True, and people were only working with what they had available. It's frustrating to think they were closer to the source in time, but modern Western researchers have probably become somewhat more culturally open, and that helps. R.E. Howard, who sometimes seems silly by today's standards, was pretty well state of the art on anthropology and history and not bad on archaeology, for his time. Also, despite common criticism to the contrary, and his acceptance of the racial/tribal realities that dominated his time and all of human history (our time too, though people are in denial), he took occasions to get in little digs against divisionism (things like "Do you mean to tell me you're going to take the side of a Mohammedan against a man of your own race?!" "Yes, that's what I mean....")....oh, and in the stories he actually wrote, Conan used his brain (the challenge of the situation was often that his muscle an physical ability weren't enough alone), and his characters did exhibit considerable mental variety, which is why the converted stories throw the C-man's personality in annoyingly uncharacteristic directions...........off topic? Where's my dang map? :D