You're not wrong on any of this or any of your analysis, however I also wonder about threats from the environment and animals. There are similar cliff dwellings in many parts of the world where one of the advantages is protection from flash floods (a serious concern in dry areas) and/or wild fires (another coming concern depending on the area). We spend a lot of time, energy, and money on mitigation for those when historically such events were treated as somewhere between inevitable and required. But there's definitely fear there too. And as my friend in Australia likes to say, "dry, desolate areas make for mean, aggressive inhabitants..."
5:23 maybe that's because its hard to attack tall buildings, which is one of the reasons to live far from the ground as possible in big cities. I'm a person that grew in a small 100K city, going to the big city is always adventure. I feel like I am in a jungle, its very unsafe, how can people live like that ? but then I enter a tell building, its a castle, I feel safer now, you can't be robbed or pillaged if you're 100m above the ground and there's only one entrance via an elevator, very, very safe. But then you have to walk in the streets, again, adventure, very unsafe. I still wouldn't trade it for living 150y in the past.
A lot of castles (at least in Europe) were offensive structures -- they weren't to defend against attackers, but to keep your attacking troops safe from locals who might not want to be attacked.
That comment about windows makes me wonder about architectural styles. While I don't think the correlation is 1:1 or necessarily is causation, I could imagine the brutalist style subconsiously being linked to their fortress-ey nature with the rise of the Cold War. The Barbican Estate in London is more overt about it, visually walling itself off from the outside despite being a semi-public space, and is named after a structure found on some castles.
I would argue that forts don't equal fear, but rather precaution. Even a base understanding of human history will tell you that the most dangerous threat to you and your community is other humans. Having a fort doesn't necessarily mean "I'm afraid that someone is coming to kill me" but rather "I am aware of the dark side of human nature and would rather be prepared." To me the word "fear" has a guttural, primal meaning to it. Basements and caves are places you go when you have fear, a fort is something you build when you're prepared. You can be prepared for the future while still remaining logical and in control of your emotions.
there were likely also settlements on the farmland below, but the dry environment and stone constructions mean we are just seeing what survived. All the poorly defended wood, mud and leather constructions faded away long ago, which biases the conclusions we can draw
This made me really curious, so I looked into it a bit. The best info I found was from the US national park service website. They stated the following: during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa tops for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began moving into pueblos they built into natural cliff alcoves. The structures ranged in size from one-room granaries to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they lived in cliff dwellings, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. In the mid-1200s, the population began migrating to the south, into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By the end of the 1200s, most everyone had migrated away.
@stevexracer4309 i don't know. Maybe. I'm not an archeologist. I imagine that there would still be signs of the settlement on the valley floor I expect they would have found. But I would also expect the Native Americans would have settled the valley floor first. All I can say is that I could not find mention of it online and don't recall any info about valley floor settlements when I visited.
You're not wrong on any of this or any of your analysis, however I also wonder about threats from the environment and animals. There are similar cliff dwellings in many parts of the world where one of the advantages is protection from flash floods (a serious concern in dry areas) and/or wild fires (another coming concern depending on the area). We spend a lot of time, energy, and money on mitigation for those when historically such events were treated as somewhere between inevitable and required. But there's definitely fear there too. And as my friend in Australia likes to say, "dry, desolate areas make for mean, aggressive inhabitants..."
5:23 maybe that's because its hard to attack tall buildings, which is one of the reasons to live far from the ground as possible in big cities.
I'm a person that grew in a small 100K city, going to the big city is always adventure. I feel like I am in a jungle, its very unsafe, how can people live like that ? but then I enter a tell building, its a castle, I feel safer now, you can't be robbed or pillaged if you're 100m above the ground and there's only one entrance via an elevator, very, very safe. But then you have to walk in the streets, again, adventure, very unsafe.
I still wouldn't trade it for living 150y in the past.
A lot of castles (at least in Europe) were offensive structures -- they weren't to defend against attackers, but to keep your attacking troops safe from locals who might not want to be attacked.
I was at Mesa Verde with my family a few years ago and saw the sun temple aswell. Wild place and it felt unreal.
That comment about windows makes me wonder about architectural styles. While I don't think the correlation is 1:1 or necessarily is causation, I could imagine the brutalist style subconsiously being linked to their fortress-ey nature with the rise of the Cold War. The Barbican Estate in London is more overt about it, visually walling itself off from the outside despite being a semi-public space, and is named after a structure found on some castles.
That is so profound. I think there's a lot of truth in this idea. JB
Really great point of view. I had not thought about it that way before
I would argue that forts don't equal fear, but rather precaution. Even a base understanding of human history will tell you that the most dangerous threat to you and your community is other humans. Having a fort doesn't necessarily mean "I'm afraid that someone is coming to kill me" but rather "I am aware of the dark side of human nature and would rather be prepared." To me the word "fear" has a guttural, primal meaning to it. Basements and caves are places you go when you have fear, a fort is something you build when you're prepared. You can be prepared for the future while still remaining logical and in control of your emotions.
there were likely also settlements on the farmland below, but the dry environment and stone constructions mean we are just seeing what survived. All the poorly defended wood, mud and leather constructions faded away long ago, which biases the conclusions we can draw
This made me really curious, so I looked into it a bit. The best info I found was from the US national park service website. They stated the following: during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa tops for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began moving into pueblos they built into natural cliff alcoves. The structures ranged in size from one-room granaries to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they lived in cliff dwellings, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. In the mid-1200s, the population began migrating to the south, into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By the end of the 1200s, most everyone had migrated away.
@stevexracer4309 i don't know. Maybe. I'm not an archeologist. I imagine that there would still be signs of the settlement on the valley floor I expect they would have found. But I would also expect the Native Americans would have settled the valley floor first. All I can say is that I could not find mention of it online and don't recall any info about valley floor settlements when I visited.
Very interesting.
Nice.
But we still have lots of mental walls.
Firsties!
Like means corpse
Lijk. The best pun I've ever seen in Dutch was gevarLIJK, on a sign warning about train crossings. It finds the word corpse in the word danger. JB
@@GoodandBasic Haha