
Burned house horizon - curtis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon
======
po
An oddly interesting mystery. I could imagine a culture deciding that there is
some worthy symbolic value in renewal by fire.

In Japan there is the Ise Grand Shrine which is torn down and rebuilt every 20
years since year 692. The design is unique, specified exactly and never
changes so it is always both ancient and freshly new.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine)

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dubhrosa
Irish "travellers", related to Romany gypsies, still burned the caravan of
someone who died, at least up to 25 years ago (when I was a kid living close
to a halting site). Maybe someone should ask them why they do that.

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oli5679
They still do this:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3613126/Travellers-b...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3613126/Travellers-
burn-four-caravans-Queen-Gipsies-possessions-ancient-rite.html)

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joncp
Clearly, this is what they did when they found a spider of sufficient size in
their hut.

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YokoZar
This idea is actually in the article:

> _Fumigation: Another theory posits that the fires were used for sanitary
> reasons to smoke or fumigate a building, in order to get rid of pests,
> disease, insects, and /or witches. However, the evidence does not support
> this viewpoint. All of the structures within these settlements were
> completely burned and destroyed. Because the damage from the fire was almost
> total for the entire settlement, it would be illogical if fumigation was the
> only intent._

~~~
Shivetya
while I enjoy the spider meme I liked the last proposed idea that the culture
treated it as the end of life for the house. perhaps it was tied to a certain
number of generations having come and gone.

the question I have is, how much at risk did this put these people at, did it
retard their ability to expand?

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Chris2048
I have my own theory - artificial scarcity. They needed to keep their
builders, potters and glass makers in business.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, they were probably already aware that real estate bubbles are dangerous
for the economy.

~~~
JackFr
Now on HGTV 'Flip or Flop: Neolithic'

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jerf
Despite the fact the article suggests it's not the probably cause, this does
make me abstractly wonder if there could be some sort of virtue in firing a
clay house. In modern times we'd probably go with concrete if we were going to
go that route, but ceramic is more available back then. Then again, getting
good kiln temperatures from a neolithic fire could be a challenge. Although
depending on how you constructed your clay house it might just be possible to
fire it with a fire from the inside and retain enough heat to fire the house.
Though possibly you're designing a house from the get-go that won't have
adequate airflow.

Anyone familiar enough with ceramics to comment on it? (Bearing in mind I do
fully expect this to be impractical on the grounds that nobody seems to do it.
I'm more interested in the process of intellectually kicking the idea around
than the probably-trivially-easy act of shooting it down.)

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twic
'Geltaftan':

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_houses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_houses)

~~~
jerf
Thank you! That is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to scare up. Didn't
even occur to me that there might be a result for that sort of a search.

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tibbon
I wonder in 3,000 years (after a loss of many records) if they'll be debating
a "Burned Man Theory", and trying to figure out why some weirdos kept setting
up and burning a man every year in the middle of nowhere.

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codingdave
If they do, the Burning Man crowds need better lessons in "Leave No Trace"

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Broken_Hippo
They might not have traces of the actual event. Rather, there will be mentions
of it in articles and leftovers from social media. Pictures and stories of it.

It will likely be written in some weird version of English, and they won't
really know for certain if they have the terms correct.

And this is just going by what we have now.

And then some occult kids somewhere will think it is pretty cool, and make up
a story to go with it. And the cycle will continue. (or not, but it seems like
a good ending).

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codeddesign
My first thought was disease or outbreak prevention.

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MrQuincle
Yes. Makes sense to me, and probably the habit had been ritualistic. Hence a
combination of fumigation and religion.

What kind of diseases would actually be prevented by burning down single towns
though?

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_coldfire
This was prehistoric. How much knowledge did they actually have of diseases
and their causes?

You'll still contract smallpox from your neighbour regardless of whether you
burnt your village down or not.

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misja111
They didn't have to know any details about diseases and their causes. It's
enough if they noticed that people living in the village were getting sick all
the time, while people living outside were not. Apparently 'something' had
gotten into their village and it made sense to burn it down and build it up
again.

And I guess it worked because burning their villages was a way to get rid of
disease spreading pests and insects.

~~~
hinkley
Driving out evil spirits is a perfectly workable theory in a culture lacking
both the scientific method and microscopes.

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codingdave
This doesn't sound all that different than the tear-downs I see happening in
50-60 year old neighborhoods in Denver. (And presumably other cities.) The
cheaply built post-WWII homes are wearing down, so developers bulldoze them
and build something bigger and shinier. Stick-built suburban homes are
probably looking at the same fate in a few decades, too. So if your building
technology has a lifespan, and bulldozers do not exist, sure, why not burn and
rebuild? It would provide better shelter than trying to sustain a structure
that is falling apart.

~~~
brenschluss
YES. As an architect currently renovating a nightmare of a 100-year old
building, I completely agree with you here. I feel like the article is missing
a little bit the perspective of people making buildings.

The older and more broken a building gets, more often than not it's easier and
quicker to rip everything out and build anew than to fix a problem.
Contractors hate fixing other peoples' work and would rather rebuild pipe,
conduit, masonry, etc, rather than fix it.

I can imagine that with Neolithic building technology, buildings had a limited
lifecycle - cracking, mold/rot, etc, and eventually got to a point where each
building would have to be demolished. Burning would probably make demolishing
earlier - be the quickest way to turn everything into easily moveable ash and
rubble so the lot could be cleared for building again.

See also: stubble burning
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stubble_burning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stubble_burning))

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rdtsc
Didn't find it in the article but is "scorched earth" a possible reason? I am
guessing not as the article would have said so. And there were not large
organized armies during that time...

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3131s
That's mentioned under the "Theories" section, #3 Aggression. It says it's
unlikely because they haven't found burned remains inside the houses, or
nearby remains that show signs of a violent death.

~~~
rdtsc
That's different. I saw the "Aggression" paragraph. That implies burning
happening during the battle with victims in the buildings?

"Scorched Earth" means burning buildings, destroying crops, covering up wells
ahead of time to deny invaders those facilities. Then presumably fleeing into
the woods or mountains...

~~~
3131s
It seems "scorched earth" can have two closely related definitions:

" _A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that targets anything that
might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an
area. [...] The practice can be carried out by the military in enemy
territory, or in its own home territory._ "

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth)

Still though, the "Aggression" paragraph seems to imply that researchers
believe that war was not common in these societies.

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salex89
Just to add to the discussion, there is a _mythical_ practice in my part of
the world called lapot:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapot).

As far as I know, the existence was never confirmed. But maybe the purpose is
the same?

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Chris2048
"In some places corn mush was put on the head of the victim to make it seem as
if the corn, not the family, was the killer."

Simpler times..

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tantalor
In this case, "horizon" is used in the archaeological sense of "a level of an
excavated site representing a particular period."

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djokkataja
Wait, no one else here does this?

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gedy
Yes, but with JavaScript frameworks every year or so

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coldcode
Perhaps they had a primitive insurance system and an easy claims process. /jk

It isn't easy to look at a civilization from so far away and determine why
they did things. But in a primitive society, burning might be the easiest
method of demolition.

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smnscu
In Romania it's well known that we used to burn down our crops and poison the
wells before the Turks or Ottomans would come.

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ceejay
About 10 years ago I was told that Detroit MI has/had a similar "tradition"
around Halloween.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Night)

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24gttghh
The final theory in the article, #7: "Symbolic end of house" makes the most
sense to me based on the refutations listed for the other theories...

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anatoly
Obviously dragons.

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dotancohen
Maybe they crave light so badly during solar eclipses that they burn their
entire settlements just for the light?

For those unfamiliar: Nightfall

