When does it *feel* to you that the new year starts ?

[Torco]

I don't think i know that that was the case: we know goods moving across vast distances wasn't rare in the ancient world, the byzantines had mostly danish royal guard, christianity spread pretty fast... I don't know whether people migrate more now or whether they did so more back in the day (for any given value of back in the day, very possibly the answer varies by century and country)

[Ares Land]

I don't think i know that that was the case: we know goods moving across vast distances wasn't rare in the ancient world, the byzantines had mostly danish royal guard, christianity spread pretty fast... I don't know whether people migrate more now or whether they did so more back in the day (for any given value of back in the day, very possibly the answer varies by century and country)

Very much your last point. Apparently at certain periods in the middle ages people would move around a lot more than we'd expect.
But 'move around' is in the sense of 'start a new life someplace else' or 'go on a pilgrimage'.

Judging from some genealogical research I did though... People were really, really sedentary in early modern times, often even up to the last half of the XXth century.

[Torco]

Yeah and, by contrast, moving house per person per annum was probably much higher in the fifth century in germany than it is today.

[hwhatting]

I don't think i know that that was the case: we know goods moving across vast distances wasn't rare in the ancient world, the byzantines had mostly danish royal guard, christianity spread pretty fast... I don't know whether people migrate more now or whether they did so more back in the day (for any given value of back in the day, very possibly the answer varies by century and country)

The number of people doing that compared to the general population - missionaries, traders, wandering tradesmen and artists, mercenaries, students and scholars - was much lower than today, though; and many of them would not only not be back home for the holidays, but never even return to their native villages / towns at all.

Yeah and, by contrast, moving house per person per annum was probably much higher in the fifth century in germany than it is today.

But that were mass migrations - entire tribes and people moving together, permanently. I don't think that, say, the Vandals had a habit of going back to Silesia for Yuletide every year from North Africa

[Torco]

every year? is this... dareisay... the norm in the first world?

[hwhatting]

every year? is this... dareisay... the norm in the first world?

Well, you mentioned people in Peru doing that, and from what I read, going home for Chinese New Year from the big cities to somewhere in rural China thousands of kilometers away each year is a mass phenomenon in China.
I mean, that was my understanding of what we were discussing originally - going home for some specific holidays from places people moved to as a mass phenomenon and common part of life, not just whether some people left their home towns at all, or would come back occasionally.

[Torco]

as i understood it we were on the frequency of such behavior as compared to today, i.e. that in the past it was much less frequent. on the whole I think for a moderate value of 'much' (say, 10 to 100 times) this is probably true... i must have subbed in my head 'much more rare' with something like 'unheard of' or sth (say, 1e3 to 5 or so).