• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

This chaos was totally avoidable.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Let me file that under fuck it.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Very Cool Thread: Neanderthals Living in Fat City

Very Cool Thread: Neanderthals Living in Fat City

by Anne Laurie|  July 31, 20252:35 pm| 93 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, KULCHA!, Science & Technology

FacebookTweetEmail

So they found a 125,000 yr old Neanderthal fat rendering plant & I have thoughts.
Knowing that they loved saturated fat SO MUCH that they industrialized to get as much of it as humanly possible?
Makes me feel seen, heard, supported, etc www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…

[image or embed]

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

Jokes aside, this place tells us:

-Large-scale food processing is ~100K+ yrs older than farming.

-So is shelf-stable, high-calorie convenience food.

-So is “thinking about labor & logistics.”

-Romanticizing “cavemen” as tough & austere is really funny.

I love this because when we think of "how ancient people got their food," we like to think about the big game hunting part.
But getting a carcass is just step 1!
We don't think as much about what comes next! But we should!

[image or embed]

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

If you’re hunting large animals to stay alive, instead of just for recreation,

“turning them into shelf-stable food you can keep & eat for more than 3 days afterward” is the name of the game.

So Neanderthals brought bones from their kills to this spot by a lake, pounded them to bits, & melted out the fat.
Not just any bones! They brought mostly jaws, skulls, ribs, & the *ends* of leg bones w red marrow. These bones have lots of fat inside- but you have to break them apart to get it.

[image or embed]

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

Smashing bones is lots of work! So why do it?

I’m not an archaeologist, but I do lots of food handling logistics.

So my money’s on 3 things:

-it’s free real estate (more food from game already killed)

-people who aren’t able-bodied adults can do it

-RENDERED FAT IS SHELF-STABLE & TASTES AWESOME

We have this idea that tasty, calorie-dense “convenience food” is modern.

Nope!

It’s not unheard of for hunter-gatherers to spend WAY more time processing food into shelf-stable, easy to eat, calorie-dense “convenience” foods than they do on the hunting & gathering part.

Fish & meat? Gotta smoke ’em.

Acorns? Pound them into powder, put them in a bag, & leach in a river for weeks or months so they’re edible.

Maple sap? Boil it down into shelf-stable sugar cakes.

Rendering fat from bones is 100% in line with this.

Think about it: for hunter-gatherers, food availability was spotty.

And they were often on the move from place to place.

So processing food to make it store-able for a long time, and distilling it down so every gram was very rich in calories, is one of our oldest pursuits.

Maybe it’s not weird that Neanderthals were breaking up bones to cook out the fat.

It’s weird that we think it’s weird. You know?

Now let's talk scale!
They found the remains of 172+ animals at this site. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it looks like they were all brought there over ~one year.
They also mapped out where the bone & stone shards are. So you can see exactly where the smashing & cooking workspaces were. 🥹

[image or embed]

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

This is just the beginning of a long and fascinating thread!

Anyway, this is just a reminder that early humans were human. They took care of the sick and loved art & saturated fat.
Thinking that everything they did was a grim survival tactic?
That's usually us projecting our issues onto the past. Not what their own lives were actually about.

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

===

And that's a good thing to keep in mind right now!
Because we're getting bombarded with the idea that "modernity" is "degenerate" and we have to "return" to purer, more austere ways of life.

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

===

Meanwhile ancient humans & their real life "paleo diet" was all about carbs & required an industrial-scale fat rendering facility
also they were hoarding art supplies
don't let the haters slow u down, Neanderthals

— Sarah Taber (@sarahtaber.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 11:59 AM

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: «Zoom With Four Directions Set for Thursday at 7 pm ET 1 Virginia, Here We Come!
Next Post: Which Side Are You On? Which Side Are You On?»

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  1. 1.

    Chief Oshkosh

    July 31, 2025 at 2:43 pm

    Austerity is what rich people want poor people to think is normal and necessary.

    Eat the rich.

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    July 31, 2025 at 2:51 pm

    One of the ideas I see flying around the Manosphere a great deal right now is this fantasy that younger women routinely were into older men. It’s been good to see historians push back that, in most cultures, partners have been of similar age and that it’s often abusive when that is not the case.

