Subject: Re: Egyptian junkie pharaohs
From: juan@trivium.gh.ub.es (jordi juan-tresserras)
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 07:53:20 GMT
William strawbridge wrote:
>Claudio De Diana wrote:
>>
>> solos@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert) wrote:
>> >I read an article in "The Sunday Times" yesterday saying that Egyptologists at
>> > Berlin and Manchester have discovered traces of Nicotine and cocaine in the
>> >hair of Egyptian mummies. As tobacco and cocca come from America and were not
>> >supposed to have been introduced into Europe or Africa till after the time of
>> >Columbus, this makes interesting news and implies that the Egyptians were
>> >trading across the Atlantic. When Thor Heyerdahl proved this was possible in
>> >the 1970s he was treated with derision by the Archaeological establishment.
>>
>> Walking around the Greek Theater of Siracusa (Sicily)
>> I happend to find an empty leather wallet containing only
>> a VISA credit card near a CocaCola can and some cigarettes.
>> This was interesting because meant that:
>> (1) The Greeks were trading across the Atlantic,
>> (2) the formula of Coca Cola is older than expected and
>> (3) the Greeks had a fully developed bank system although still suffering
>> from the "black friday" of the Atlantean Stocks falls.
>>
>> I reported this astonishing discover to the local police
>> station (in case that you are in a similar situation dial
>> 113 on a public phone) who, to my utterly displeasure,
>> classified the event as a "stolen wallet thrown away in the garbage
>> by the thieves" and not as a "proof of building of the
>> Siracusa's theather by an ancient population of VISA holders".
>What?
>>
>> >When Maurice Cotterell and I published "The Mayan Prophecies" last year
>> >(details at http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/mayan/index.htm ) we were
>> >treated to similar levels of abuse for daring to suggest that MesoAemerican
>> >culture was connected to a worldwide civilization in antiquity. I am therefore
>> >very interested in this latest evidence from such an unexpected source that
>> >there could indeed have been pharaohs trading with the Americas. Does anyone
>> >have anymore information on this?
>>
>> ... and, maybe some information of how the mummies that you reported
>> were stored? I am sure that if we examine them well we could even
>> found traces of lead and other products of combustion engine.
>> That does not mean that we used to get around by car but that
>> they were stocked uncorrectly.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Claudio De Diana
>Evidence is evidence. Have you read the article?
>It states cocaine and nicotine were found. These
>were found to be assimilated into the hair, i.e.: subject
>was alive at the time. Since reading Thor Heyerdahl's books
>many years ago, i've been a believer in ancient contact.
>I went on to study anthropology and archeology.
>Much to my surprise , professors seemed reluctant to discuss
>the issue. Why? My feeling is that they didn't want go against
>the Establishment's way of thinking. For me, the issue has
>absolutely nothing to do with racism. It's more the search for
>the truth. It's always seemed logical to me that there was some
>contact, where in the whole wide world were pyramids built?
>Lacking a time machine, the case for no contact can never be
>proved. Sufficient evidence will surface to change the minds
>of reasonable people. Then we can say -Yes there was some
>contact so what? - and move on.
>-----
>Regards
>Bill Strawbridge WStrawbr@mail.cosmosbbs.com
Dear all,
The presence of nicotine and cocaine metabolites in Old World
archaeology are not related with a transatlantic drug trade. The
first presence of nicotine is in PPNB human remains from the Near
East!!! E.g, it is possible to identify small amounts of nicotine in
other Old World plants as Atropa belladona, Asclepias syriaca,
Nicotiana africana,...
I send you some references about the identification of drugs in
archaeological contexts.
Abraham-H-D; Aldridge-A-M; Gogia-P (1996).- The psychopharmacology of
hallucinogens, in Neuropsychopharmacology 14(4): 285-298
Addams-KR (1990).- Prehistoric reedgrass (Phragmites) cigarettes with
tobacco (Nicotiana) contents. A case of study from Red Bluff dwelling
in Arizona, in Journal of Ethnobiology 10 (2): 123-139.
Adovasio JM & Fry GF (1976).- Prehistoric psycotropic drug use in
northern Mexico and trans-Pecos Texas, in Economic Botany 30 (1):
94-96.
Alberts-J (1991).- Food and drugs in living context. Part 1., in
Minnesota-Pharmacist 45: 21-23
BALABANOVA S.et al. (1992).- First identification of drugs in Egyptian
mummies, in Naturwissenschaften 79: 358.
