askhistorians

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What is the origin of "nautical folklore" i.e. Davy Jone's locker, Fiddler's Green, etc.? How much was it an actual folklore and how much was it an invention of Hollywood?	2325
Cherokee oral history recounts that a hereditary priesthood called the Ani-Kutani ruled over the Cherokee before its massacre in an uprising. What else do we know about this, and is it related to the local manifestation of Mississippian Culture.	2267
Cahokia lasted until 1350; the Iroquois Confederacy was founded in 1142. Do we have any evidence of interaction between these two cultures?	1931
I have often heard that capitalism is not a particularly valid word for preindustrial settings; what differentiates Rome's private-property based, market economy in which workers are paid wages from Capitalism?	1857
I have heard that some Mayan Codices are known to exist in unopened pottery, but these aren't opened as the fragile texts would disintegrate, so we wait for technology to some day help. Is this true, and, if so, how many have been found and how close are we to reading them?	365
The founding of the Iroquois Confederacy is usually dated around 1450, but some push it back to the 1100s. What are the arguments for and against both positions?	319
Minoan Crete is one of the cultures in history that is always portrayed as “mysterious” due to the poor understanding we have of their language. What did their contemporaries in Egypt, Akkad, Anatolia etc write about them?	168
So much discussion of Pueblo peoples amounts to "Wow, cool house! and then they disappeared." What was life like in a Pueblo? How were they governed? What was their economy like? How did they practice religion? How does this transfer to modern Pueblos and descendant towns?	94
Our understanding of Maya history is based off of the contemporary steles in the sites, but what does the oral history of the modern Maya have to say about Maya history?	87
Given that Latin was born in Italy, would Italian be the closest Romance language to Latin?	60

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