I think that the junction of history and science is absolutely fascinating. Some random examples which I have come across:

1) Dating the westward spread of Islam by trace metal abundances in cast swords - geochemistry
2) Understanding the silver rush in Bolivia by comparing remains of introduced European species with indigenous examples - zooarchelogy
3) Understanding Roman trade routes by analysing pigments from Pompeii frescos - geochemistry and mineralogy
4) Further insights into this subject by analysing mosaic tesserae - palaeontology and mineralogy.
5) Understanding early metal smelting in Anatolia (probably the first area) by mineralogy, geochemistry and reconstructions
6) Understanding the Cyprus copper industry, mentioned in the OT and going back at least as far as the Phoenicians using similar tools.

Who could fail to be excited by such interesting work?

Who could not Fulhamish who could not.

Love is a cultural construct. For example, romantic love, where a man courts a woman, is self-evident for us today. You can be forgiven for thinking that it has always existed. Actually, it was invented in the Middle Ages, more precisely by Provencal minstrels in the 11th century and refined by Petrarch in the 14th century. Those guys wrote some great poems that convinced the world that it was noble to pine for a woman. Before them, such a sentiment was considered ridiculous by everyone except the one pining.

Love is a is a chemical process in the brain and is consequence of evolution.
Men have been courting women since well before the Middle Ages. There are plenty of love poems in Ancient Greek for example. Poetry, of course, is a cultural construct, but love is biological.

Spyman, every human thought is a chemical process in the brain, duh.

Lust is a consequence of evolution, not love. Love is a consequence of culture.

Finally, I was talking about romantic love. Let me repeat myself: "convinced the world that it was noble to pine for a woman". An ancient Greek would never consider that noble. He'd extol the beauty of his mistress, but if he knew about our idea of romance, he'd consider it pure masochism.

I have to admit the idea that romantic love was invented by minstrels sounds absurd. Why on earth would someone want to listen about such things if the concept was entirely alien to them? For the same reason Holywood doesn't make films about the joy of stacking boxes to form unusual geometric patterns. You can observe how unappealing romantic stories are to people with no romantic interest by sitting a 7 year old down to watch Casablanca. It just don't work.

Well, just because there isn't much written about love before XI century doesn't mean that love is a construct itself. Simply there was no point to write about romances before then - we should consider literature evolution. Back to the past, as spyman said, a lot of writers (not only poets) wrote about love, and in some cases it's pretty much the conception of love we are used to (see Virgil, for example).
But as the conception of love varies in time, we cannot define "love". We can look for "that feature" being present in ALL the affective relationship in history, so linking brothership, friendship, adult or young love, and find a common point, which is then enriched by the factual situation (considering all the possible aspects depending on environments and times). If we do that we are not dealing with love in its usual conception, but how else could we deal with it?
Then, obviously there's the chemical process and the rest, but this seems to me to be the second step: something has to start the process, before.

Octavious, yeah, it sounds absurd, I agree. They were very influential, though. It's a fashion that caught. Did you know that many people in Romantic England used to limp because Byron limped? It was fashionable, never mind that Byron actually hurt his leg :)

BreathOfVega, I was talking about romantic love. Romantic love. Ahhh... it's so hard to talk to morons...

"so hard to talk to morons..."

The life of a misunderstood genius huh Zmaj?

What about ancient Greek poetry? What about romantic love in mythology? And do you seriously believe that romantic love is a purely European phenomenon?
That said this is interesting nonsense. Where did you get this idea from?

"It's an interesting topic, but if you're going to be as opinionated and irrational as in the religious threads, I don't want to discuss it with you, SantaClausowitz."
"BreathOfVega, I was talking about romantic love. Romantic love. Ahhh... it's so hard to talk to morons..."

So, who's the moron? :D

Always the one asking rhetorical questions, BreathOfVega.

A part from all your bullshits (you clearly do not know Sappho nor Alcaeus or Mimnermo, why bothering to pretend to know a bit on the argument? Do you want be pleased, good child?) a little brain would have suggested that I wrote before seeing your intervention. Not that it changes much: you replied as I had written directly to you... Well, no, no offense :D
This I can reply to you, since you're so nice: you were talking about romantic love but we already got past it, saying that it evolves and had evolved in time. BUT, if you want to write about it, please do not say nonsense. Please.

"He'd extol the beauty of his mistress, but if he knew about our idea of romance, he'd consider it pure masochism."
Oh my god... Anacreon, forgive him...

Lust is biological, but so is love, even if 'romantic behaviour' or what counts as an expression of love is a cultural phenominum.

Love exists across cultrures, romances varies across cultures. There is some truth to the idea that, in europe at least, these poets had an impact on the idea of 'courtly love', it may have shaped the meaning of the word love in english. But there is still biology going on underneath the cultural layer of rationalisations and naratives in our brains.

What about the ancient Greek play Lysistrata wherein the women convince the men to stop fighting a war because they're not going to sex them up until they do? There's plenty of pining over women in that play from 400 BCE or so, and several characters are consoled and/or commiserated with due to their forced abstinence.