    Three guesses why men would want to tell themselves — and women — this lie.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 2:51 pm

    If you think about some Native American foods like pemmican and jerky, they were doing the same sort of thing.

  4. 4.

    schrodingers_cat

    July 31, 2025 at 2:54 pm

    There is nothing new under the sun. We just figure out new means to do the same things.

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    July 31, 2025 at 2:54 pm

    Meanwhile ancient humans & their real life “paleo diet” was all about carbs & required an industrial-scale fat rendering facility

    also they were hoarding art supplies

    don’t let the haters slow u down, Neanderthals

    Carbs and art supplies….. sounds like I did not evolve.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 31, 2025 at 2:57 pm

    This is one of the coolest posts I’ve ever read. Fascinating, and so obvious when you think about it for more than a second. Thank you!

  7. 7.

    Baud

    July 31, 2025 at 2:58 pm

    Science is cool.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    July 31, 2025 at 3:00 pm

    New theory which is mine: ICE rounded up these Neanderthal food processing workers and exported them to Siberia, explaining their sudden disappearance from Europe. Finally, we know it was not skyrocketing cave rents.

  9. 9.

    XeckyGilchrist

    July 31, 2025 at 3:00 pm

    Thank you! This is fascinating for its own sake and also nice for showing that, underneath it all, obsession with “traditional” or “evolutionary” stuff always means “things were best in [1890-1950].”

  10. 10.

    Doc Sardonic

    July 31, 2025 at 3:01 pm

    They found a food processing plant, now somewhere waiting to be found is a Neanderthal distillery, church, pawn shop and bawdy house.

  11. 11.

    JaySinWa

    July 31, 2025 at 3:02 pm

    @Suzanne: But is your fat saturated?

  12. 12.

    Mark Field

    July 31, 2025 at 3:09 pm

    For more on this study you can read P.G. Myers’ summation here. A key point he discusses is that the fat rendering was essential to survival. The reason is that there’s only so much protein the body can absorb, so humans must eat carbs or fat to balance out the protein. For substantial parts of the year, carbs would have been unavailable in northern latitudes. Thus, access to fat was essential.

    By the way, this is not at all inconsistent with the Paleo diet. This fact has been recognized for many years. I’m wondering if Sarah Taber is perhaps thinking of the carnivore diet.

  13. 13.

    bjacques

    July 31, 2025 at 3:14 pm

    Smart. They had snacks to take when camping outside Agra II at Wave-Gothik-Treffen in nearby Leipzig.

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    July 31, 2025 at 3:15 pm

    @XeckyGilchrist:

    “things were best in [1890-1950].” 

    When everyone within eyeshot was white and their wife couldn’t leave.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    July 31, 2025 at 3:15 pm

    @Doc Sardonic:

    I’m down for visiting this new theme resort.

  16. 16.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 3:17 pm

    @Suzanne: DNA analysis says that the average person alive today has twice as many female ancestors as male.

  17. 17.

    schrodingers_cat

    July 31, 2025 at 3:17 pm

    @Baud: It totally is. Physics is the coolest, obviously.

  18. 18.

    RSA

    July 31, 2025 at 3:19 pm

    Shelf-stable food may predate the invention of shelves.

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    July 31, 2025 at 3:24 pm

    @RevRick: That is…. something to cringe about. Oi.

  20. 20.

    Aziz, light!

    July 31, 2025 at 3:24 pm

    Neanderthals survived as a species for 400,000 years. The jury is still out for homo sap.

  21. 21.

    bjacques

    July 31, 2025 at 3:24 pm

    More seriously, there’s an excellent BBC series on now called Humans.

  22. 22.

    SeattlePsyclist

    July 31, 2025 at 3:28 pm

    I haven’t looked at the literature in 20 years, but as I recall Hunter-Gatherers spend about 4 hours per day obtaining the necessities of life. Agriculture allowed more people to live to an old age, but the upper bound to that age became lower as doubled work hours wore out their bodies. Technology advances have now extended life expectancy to the point that the average wage-slave or salaryman in the US will have almost as much lifetime leisure as a hunter-gatherer, albeit distributed so that the bulk of it is when we are old and decrepit. Progress.