BALABANOVA S. & SCHULTZ M. (1994).- Investigation of nicotine
concentrations in prehistoric human skeletons found in early neolithic
populations (Late PPNB) from the Near East (Turkey and Jordan), in
Homo 45/S. 14 (proceedings).
BALABANOVA S. & TECHLER-NICOLA M. (1994).- Was nicotine used as a
medicinal agest in ancient populations?, in Homo 45/S: 15
(proceedings).
BISSET N.G. et al. (1994).- Was opium know in 18th dinasty ancient
Egypt? An examination of materials from the tomb of the chief royal
architect Kha, in Journal of Ethnopharmacology 41 (1-2): 99-114.
CARTMELL L.W. et al. (1991).- The frequency and antiquity of
prehistoric coca leaf chewing practices in northern of Chile:
radioinmunoassay of a cocaine metabolite in human mummy hair, in Latin
American Antiquity 2: 260-268.
Brunner-TF (1977).- Marijuana in ancient Greece and Rome? The literary
evidence, en Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9 (3): 221-225.
Dunning-AJ (1995).- Opium: een oude geschiedenis. in
Ned.Tijdschr.Geneeskd.139(50): 2629-32.
Emdoen-WA (1981).- Transcultural use of narcotic water lilies in
ancient Egyptian and Maya drug ritual, in Journal of
Ethnopharmacology 3: 39-83.
Escotado A. (1989).- Historia General de las Drogas. 3 vol. Alianza
Editorial. Madrid.
(the 1992 version is recomended)
Fericgla-JM (1985).- El bolet i la genesi de les cultures. Gnoms i
follets. Ambits culturals forjats per l'Amanita muscaria.
Ed.Altafulla. Barcelona.
Fericgla-JM (1992).- Amanita muscaria usage in Catalunya, en
Integration: Zeitschrift fur Geitsbewegende Pflanten und Kultur 2-3:
63-65.
Furst-PT (1974).- Archaeological evidence for snuffing in prehispanic
Mexico, en Botanical Museum Leaflets. Harvard University 24 (1): 1-27.
GOMEZ GARCIA J. & JUAN-TRESSERRAS J. (in press).- El consumo de hachis
y el habito de fumar en el mundo cristiano medieval: la pipa del
Castillo de Cornella, in Acta Medievalia. Barcelona.
Hastorf CA (1987).- Archaeological evidence of coca (Erythroxylum
coca, Erythroxylaceae) in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru, en Economic
Botany 41 (2): 292-301.
Hendriks-H; Malingre-TM; Elema-ET (1983).- Pyrrolizidine alkaloids,
flavonoids and volatile compounds in the genus Eupatorium. Eupatorium
cannabinum L., an ancient drug with new perspectives. in
Pharm.Weekbl.Sci. 5: 281-286
HENDERSON G.L. et al. (1992).- Cocaine and cocaine metabolite
concentration in the hair of South American Coca chewers, in J. Anal.
Toxicol. 16: 199-201.
HOBMEIER U. & PARSCHE F. (1994).- Drugs in Egyptian and Peruvian
mummies, in Homo 45/S: 59 (proceedings)
Huidobro-Toro-JP (1995).- Receptores opioides a la luz de la biologia
molecular: explican mas de 6.000 anos de farmacologia empirica, en
Revista Medica Chilena 123 (5): 628-36.
JUAN-TRESSERRAS J. (1995).- Estudio arqueobotanico de los residuos
carbonizados procedentes de una pipa arabe del Castillo de Cornella
(Baix Llobregat). Informe 95/04. Servei d'Arqueologia, Generalitat de
Catalunya. Barcelona.
LEONARD K. (1991).- Pipe Dottle Analysis in the 1990's. Dept.of
Antropology, University of Toronto.
Litzinger-WJ (1981).- Ceramic evidence for prehistoric Datura use in
North America, Journal of Ehtnopharmacology 4: 57-74.
MERWE N.J. VAN DER (1975).- Cannabis smoking in 13th-14th century
Ethiopia, in RUBIN V. (Ed).- Cannabis and culture. Mouton Publishers.
The Hague/Paris. 77-80.
MIDDLETON W. (1993).- The identification of pre-hispanic coca
consumption through opal phytoliths analysis in dental calculus .
Comunicación presentada en el 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for
American Archaeology.
