Historical # Numbers

[Willem]

I don't think it is that much of a real problem. The proxy must make sense - it is not completely separate. So we are talking about things like tree rings and ice cores as proxies for climate change, body length as a proxy for health, animal bone assemblages as a proxy for meat in the diet, dated shipwrecks as a proxy for past shipping over time, etc. But no proxy is perfect, so smart scholars can challenge the quality of the proxy, and come up with alternatives. But mind you, the same applies to modern data sets like per capita income. What we are really interested in is standard of living, but that is much wider than the proxy of money income as recorded in tax data: should unpaid work be included, should health and education be included as a component of standard of living, not to mention money earned while evading taxation, etc?

 

[EJ3]

I like data and I like quantitative data in particular. What strikes me here is that people are just digging up numbers seemingly without any concern for what they might tell us. What do you want to know about the past that is really important, and what kind of numbers will you need for that, including how to interpret them. It all begins with asking the right questions, and only after that can you start thinking about the data that might answer the question. My first Roman history teacher in university put it succinctly: there is a hierarchy of questions, and some questions are more important than others. Next is the issue of a good operational definition of the variable you are concerned with: how can you measure it, and how good is the correspondence between what you really want to know and what you can measure. Finally there is measurement technology and sample size. None of this is easy, but the greatest creativity in my field is to devise operational definitions/proxy variables for what you really want to know but cannot measure directly.

I'm thinking that it's just being put out because much was not taught in the schools (or just barely skimmed over) so that those with interests in different areas can know about it to begin with & then, if that particular subject appeals to them, research it for themselves. I do not feel that this is supposed to be a deep dive into any particular subject.
For instance, I had never heard of Mount Tambora, now I'm researching it. I had never head of the Bolivian silver. Now I'm researching that.
And there are some things that I've heard of but don't know as much about them as I would like to. So I am looking into them also.
It's like when I was in College/University: I have many credits in things that I was just interested in that had nothing to do with any certificates & degrees I received.
It was just because I found things that I was interested in and took courses on them. It took me a little longer but I learned a lot that I wanted to know about.

 

[Willem]

What I meant to say is that it all begins with asking the right questions rather than collecting antiquarian facts.

 

[bluefuzz]

According to genetic studies, around 8% of all males descend from Genghis Khan

You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents etc. ... At some point about 30 generations back (give or take) you will have more theoretical ancestors than there were estimated people on earth at that time, i.e. somewhere in the mid to late middle ages. So statistically any living person has a pretty good chance of being descended from Ghengis Khan or Julius Cæsar, Plato, Charlemagne, Jesus or anyone else existing at or before that time. That Ghengis' descendents are only estimated at about 8% shows that people didn't really move around a lot until very recently, i.e. lots of inbreeding ... ;-)

 

[EJ3]

people didn't really move around a lot until very recently, i.e. lots of inbreeding ... ;-)

If you managed to get 300 miles from the home you originated at and were not in a military (or living on islands like in the Indian Ocean) you had probably gone farther than almost everyone else.

 

[Speedskater]

After about two or three generations, people were marring their relatives.

 

[bluefuzz]

If you managed to get 300 miles from the home you originated at and were not in a military (or living on islands like in the Indian Ocean) you had probably gone farther than almost everyone else.

Yes, although techniques like strontium isotope analysis are showing evidence that some people did indeed move quite large distances a long time ago like this young woman who was buried here in Denmark 3000 years ago but apparently came from somewhere in central Europe. Another female burial from here in Denmark who is quite famous for her advanced fashion sense has been shown to have also travelled, perhaps repeatedly, from central Europe.

 

[Speedskater]

A long time ago, I read a paper that estimated Earths total Human population at about 110 billion people.
But there as been a lot of archaeology science since then.
That might mean that 7.4 % are alive today.

 

[EJ3]

Yes, although techniques like strontium isotope analysis are showing evidence that some people did indeed move quite large distances a long time ago like this young woman who was buried here in Denmark 3000 years ago but apparently came from somewhere in central Europe. Another female burial from here in Denmark who is quite famous for her advanced fashion sense has been shown to have also travelled, perhaps repeatedly, from central Europe.

There will always have been the "1%'s" whether they where "Hell's Angel's" or not.

 

[Willem]

If you managed to get 300 miles from the home you originated at and were not in a military (or living on islands like in the Indian Ocean) you had probably gone farther than almost everyone else.