  23. 23.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 3:31 pm

    @RevRick: There is DNA evidence to suggest that during the stone age there was a bottleneck where very, very few men had children. Some suggests that it was as low as one man for every 17 woman who had children.

  24. 24.

    They Call Me Noni

    July 31, 2025 at 3:33 pm

    Many years ago I read the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel.  They were fascinating and she did a lot of research to write them.  Every once in a while I’ll run across and article like this one and it just confirms to me how spot on she was all those years ago.

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    July 31, 2025 at 3:35 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: eat the rich

    AND render their boooooooones, in honor of our Neanderthal ancestors!!

    LOLOLOL

  26. 26.

    Anne Laurie

    July 31, 2025 at 3:37 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: If you think about some Native American foods like pemmican and jerky, they were doing the same sort of thing.

    When I showed the original thread to Spousal Unit, he immediately pointed out that ‘primitive’ New Zealand natives had an extremely nice technique to preserve chunks of moa using fat-wraps and seaweed.

    Leftovers, they’re a crucial survival skill!

  27. 27.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 3:38 pm

    @RSA: Maybe we need to shelve that idea.

  28. 28.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 3:41 pm

    @Archon: Closer to our timeline, there’s a significant percentage of people in Central Asia who have Genghis Khan’s DNA. It was definitely not consensual.

  29. 29.

    Melancholy Jaques

    July 31, 2025 at 3:41 pm

    @XeckyGilchrist:

    “traditional” or “evolutionary” stuff always means “things were best in [1890-1950].”

    It usually means an imaginary past that they have drenched in nostalgia. It isn’t that hard to show that, for almost everybody, things were pretty shitty during that time period.

  30. 30.

    Melancholy Jaques

    July 31, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    @RevRick:

    DNA analysis says that the average person alive today has twice as many female ancestors as male.

    Because we’ve always had incels.

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    July 31, 2025 at 3:46 pm

    @bjacques: More seriously, there’s an excellent BBC series on now called Human.

    Here’s a Guardian review — it will come to the USA on PBS come September.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    July 31, 2025 at 3:58 pm

    @Archon:

    one man for every 17 woman who had children.

     
    That he knew of.

  33. 33.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 3:59 pm

    @RevRick: A woman actually choosing her partner is a very modern concept but I still think it’s worth pondering that as a woman living in a hardscrabble place like 13th century central Asia wouldn’t it make more survival and evolutionally biological sense to be the 100th wife of Genghis Khan over the 1st and only wife of a poor farmer or sheepherder?

  34. 34.

    scav

    July 31, 2025 at 3:59 pm

    Spend all that time & effort to bring down a large beast, stands to reason you’d want to take advantage of every bit possible.  Besides the mere meat and fat (and presumably blood), think of all the handy raw materials on offer: skin, sinew, bone, possibly horn.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    July 31, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    My favorite too. Although I enjoy PBS Eons on YouTube for evolutionary history.

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 4:03 pm

    @Archon: I am pretty sure a lot of them weren’t “wives”.  I mean, rape and pillage are used together quite a bit wrt invaders.

  37. 37.

    Lobo

    July 31, 2025 at 4:04 pm

    Then they were done in by homo sapiens who brought Walmart to their area.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 31, 2025 at 4:09 pm

    @RevRick: I know several more-or-less full-blooded Ukrainian-heritage people (including myself) who do not look Nordic at all, but definitely have some characteristics more associated with Asia. The Mongols’ ride westward in the mid 1200’s left more than just horse shit.

  39. 39.

    dc

    July 31, 2025 at 4:12 pm

    We could have had Sarah Taber as our Ag. Commissioner in NC. Instead we got the same Republican asshole (redundant at this point).

  40. 40.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 4:13 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sure but the question still stands. Would it have been better to be the 500th concubine of Genghis Khan or the first and only wife of a poor goatherder?

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    July 31, 2025 at 4:16 pm

    @Lobo:

    I’ll start shopping Walmart if they promise I’ll be greeted and handed my cart by a Neanderthal. “Come for Ogg, stay for bargains, have nice day.”

  42. 42.

    Melancholy Jaques

    July 31, 2025 at 4:18 pm

    @Archon:

    Also have to include the wives, concubines, casual girlfriends, and rape victims of Genghis Kahn’s descendants.