Nutton-V (1985).- Drug trade in antiquity.- in Journal of the Royal
Society of Medicine 78: 138-145
PALY et al. (1980).- Plasma levels of cocaine in native Peruvian coca
chewers, in JERI FR (Ed.).- Proceedings of the Interamerican Seminar
on Coca and Cocaine. Pacific Press. Lima. pp. 86-89.
SPRINGFIELD A.C.et al. (1993).- Cocaine and metabolites in the hair of
ancient Peruvian coca leaf chewers, in Forensic Science International
63: 269-275.
Yours,
Jordi
*************************************************************************
Jordi Juan i Tresserras
Unitat d'Arqueobotanica
SERP/Dept.Prehistoria, H. Antiga i Arqueologia
UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Baldiri i Reixac, s/n Torre B pis 11
E-08028-Barcelona
(Espanya, Union Europea)
tel/fax: +34.3.4248035
e-mail: juan@trivium.gh.ub.es
"Cada epoca de la historia modifica el fogon, y cada pueblo come segun
su alma, antes tal vez que segun su estomago" - Emilia Pardo Bazan
**************************************************************************
Subject: Re: Egyptian Tree Words
From: Troy Sagrillo
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 07:32:26 GMT
Saida wrote:
>
> Troy Sagrillo wrote:
> >
> > Saida wrote:
> > >
> > > Troy Sagrillo wrote:
> > >
> > > > Not at all! `ayn is a general phoneme found in most Afro-asiatic languages,
> > > > Semitic and Egyptian included, but also Berber languages.
> > >
> > > I don't know about Afro-asiatic at all, but I do know about Semitic.
> > > They certain do have the "ayin" but, then again, they also have the
> > > hard, burring "r". Of course, we have not clear idea what ancient
> > > Hebrew speakers once employed for their "r" and in modern Hebrew it has
> > > become pretty weak, probably due to the Germans who revived it, with
> > > their deep-throated "r" sound.
> >
> > The keyword here being, IMHO, "revived". Modern Hebrew is not of great
> > utility for determining the phonology of Semitic languages -- too much has
> > been losted (though I suppose Modern Hebrew spoken by Yemeni Jews might be
> > more useful than that of Germans ;-) ).
>
> I didn't mean to imply by any means that the accent lent to modern
> Hebrew by German-Jews has any bearing on how the ancient language was
> pronounced. I wonder about the usefullness of taking any clues from
> Yemenite Jews, either. Their dwelling in an Arabian land for so long
> gave them an Arabic accent, although my personal guess would be, too,
> that the Yemenite accent is closer to the original.
The Yemeni Jews also happen to at least *claim* that they used Hebrew as a
living language, unlike the Germans. However, my point is that as Arabic
speakers, they are IMHO more likely to be closer to the original than any
German Jew. But this is a side issue, eh? ;-)
> > > I strongly feel, as I said, that the
> > > Egyptians did not have the strong, forward "r" and their vocalization,
> > > identified as "ayin", seems to have been heard by Hittites, Greeks and
> > > others as a sort of nasal sound, i.e. "Ozymandias" for User-Ma'at-Re.
> > > Perhaps the trouble was their unfamiliarity with this gutteral. As you
> > > can see, the "r" in User did not make much of an impression. Sure, the
> > > "ayin" might have been there, but with Egyptian, I wouldn't take
> > > anything for granted.
> >
> > Hmmmm, I get the impression (perhaps wrongly), that you are confusing `ayn
> > with /r/; there is no `ayn in /wsr/ (your "user"). `ayn is a fairly strong
> > sound (unlike /r/) and is clearly used in Egyptian (as is demonstrated by
> > Semitic cognates and loanwords) -- though it does seem to fall out with
> > Coptic. Some Semitic loans in Egyptian with `ayn:
> >
> > Egyptian /`yn/ (spring, well) from Semitic `ayn
> > Egyptian /`mq/ (valley) from Semitic /`mq/ (eg. Arabic `amq, Ethiopic
> > `emaq)
> > Egyptian /`nb/ (grape) from Semitic /`nb/ (eg. Arabic `inab)
> >
> > But regarding the /r/, yes, by Late Egyptian it was not pronounced as can
> > be seen in the change in spelling for many words, Egyptian words in non-
> > Egyptian Languages, and in Coptic.
