(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Shortly after we invented intelligence, we invented boredom. And shortly after that, we invented games. I said in the discussion of toys that they’re intended for play, and associated primarily … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) In studying the archaeological record, it can be a bit difficult to tell when you’re looking at a toy. After all, toys are mostly defined by their use: they’re intended … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) It’s all well and good to take an extended tour through all the different corners of stuff your fictional world might contain. But as in the proverb about the elephant … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) It might seem odd to bundle a discussion of poison in with our exploration of medicine, but as the sixteenth-century Swiss physician known as Paracelsus said, “All things are poison, … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) I was initially going to title this essay “Folk Medicine.” But some of what I’ve discussed already falls under that header, and there are plenty of other medical treatments that … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Ah, the humble herb. Simultaneously a relic of a bygone medical era, and one of the cutting edges of pharmaceutical research today. The term “herb” doesn’t have a very rigid … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Just as the miasma theory of disease wanders in the direction of something useful (germs) before veering off to be totally wrong (bad air), so too does the notion of … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Some cities are special. Capitals are the obvious example of this — in some ways all the more so because not all cities you think of as capitals actually have … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Our image of a premodern city tends to vaguely involve squalid buildings crammed cheek by jowl, tightly hemmed in by a defensive wall with a few monumental gates cut into … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Defining a “city” is easier said than done. Much ink has been spilled on that topic in fields ranging from archaeology (we can’t study the rise of urban settlements without … Continue reading