@spyman - I was about to mention the whole motivation for Homer's Illiad. Was not love the factor that drove the two kingdoms to the final conflict of their nine year war?

Similar conception of romantic love in ancient times (I don't know enough to dispute this but it is a different kind of love, as seen by the little boys) + Conception of romantic love today does not= A conception of romantic love in the period in between.

If you want to see where love truly returns to the classical examplr you have to understand that enlightenment society looked to the ancients, while the also, not coincidentally, shaped many of ideas about human nature, including its existence.

Is Santa seriously suggesting that love is an invented social construct that has no basis in biology?

This easily goes in the Top 5 list of "Whackiest Things I've Read in the Webdip Forum".

"This easily goes in the Top 5 list of "Whackiest Things I've Read in the Webdip Forum". "

I'd have to argue with that list mainly because time and again you cast doubt that you read anything on this forum. For example, my response to the last time you made this dense assertion is below.

"No one is saying love doesn't exist, love afterall is related to some degree to those biological forces we discussed, but I think the fact that it had such less importance during this period and took such a different form shows that there is nothing static and immutable about our conception of love"

Sex does have a biological basis, Love is a social construct and conceptions of love differ across time and place. Sure love is based in biology, but that does not mean conceptions of love are not constructed. The fact you think our conception of love is universal and based squarely in biology just shows you to be ignorant. Cary on.

I mean seriously, do you read? I really want to know...

Reminds me of that time when you damned us all in a thread for completely ignoring Muslim history when the majority of people who had posted had mentioned Muslim history. Its just baffling. How do you even decide what to write?

"Love is a social construct"

This could be proved but you would need to find an example of a human society which has no concept of love. If all societies have a concept of love then this would suggest the love is part of human nature and is just as biological as lust.

I think it is fair to say that social institutions that are associated with love in varying ways. Thus some societies speak of "love marriages" to differentiate them from "arranged marriages". But in this case it is marriage which is the social construct and not love itself.

I think that is also true to an extent that how we express love is a product of culture. For example should we frequently kiss and hug our children? Or is this mollycoddling? Do we tell our spouses that we love them, or do we find it hard to say the words? No doubt there is a cultural element involved here.

typo... social institutions *are associated with love in varying ways

Sex has a physical basis, love has a psychological basis; complex biology involved in life long pair bonding (across the animal kingdom) is described as 'love' and in culture it is romanticized - to a varying degree.

This of course neglects the fact the human study of animal mating behaviour is biased by human cultural ideas about love... Fortunately science is self-correcting.

Look at the history of science to see this self-correction in progress, and the true history of science not the lies to children...

A closely related concept to love which probably could be considered a social construct is monogamy. This is something which is not found in every culture, and even in cultures in which it is considered to be normal, it can be problematic and difficult to maintain, as it goes against some biological urges.

SantaClausowitz: Sorry if you already mentioned this, but what motivated you to ask this question?

"love afterall is related to some degree to those biological forces we discussed, but I think the fact that it had such less importance during this period..."

Less importance to who? Edward II's love for Piers Gaveston had a pretty big effect on the course of the former's reign and the history of 14th century England. If Froissart is to be believed, It was the plea of Edward III's beloved wife that saved the Burghers of Calais from execution. Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald of France, certainly didn't elope with Baldwin I of Flanders because of the social constructs of the time (daddy, in fact, tried to get her excommunicated over it).

"...and took such a different form shows that there is nothing static and immutable about our conception of love"

Different from what? Love was a frequent topic of the literature of the time (as you've acknowledged), and as I've pointed out, love occasionally had a serious effect on the course of history in medieval times. Sure, the upper crust didn't marry for love, but that is pretty common for the Elites in any society throughout time where marriages between families are a way to solidify alliances, improve political positions, settle feuds, and inherit power in a time when political power was very inheritable. Do you really think Alexander of Macedon married Stateira out of love? The future George IV was forced to marry Caroline of Brunswick after also being forced to dump his mistress/secret wife Maria Fitzherbert for political reasons. I'm sure there are tons of other similar examples falling outside the medieval period.

"Sure love is based in biology... The fact you think our conception of love is universal and based squarely in biology just shows you to be ignorant. Cary on."

Now I'm confused. Is love based in biology or not? Maybe my reading comprehension would improve if you did not contradict yourself so repetitively.

"Reminds me of that time when you damned us all in a thread for completely ignoring Muslim history when the majority of people who had posted had mentioned Muslim history."

Apparently my reading comprehension - poor as you claim it to be - is still better than your memory. It had appeared to me in that thread that defeats of Muslims in battle were seen as historically significant, but Muslim victories were not. My "damning" was simply to ask aloud why this was.

"How do you even decide what to write?"

Well generally, I think to myself "What would annoy SantaClausowitz the most?" and go from there.

Tolstoy, incoherent lumps of historical data don't a historian make. I should have stuck to the original topic. Mentioning love, one of the concepts that everybody is an expert on, is a sure way to fuck up a thread. And Santa was actually having a reasonable debate before vultures like Tolstoy appeared.

"incoherent lumps of historical data don't a historian make"

History is nothing but the effort to make sense of a progression of incoherent lumps of data.