>
> Troy, if I can prounounce the "ayin", I am not going to confuse it with
> an "r":) "User" has no "ayin". I was referring to the "r" sound that
> was not heard by the Greeks. My point simply was: I don't trust the
> idea of giving Semitic or perhaps Arabic pronunciation to ancient
> Egyptian. If the Egyptian "r" and the Arabic "r" are not the same, why
> should the Egyptian symbol that we read as "ayin" have necessarily been
> pronounced in the Arabic way?
As I said, I was perhaps misunderstanding you -- and it seems so! Sorry. Yes,
actually, I agree with you in that I doubt that `ayn as pronounced in Egyptian
was identical to that of Arabic (heck, it varies in Arabic itself), but I
also firmly believe that the Egyptians did have a voiced pharyngeal fricative
("`ayn") in their phonological inventory. Now regarding the "r" -- we are
agreeing here. In Late Egyptian it had apparently been lost in pronunciation,
so the Greeks, et al., would not have heard it or recorded it (just as the
femin. /t/ (as in /m3`.t/ "ma`et") was not being pronounced and therefore not
recorded by non-Egyptians).
> > > BTW, I still can't find anything better for "palm tree" than the "yam" I
> > > gave before. Why would I pronounce it like that? Despite its varied
> > > spellings, the clue is provided by the spelling *reed, vulture, owl*.
> > > That is very clear, no question. Where there is an "i" before a vowel,
> > > it must be pronounced "y". That is only logical.
> >
> > Nope, it is not. All three letters (/i3m/) are consonants NOT vowels,
> > including the so-called "alif"-vulture /3/! The early Egyptologists (Budge
> > among them) treated /3/ as the vowel "a" but this is now known to be wrong.
> > Your "yam" may very well have been pronouced */ya:Rm/ in Middle Egyptian
>
> What! The vulture is no longer an "a"? I daresay the people in
> Ptolemaic times thought it was, as it is clearly visible (twice) in the
> name of "Kleopatra". That ought to be a telling clue as to what the
> glyph was used for or the Greeks would have adopted another closer one
> for spelling out the name of the queen. What evidence, preceeding this,
> makes linguists think the vulture was not an "a"???
That is absolutely correct. It is no longer the vowel "a" and never was.
Egyptian does not *normally* write vowels, just like ARabic, Hebrew, Syriac,
Aramaic, etc. The vulture /3/ is a consonant. The /i/ reed, and the /w/ chick
are also consonants. The *only* time that the /3/, /i/, or /w/ are written to
indicate vowels is in **non-Egyptian** words such as Kleopatra. Arabic is the
same -- alif, ya', and waw are all consonants, but are used as vowels in
foreign words. The Egyptians had a special system of writing foreign words
(primarily Semitic) called "group writing" or "syllabic orthography" --
"Kleopatra" is written is a very late, and much simplified, variety of this.
What makes linguists think this?? Well, here are some examples from my
previous posting (n.b., the Arabic words are *cognates* NOT loanwords):
> > b3q (bright, white) = Arabic baraq (shining, lusterous, sparkling)
> > bk3 (morning) = Arabic bakir (early); bukrah (early morning)
> > k3m (vineyard) = Arabic karm (vineyard, grapevines)
> > zb3 (flute) = Arabic zamr, zummarah (flute)
> > w3D (green) = Arabic waraq (foliage, greenery, leafage)
and to clench it:
`k3m = Semitic `Akram (a Semitic name written in Egytian)
y3mt = Semitic Yarmuta (a Semitic toponym written in Egyptian)
Since these are *Semitic* words (not cognates) written in Middle Egyptian with
the /3/ for the Semitic /r/, the Egyptians must have been hearing the "r" and
wrote it with the grapheme ("letter") most close to that sound in Egyptian --
in this case the /3/ vulture.
As you can see above, the Middle Egyptian /3/ (the vulture) is equated with
the Arabic /r/ (other Afro-asiatic languages could be subistuted, not just
Arabic -- it was the most convient for me). However, this pronunciation falls
out by Late Egyptian (and the trend apparently is well underway in Middle
Egyptian). By that point the /3/ has lost its phonetic value of /R/ and has
shifted into being a glottal stop (Arabic hamzah) -- and for this reason is
used as an "a" in foreign words in the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period.
Subject: Re:Early Human occupation of Southern Mesopotamia: was: Linguistic debates are of marginal archaeological interest to most.
From: m.levi@ix.netcom.com(M.Levi)
Date: 12 Sep 1996 09:37:11 GMT
In <517ki3$g19@shore.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
writes:
es.
