The deepest sense

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I thought it was very interesting in Constance Classen's The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, that he spend time discussing the environment of the houses that people in the dark ages. In particular I really enjoyed the description of beds, simply because they were so vastly different from ours. looking back at all of the rough textures of the past it makes us modern day people look like wimps. I think that without all of those rough textures our skin and our receptors in our skin are probably alot more sensitive. I also wonder how different their brains would be, would the area of the brain related to touch be larger or smaller? He mentions that they way that people heated their homes was with fire. The rooms would be filled with smoke from the fire place and make everything they own smell like smoke. I personally love the smell of firewood and its very noticeable to me. After awhile I bet they couldn't even smell it anymore. Does that mean that our noses are also more sensitive? 

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