Jonathan

Jonathan paused suddenly. It was late, and he thought about the materials that might be used in papermaking, as well as about how to process them.

He realized that he was in a shower. Next to him was a pretty modern looking toilet. He knew of course, that the toilet and everything else here was powered by magic, but it was pretty modern looking.

The art style, at least the parts of it that he had seen until now, looked like they were out of the European medieval ages.

This was all things considered, pretty unlikely.

Also, the ancient Empire of Heranum seemed a bit like the Roman Empire. But it was not in the same place.

The languages were drastically different, as well as the writing system used by the inhabitants of this region of his new world, but this was how it should be.

Even if the starting conditions of an entire world were only slightly different, something totally different should happen, especially considering that the change happened, with utmost certainty, multiple millennials ago, at the very least.

And the change was not minor. It was at least the addendum of magic to the world. He already knew that mages could change landscapes dramatically, so it also should twist history into an unrecognizable something. But much stayed identical.

Of course, some parts of it were practicability. There are only so many ways architecture can develop without certain materials and tools. But while some parts of the architecture might be recognizable, the culture around it is more of a stretch.

There were multiple things that influenced the culture in his world that should not have a real equivalent in this world. Jesus and the rise of the Christian religion would come into Jonathan's mind first.

The main reason why Christianity managed to rise was that it had been persecuted for centuries beforehand. And the reason for that was the monotheistic nature of Christianity. It had survived due to a combination of factors, but he did not know enough to be certain about more.

And that was beside the point.

The culture was incredibly similar, eerily so, in fact.

As he considered this, he asked himself how cultures form, and how they can dominate such large swathes of land.

The answer to the first question was on one hand incredibly simple and on the other hand unbelievable complex. So complex in fact that it is often impossible to find out what started a certain part of the culture. Some parts of the culture are pretty simple to find out, at least in a very general way. Others are not.

Cultures start when groups of more than three people live together. Everyone knows about these small family traditions. Maybe your family sings a certain song every time a family member has a birthday, maybe you begin lunch or dinner around the same time every day, or your family always eats breakfast together.

Many of these traditions are part of the daily life of those that follow them, but some are for special occasions.

If these traditions are not only in your generation or the direct adherent to yours, they are part of a family culture.

Traditions can stand outside culture, but culture is always a string of traditions. And if those traditions spread beyond your immediate family, the culture spreads as well.

Culture, as he knew it, was an amalgamation of many small traditions, combined into a gigantic whole. Even a small change when a culture starts could massively change it, after just a few centuries or even only decades.

So how where they so eerily similar to the medieval culture he knew? It was certainly possible but unlikely.

In fact, it would have been more likely if they would have used the same language that was spoken in this region in the middle ages.

He did not know too much about the early forms of german, but that was not it, of this, he was almost certain.

It was a puzzle, and a puzzle that he felt would need an answer.

He reminisced about how he thought that cultures spread beyond a community. There were multiple easy forms of spreading to consider. The first and, in his mind, the most obvious was warfare and conquest.

This was closely followed by colonization. If your culture group were the first in the area, your culture would likely be the dominant there. Of course, there was always the possibility that the culture in that region changed, which was especially likely if the environmental conditions were drastically different, as well as if the colony was not anywhere new the centre of your culture.

But besides these methods, there was another big method. Some might argue it was the one method of how culture spreads and changes that had the most influence over all cultures in the modern world.

And this method was trade. If someone has access to goods you need, you want to accommodate him, sometimes to make the trade even possible, sometimes to get a better deal for yourself.

And so you will change parts of your behaviour to match the culture of the other party. And sometimes these changes will swap over into your culture.

And that trade is possible over truly massive distances for millennials, has been known for a really long time. And not only sporadic trade, there is evidence of trade networks, that were used regularly, which span hundreds of kilometres, and that in the bronze age of Europe.

In areas where stone tools were just going out of fashion.

These trade routes were also used to exchange genetic material through marriage, or at least that is the presumption.

Or at least he thought so, it was a bit since he read the article.

During his musings, he had clothed himself and was now ready to go to bed.

While it might be interesting to know how this was possible, he would certainly not answer that question while being tired and in his room.

Maybe there were some convenient documents just lying around which hold all the answers?

Jonathan snorted at that thought: “Now, that is an unlikely theory. But who knows, maybe there is an explanation known to the inhabitants of my new world, and I must only ask the right questions.”

After this sentence, he added, in a nearly unhearable voice: “That is even more unlikely…” The rest of that sentence was unhearable and Jonathan did not know if he even said something after his voice faded out.