture (probably reflecting manufacturing capacity vice size of the customer) a good description of our potentially mispercieved notions of people in the past can be found in Michael Crichton's book "TIMELINE."

Just in case citing a novel is considered gauche, Chrichton's footnotes and bibliography point to learned texts he used as markers for his FICTIONAL story....now if we could only make the same clear about the DaVinci Code!

Cheers,
Top sends

[2banana]

I hear ya - but them how do you explain the 5'10" doors opennings that I keep knocking my head into in all those European castles?

[petro45acp]

Beat me by that much!...

poing poing

[petro45acp]

Thanks, I misspelled ceur in my post.

Ceur bolli is my favorite leather prep. I have used it to make holsters and sheaths with the resiliance of kydex. A favorite application is sheaths/holsters for fixed blade knives and pocket pistols. By building the holster or sheath suede side out, and boiling it, the suede becomes rough and hard. They stay in the pocket when the knife is pulled, and don't move around much giving a consistent presentation.

Gotta get to one of those SCA 'do s.'

Ping on the katana sharpness and slicing blows. All Japanese cutting tools are designed for pulling/slicing, a Shinto concept of drawing life/death/life toward oneself.

Cheers,
Top sends

[aculeus]

Odd little fact: Holland is the nation with world's tallest average people.

[SauronOfMordor]

Ping on the katana sharpness and slicing blows. All Japanese cutting tools are designed for pulling/slicing, a Shinto concept of drawing life/death/life toward oneself.

Actually, the way my sensei taught me, the slicing blow is delivered so as to push the opponent away from you.

[petro45acp]

" Actually, the way my sensei taught me, the slicing blow is delivered so as to push the opponent away from you."

Good point, a well executed cut with the last 10 inches or so of the blade is most efficiend, delevers the most force, and would push the opponent away. Another technique, when passing an opponent's line, is to plant the tip-edge and push. Not a stab really, but a long slicing movement that when complete brings the tip back in preparation for conventional slicing blow from the opposite side.

Thanks,

[VeritatisSplendor]

You're right about the calcium. My vegetarian son is now 17 1/2, still on the exact same growth schedule I followed (he's now 6' 1 1/2", as I was at that age, and I ended up 6' 2 1/4"), because he consumes plenty of milk and cheese. He gets no meat, not many eggs, and doesn't eat particularly high-protein vegetables. He's a foot taller than his mother, so he must have avoided all of her "short genes".

It probably has helped his muscular and skeletal development that he's been carrying a 30-pound backpack around school for several years; he never uses his locker but just carries all his books around because the school is huge and classes are far apart.

[SunkenCiv]

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