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    July 31, 2025 at 4:18 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: I know several more-or-less full-blooded Ukrainian-heritage people (including myself) who do not look Nordic at all, but definitely have some characteristics more associated with Asia.

    According to contemporary accounts, Genghis Khan had pale grey eyes… and what 20th century anthropologists would call ‘Nordic fold’ (hooded) eyelids.  Many modern Scandinavians, and (speaking of rape & pillage) Irish / Irish-Americans like myself, have ‘Asiatic’ eyelids!

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 31, 2025 at 4:20 pm

    @Archon: ​They were not wives or concubines, they were rape victims as the “Golden Horde” passed through town. Once the boys left, you were still stuck with the goat-herder, except with an extra kid to feed.

  45. 45.

    Sister Golden Bear

    July 31, 2025 at 4:25 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Eat the rich.

    I hear the rich are especially rich in fat content.

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 31, 2025 at 4:26 pm

    @Archon:  I got the impression the concubines of the Khan were typically noble women of the territory conquered.

    As for the hypothetical shepherdess. Most likely the Mongols killed her family and the rest of her community before one them decided to make her comfort girl for him and his squaddies. I suppose it beats starving to death. But that’s more of the cold hand of nature making her pretty so even a group of utter a-holes want to her keep alive than anything else.

  47. 47.

    scav

    July 31, 2025 at 4:26 pm

    @Archon: Don’t forget to factor in the within-household competition and in-fighting to get attention & sperm from the Khan, plus the risks in being taken out as a side-product of larger-scale political violence.  That’ll go for her and any of her children (the latter being the real point from a strictly evolutionary standpoint).  And is it right to assume the concubine will necessarily have more children that survive to adulthood than the wife?  Might be a bit complicated is all I’m suggesting.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 4:27 pm

    @Archon: That’s not really the question.  Both of them were having Genghis’s babies.  Relatedly why do you think that Judaism is traced through the mother.  And it’s not that it was a particularly female empowering religion.

  49. 49.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 4:27 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m talking about Genghis Khan not your average Mongol soldier who just sacked Kiev.

    Giving your daughter to be part of the Great Khans harem was likely considered a good strategy for a local chieftain or warlord.

  50. 50.

    Sister Golden Bear

    July 31, 2025 at 4:33 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Leftovers, they’re a crucial survival skill!

    There’s enjoyable YouTube channel I geek out to that focuses on recreating 18th century cooking (mostly Colonial America and British).

    So many of the recipes were about preserving food. For example, meat pies kept the contents safe for a couple days without having to salt or smoke the meat. The crust wasn’t even intended to be eaten, it was primarily to form a (mostly) air tight container around the meat.

  51. 51.

    opiejeanne

    July 31, 2025 at 4:34 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: On YouTube there’s a channel called Townsends, and he made pemmican in one episode.

  52. 52.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 4:35 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Genghis Khan hated urban areas and sacked many famous Central Asian cities, but he raped thousands of young women.

  53. 53.

    Princess

    July 31, 2025 at 4:36 pm

    It makes sense. When you’re relying on wild game for most of your calories, it’s really hard to get enough fat because wild game is very lean. Too much protein without enough fact can kill you.

    theprepared.com/blog/rabbit-starvation-why-you-can-die-even-with-a-stomach-full-of-lean-meat/

  54. 54.

    scav

    July 31, 2025 at 4:36 pm

    @Archon: But now you’re talking about the political advantages accruing to the father and not the evolutionary success of the woman.

  55. 55.

    Searcher

    July 31, 2025 at 4:36 pm

    @RSA: Keep in mind the reason we call it the Stone Age is because stones don’t decay over time, but woodworking almost certainly has a contemporary evolution to stone tools, if not predating them, because wood is way easier to work than stone.

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 31, 2025 at 4:36 pm

    @Archon: Giving your daughter to be part of the Great Khans harem was likely considered a good strategy for a local chieftain or warlord.

    You mean this group of humanitarians?

