Do Tech, Tools and Culture Change How We Move?
Yes, said anthropologist Marcel Mauss. They influence how we sit, walk, dig, march, climb stairs, even our hand positions
While working as an interpreter for the French army during WW1, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) noticed how French and British soldiers couldn’t use each other’s spades to dig trenches.
It meant every time a division of French troops relieved their English counterparts (and vice versa), they had to change 8,000 spades.
As you can see below, the tools of the trade were radically different.
Digging techniques weren’t the only cultural difference. After six months of watching the British Worcester Regiment stride up and down the streets of the Flanders town of Bailleul, Mauss realised that French and British soldiers didn’t even march in the same way.
This became clear when the British regiment acquired a band of French buglers and drummers. This fancy band of musicians was a reward for “considerable glory alongside French infantry in the Battle of the Aisne” (these are Mauss’ words). But…
