Posts: 890 Location: Austria
Tue 05 May, 2009 10:53 am
Mark Millman wrote: |
Dear Mr. Manning,
On Mon 04 May 2009, you wrote: | I'm not sure what to think about the Hurstvic study since it doesn't give any explanations of why its hypothetical height, body weight, and summer work schedule are reasonable. For example, when does their hypothetical Norseman rest and eat? |
I don't know what the conventions for this type of nutritional study may be, but they probably influenced the example's body mass and schedule, and seem likely to be available on line. To address your specific question, Hurstwic's hypothetical subject must eat and rest during the three hours of "general activity" that the study description mentions.
Best,
Mark Millman |
But if you're resting or eating, you generally aren't doing anything active, eh? From what I know of labourers in high medieval England, they took an hour and a half or two hours off in mid-day for a meal and a nap, and sometimes other breaks. The article doesn't give references to justify its assumptions, and it doesn't explain why it chose them in the text. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm saying I don't know enough to tell if its right. I think a nutritional analysis like that is a promising approach, though!
Posts: 626 Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland
Tue 05 May, 2009 12:30 pm
Sean Manning wrote: |
Mark Millman wrote: | Dear Mr. Manning,
On Mon 04 May 2009, you wrote: | I'm not sure what to think about the Hurstvic study since it doesn't give any explanations of why its hypothetical height, body weight, and summer work schedule are reasonable. For example, when does their hypothetical Norseman rest and eat? |
I don't know what the conventions for this type of nutritional study may be, but they probably influenced the example's body mass and schedule, and seem likely to be available on line. To address your specific question, Hurstwic's hypothetical subject must eat and rest during the three hours of "general activity" that the study description mentions.
Best,
Mark Millman |
But if you're resting or eating, you generally aren't doing anything active, eh? From what I know of labourers in high medieval England, they took an hour and a half or two hours off in mid-day for a meal and a nap, and sometimes other breaks. The article doesn't give references to justify its assumptions, and it doesn't explain why it chose them in the text. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm saying I don't know enough to tell if its right. I think a nutritional analysis like that is a promising approach, though! |
Yes, it would be nice to know why they chose an individual with the values they did. They were probably just those of the person conducting the analysis. It would have been better if they had chosen the values based off of mean of values from period male remains. For instance, I'm almost certain 180cm would be quite tall for the time. However, it is very difficult to determine weight based off of skeletal remains. You can tell what a persons diet was strong in from bone analysis and can examine weight related wear but other than that I don't believe you can accurately determine what an individuals mass would have been.
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