    The Mongols executed Mstislav of Kiev and the Kievan nobles with the traditional Mongol caveat reserved for royalty and nobility: without shedding blood. Mstislav and his nobles were buried and suffocated under the Mongol general’s victory platform at the victory feast

  57. 57.

    sab

    July 31, 2025 at 4:41 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: James Fallows wrote an article years ago about having a DNA test. He turned out to be part neanderthal, from his mother’s Scottish side.

  58. 58.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 4:43 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: A lot of them are old and full of gristle. It would definitely take some French culinary skills.

  59. 59.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 4:45 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t understand, do you think I was implying Genghis Khan and the Mongols were humanitarians?

    My overall point is for most of human history life was very, very, VERY hard, especially for woman who were functionally the property of their father, husband or lord. In that world being a harem to someone who rules most of Asia might make more sense to being the wife of a poor farmer who is one bad winter or raid from a local tribe from dying with their children.

  60. 60.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 4:47 pm

    @SeattlePsyclist: also agriculture lead to a much smaller adult physical frame from borderline malnutrition.

  61. 61.

    prostratedragon

    July 31, 2025 at 4:54 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’ve often thought of this when watching the movie Chinatown.

  62. 62.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 4:54 pm

    @Archon: I saw a YT (I do not know how much credibility I can assign its author) that said that there was a phase of violence where 90% of men were killed. It talked of archeological discoveries of bones of several individuals found together bearing grievous skull injuries. Would this account for the discrepancy in our genetic lineage between female and male lines?

  63. 63.

    sab

    July 31, 2025 at 4:56 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Like Norwegian Warner Oland (Charlie Chan)?

  64. 64.

    catclub

    July 31, 2025 at 4:56 pm

    carbs? where did it say that? Rich in calories, yes. That means fat.
    so calories and art supplies.

  65. 65.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 4:57 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Refrigeration is one of the great advances of the modern era. Before that, meat had to be salted or smoked, and even then there was no guarantee that it would not become rancid before consumption.
    Samuel Pepys, in his diary, describes eating meat as well as gristle, cartilage and bone.
    I once saw a clip which claimed the fixings of a ham and cheese sandwich powered Northern Europe’s success.

  66. 66.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 4:59 pm

    @Searcher: Not to mention bone needles dating back some 75,000 years.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 4:59 pm

    @Archon: Yes, sure, but a metric shit ton of the women we are talking about didn’t have that choice.  Come on.

  68. 68.

    catclub

    July 31, 2025 at 5:00 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: You mean this group of humanitarians?

     

    Yep.

     

    Genghis Khan made significant changes  to how captured town were treated, and also to how spoils were shared within his army.

    Having a reputation for NOT slaughtering  everyone in a town that surrenders peacefully goes a long way in reducing resistance.

     

    I think those Kieven Nobles resisted.

  69. 69.

    RevRick

    July 31, 2025 at 5:08 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: Studies of Hunter-gatherer societies reveal that they have way more leisure time than we do. Agriculture enabled the support of many more people, but is far more demanding in terms of work, and the early Industrial Revolution was brutal for most who lived through it.

  70. 70.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 5:14 pm

    @Ramona: Yes there is genetic and archeological evidence to suggest there was an extremely violent period in Europe around 8000 years ago where 90 percent of the men were killed.

    I don’t think it’s an undisputed theory though.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 5:19 pm

    @RevRick: A good jambon beurre can work miracles.

  72. 72.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 5:20 pm

    @Archon: Ooh, good to know. I did like the YT I mentioned. I just did not know to what extent I could believe it. I’m glad that its premise is not disputed.

    Was there some environmental change that triggered this warfare or did the population increase to a point more than natural resources could support?

  73. 73.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 5:28 pm

    @RevRick: Anthropological studies lend credence to the notion that many women killed those of their offspring resulting from rape. I would think that many of Genghis Khan’s children were welcome offspring.

  74. 74.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    July 31, 2025 at 5:40 pm

    Genghis and the original Mongol invasions struck terror on a lot of levels, the initial one was simply their rate of advance and operational manueverability.

    He didn’t hate cities.  Any city that didn’t resist, survived and most quite nicely.  Any city that didn’t?  It was definitely a binary choice: surrender or die, no in-between.  Again, it was a strategic choice he and many of his successors used to subdue populations.