This is not quite true. Yes, it is a traditional view that people did not move much, but there is a lot of current research to suggest that that is not quite correct. Many people did move, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for ever. Part of that has to do with temporary events like the so called familiy life cycle, or with famines. Other things were more structural. With urban mortality far exceeding urban natality, there was a structural immigration from the countryside, and sometimes from rather far away, to the cities. This was true for the ancient city of Rome, but also for more recent and very unhealthy cities like Amsterdam in the seventeeth century, or London a bit later. Historically, migration is the normal rather than the exceptional.

 

[EJ3]

This is not quite true. Yes, it is a traditional view that people did not move much, but there is a lot of current research to suggest that that is not quite correct. Many people did move, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for ever. Part of that has to do with temporary events like the so called familiy life cycle, or with famines. Other things were more structural. With urban mortality far exceeding urban natality, there was a structural immigration from the countryside, and sometimes from rather far away, to the cities. This was true for the ancient city of Rome, but also for more recent and very unhealthy cities like Amsterdam in the seventeeth century, or London a bit later. Historically, migration is the normal rather than the exceptional.

I was thinking that not many people went "more than a 300 mi = 483 km (call it 500 K for research, perhaps)" circumference from home to live there (unless they were traveling by sea or in the military) as a parameter. Am I wrong with that?

 

[Willem]

You are wrong - they often did come from further away. In the seventeenth century many immigrants to Amsterdam came from well into Germany (the marriage registers are full of them). In the Roman Empire many migrants to the city of Rome came from far away parts of the very large Empire, not infrequently as slaves. Also, sometimes migration was a process of successive stages.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Not to mention the massive migrations during the Barbarian Invasion (4th-6th century), they brought a great deal of mixing of people from various parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa.

 

[EJ3]

Interesting, thank you. I was not thinking as recent as the 17th century (but did not think that it was that much then) Or as recent as the 4th-6th century (but also did not think that there was that much then).
I was thinking around the time of Christ.
These things interest me because of WWII, my father from Charleston, SC, USA, met my mother in Salzburg Austria, married & moved back to Charleston. I was concieved in Charleston but born in Salzburg, coming back to Charleston when I was a few months old. But made 9 trips back to Salzburg (with my mother [sometimes my father would come or come meet us, also]), visiting my grandparents & other relatives in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland by the time I was 27.
I then ranged to living in New Orleans & the Washington, DC area. At 41 I decide that living on ships was the way to go, making 14 trips through the Panama canal, visiting Hawaii, staying for a year+ on atolls in the Indian Ocean for a year+, visiting Kuwait, Dubai, Thailand and for more than a visit but less than making a home there, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Korea.
During this time I had met the woman who would become my wife (whose from China) in Saipan & we made a home in both Saipan & (130 miles away, Guam) for 17 years.
We both still travel a lot, separately & together. We have homes or condos in the Charleston, SC. area (2 about 30 minutes apart) and condo's in China (2, in vastly different areas & where our son lives), Guam (1) and Salzburg, Austria (1).
They are paid for, and yes, we rent/lease them out. But when people move out, we go there and move in for a while.
So historical traveling (and particularly living) patterns throughout history interest us.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Info on how many leave the state they were born in. 82% stay in Texas which is higher than the others as of the end of data at this site in 2012
.
Shows changes over time as well starting in 1900. Like in 1900 it was 90% for California. Guess going west you reached the end of the line.

Where We Came From and Where We Went, State by State (Published 2014)

Updated charts now show two views: where people who live in each state were born, and where people who were born in a state moved to.

www.nytimes.com

 

[GD Fan]

Info on how many leave the state they were born in. 82% stay in Texas which is higher than the others as of the end of data at this site in 2012
.
Shows changes over time as well starting in 1900. Like in 1900 it was 90% for California. Guess going west you reached the end of the line.

Where We Came From and Where We Went, State by State (Published 2014)

Updated charts now show two views: where people who live in each state were born, and where people who were born in a state moved to.

www.nytimes.com

That makes sense to me - leaving Texas is just too long of a drive!

 

[JustJones]

The beginning of the 1800's there were > 30 million Bison roaming the North American plains by the end of the 1800's there were <1000.

 

[Speedskater]

This month on US TV PBS, a series of shows.
"Great Migrations: A People on the Move"

Great Migrations: A People on The Move

Great Migrations explores how a series of Black migrations have shaped America.

www.pbs.org