    Also too, Mongol history pedant note, they weren’t the “Golden Horde”.   That’s the name for one of the successor kingdoms.  Here’s the blurb from the historical notes in the army list books my tiny rules company has published:

    From 1237 to 1241 AD, Mongols nominally under Batu, Genghis Khan’s grandson, but actually commanded by the experienced general Subodai, conducted the only successful winter invasion of Russia, taking Rostov, Moscow and Vladimir in 1238 AD then moving on to destroy Kiev in 1240 AD.  In April 1241 AD, they defeated a Polish and German army at Liegnitz, devastated Moravia and Silesia and then, turning south, destroyed a Hungarian army at the Savo River.  They stopped only when the news of Ogedai Khan’s death called for the Mongol leaders to return home to elect a new khan.

    By this time, Batu had established de facto an independent Mongol state, the khanate of the Golden Horde, although it would not be formally recognized until 1251 AD.  Controlling territory from the Danube River south to the Caucasus Mountains and west past the Aral Sea to the Ob River, the Golden Horde prospered at the expense of disunited Russian princes who were allowed to keep their thrones only if they paid tribute and did homage to the khan.

    Mongols gradually assimilated into the majority Turkish population in the region, adopting Turkish as the official language around 1280 AD and Islam perhaps 50 years later.  These developments alienated the khanate’s Russian tributaries, which began to assert their independence during the 15th century, which led to constant warfare between the khanate and principalities.

    Under Tukhtamish, they fought some of the largest cavalry battles in history against Timur, but were weakened by his invasions, the first in 1391 AD and a second four years later when he sacked the khanate capital at Sarai. The khanate never recovered and areas around the periphery broke away and one, the Crimean khanate, overthrew the last remnant of the Golden Horde in 1502 AD.

  75. 75.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 5:42 pm

    @Ramona: I didn’t think the idea that many woman might find benefit to having children with Genghis Khan as particularly controversial but I guess it is.

  76. 76.

    schrodingers_cat

    July 31, 2025 at 6:07 pm

    Genghis Khan and his descendants never made any headway in India and it was not for the lack of trying.

  77. 77.

    schrodingers_cat

    July 31, 2025 at 6:08 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I saw an email from June in an account that I don’t check much that you wanted to get in touch. You can reach me at my blog mail [email protected]

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 6:11 pm

    @Archon: Remind me how, if you are the goatherd’s wife and Genghis rapes you and then moves on to rape others, she benefits by having his child?  It escapes me.

  79. 79.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Not sure you are just replying with a strawman or you genuinely think that was my argument.

    I was proffering the idea that being one of many in Genghis Khan’s harem was likely a better existence for them and their offspring then the vast majority of woman living in central Asia at that time. Don’t know why rape was bought into that argument, especially considering a woman could just as easily be raped and abused by that poor goatherder as she would be in Genghis Khan harem.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2025 at 6:39 pm

    @Archon: Because, for most of the women bearing Genghis’s children, being a wife or concubine wasn’t an option.   So it wasn’t a choice between marriage to the goatherd or marriage to Genghis.  The choice they had was being raped. As we all know, that’s not actually a choice.

  81. 81.

    Archon

    July 31, 2025 at 6:58 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: If it makes life a bit less complicated and nuanced for you to believe that everyone Genghis Khan slept with was some unwilling sex slave than go ahead…

  82. 82.

    SteverinoCT

    July 31, 2025 at 7:49 pm

    @Princess: When you’re relying on wild game for most of your calories, it’s really hard to get enough fat because wild game is very lean. Too much protein without enough fact can kill you.

    I read that about the Lewis and Clark expedition: shooting their meals as they went led to carb deficiency.

  83. 83.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 9:40 pm

    @Archon: I imagine that subconsciously people bring our contemporary conceptions of morality to ancient times and have not considered that before abortion was available infanticide was common. Heck, a mother did not have to even kill or abandon the infant explicitly, she could have merely refused to nurse it. There wouldn’t have been any formula around in the thirteenth century.

  84. 84.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 9:41 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Himalayas! And, the Moghul Empire! Babar was descended from Genghis Khan on his mother’s side.

  85. 85.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 9:53 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: As I’ve said upthread, women in ancient times often killed those of their offspring resulting from rape. Peasant women in the thirteenth century would have had that freedom. I don’t know for how long pennyroyal was used as an abortificient but many herbs have been used for that purpose. Leviticus requires abortion if an unfaithful wife gets pregnant so there is documentation. So the high incidence of Genghis Khan’s DNA in extant populations would have been from children who were welcome regardless of the rapes perpetrated. Moreover, people preserved the knowledge of their lineage from the Khan for many centuries after which is further evidence that those of his surviving offspring were wanted by their mothers.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    July 31, 2025 at 9:55 pm

    Pemmican. Dried meat, dried fruit, rendered fats and marrow, sealed airtight in a wooden box, keeps for hundreds of years.

    Can make soups, stews, fry it, eat it “raw”.

  87. 87.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    July 31, 2025 at 9:56 pm

    @Ramona: Babar was descended from Genghis Khan on his mother’s side.

    Babar? The elephant? 😁

  88. 88.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 10:00 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I see that you are saying that the raped wife of the goatherd would simply have the child and she and her husband would raise it as though it were the child sired by her husband. Okay, you’ve got a point there.

  89. 89.

    Ramona

    July 31, 2025 at 10:07 pm

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Babar the Elephant’s great grandfather after whom he was named ;-)

  90. 90.

    Kayla Rudbek

    August 1, 2025 at 12:10 am

    @scav: “use everything except the squeal” as some farmers would say

  91. 91.

    Kayla Rudbek

    August 1, 2025 at 12:11 am

    @SteverinoCT: I think that a diet high in rabbit can cause the protein/fat ratio to be skewed

  92. 92.

    Kayla Rudbek

    August 1, 2025 at 12:15 am

    @RevRick: wearing clothing dates back 170,000 years (we know this because that was when body lice split off from head lice, as the  clothes were different habitat for the lice)

  93. 93.

    Barney

    August 1, 2025 at 6:40 am

    Also:

    Rather than feasting on endless mammoth steaks, they stored their kills for months, the scientists believe, favouring the fatty parts over lean meat, and the maggots that riddled the putrefying carcasses.
    “Neanderthals were not hypercarnivores, their diet was different,” said John Speth, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Michigan. “It’s likely maggots were a major food.”
    …
    The finding, reported in Science Advances, suggests that rather than consuming meat as ravenously as lions and other hypercarnivores, Neanderthals acquired high levels of heavy nitrogen by eating maggots, which themselves were enriched with heavy nitrogen.
    “The only reason this is surprising is that it contradicts what we westerners think of as food,” said Karen Hardy, professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Glasgow. “Elsewhere in the world, a very wide range of things are eaten, and maggots are a great source of protein, fat and essential amino acids.”
    “It is a no brainer for Neanderthals,” she added. “Put out a bit of meat, leave it for a few days then go back and harvest your maggots, its a very easy way to get good nutritious food.”
    “How does it shift our thinking? The Neanderthals as top carnivores was nonsense, it was physiologically impossible. So this makes sense, but also explains these high nitrogen signals in a way that nothing else has done so clearly,” Hardy said.

    Neanderthals were not ‘hypercarnivores’ and feasted on maggots, scientists say | Science | The Guardian

    Neanderthals, hypercarnivores, and maggots: Insights from stable nitrogen isotopes | Science Advances

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - BigJimSlade - Alps 2025 - Courmayeur, Italy, Phone Pics 2
Image by BigJimSlade (8/30/25)

“Good Kim” VA House in Nov

Donate

Virgil Thornton VA House in Nov

Donate

Recent Comments

  • Ella in New Mexico on Open Thread: Graham Platner Is Getting Noticed (Aug 30, 2025 @ 9:02pm)
  • Another Scott on Oh, Yikes, Looks Like We Could Use an Open Thread! (Aug 30, 2025 @ 8:59pm)
  • Professor Bigfoot on Open Thread: Graham Platner Is Getting Noticed (Aug 30, 2025 @ 8:59pm)
  • FelonyGovt on Oh, Yikes, Looks Like We Could Use an Open Thread! (Aug 30, 2025 @ 8:58pm)
  • Teresa on Oh, Yikes, Looks Like We Could Use an Open Thread! (Aug 30, 2025 @ 8:58pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
NYC Meetup in August

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!