>
>
>I have seen Dilmun. It stretched from Faikala down through Jubail
>to a complex stretching from Safaniyah south to Tarut, Al Khobar
>and Bahrain, Hofuf and Al Hasa controlled territory as far inland
>as Ain Dar, and as far South as Yabrin and Quatar.
realise how green that desert really was.
>
>The west coast of Saudi, anciently known as Midian is a paradise,
>its mountains are still lush and full of wild game. its terraced
>fields remind you of China or Peru with roads winding along the
>face of 9000 meter cliffs.
>
What you have seen is Saudi. Maybe the Saudi coast is Dilmun; maybe
not. There's no evidence one way or the other. No artifacts have been
recovered in the region to substantiate our interpretations of the
texts -- not a single tablet, nothing inscribed with the name Dilmun,
no 3rd m. building levels.
Everybody is dead certain Saudi must be Dilmun. Why? Because it's
green and produces dates. That's enough to put it in the running, but
not enough to prove the connection. Take into account that Saudi is
not the first all-but-certain Dilmun candidate. Twenty years ago
everyone "knew" it was Bahrain.
>
>I see the term "lugal" used frequently which I think
>means "governor", in association with words like
>"gis" which seems to mean wood or tree in Sumerian and "Eme"
>which seems to mean "beam".
Lugal means king (lit. "great man"). Lugal is sometimes used, along
with sukkal ("royal advisor"), as an adjective indicating a grade of
quality. It's pertinent to the dilmun question in that it demonstrates
how a title can function as an adjective. Thus the title dilmun might
have been reapplied to describe the quality of commodity X.
But the central problem with interpreting dilmun is distinguishing the
toponym from the adjective. This is not straightforward. For example,
we have receipts that document that "dilmun" dates and onions were
grown in Mesopotamia. What does dilmun mean in this context? Perhaps
these things have some past association with Dilmun, but perhaps not.
All one can say with certainty is "dilmun" goods were not necessarily
imported. And this is a problem because lots of conjectures about the
on-going trade with the historical Dilmun are based on passing
references to "dilmun" things. Why belabor the point? Because, even
if a receipt for "dilmun wood" HAD been recovered at Mari, it wouldn't
prove that the wood in question had come from the Gulf. It might have
been called "dilmun" for some other reason.
I'll admit that some Dilmun references are suggestive (excluding those
culled from myths because the genre does not provide reliable
economic-political information) that an emporium existed in the Gulf.
But it's bad methodology to make sweeping assertions about Dilmun
without archaeological confirmation.
On the question of early human occupation of southern Mesopotamia,
look at the actual archaeological evidence. There isn't any.
Kate
Subject: Re: 200 ton Blocks
From: Martin Stower
Date: 12 Sep 1996 12:04:02 GMT
gothic@netaxs.com (Matt Kriebel) wrote:
[deletions]
>For example: The pyramids, they were built with a lot of hard work, sweat
>and effort by ancient Egyptians. But along comes some bozo who doesn't
>understand how simple machines work, is convinced that *all* technology
>started with the roman empire, and so on. He decides that the Egyptians
>couldn't *possibly* build such a big thing. So rather than study ancient
>Egypt technology or methods, he instead decides outright that they didn't
>build it.
>
>The first such folks insisted that some Europeans must have built the
>pyramids. But this fell aside for the more fantastic 'aliens' theory..
I fully agree with the sentiment, but the details were more as follows:
The initial tendency, on the part of British protestants (including
Howard Vyse) was to attribute the pyramids to Biblical figures. The
Biblical bile directed toward the Egyptians reached frightening
proportions with Piazzi Smyth, e.g. his comments on the Sphinx:
. . . that monster, an idol in itself, with symptoms typifiying
the lowest mental organization, positively reeks with anti-Great
Pyramid idolatry throughout its substance; for when the fragments
of its colossal stone beard were discovered in the sand excavations
of 1817, it was perceived that all the internally jointing surfaces
of the blocks had been figured full of the animal-headed gods of
the most profane Egypt. . . .
and so on and so on.
Piazzi Smyth and his followers were British Israelites - devotees of the
peculiar belief that the British were one or other of the lost tribes of
Israel, the true inheritors of the Old Testament promises, and so entitled
to tell other races what to do and in general throw their weight about:
just one of the nuttier expressions of imperialist ideology. (US readers
tempted to feel superior at this point should be aware that there's an
American version of the same thing.) The growth of this school of
Pyramidology coincided - let it be noted - with the actual colonial
domination of Egypt.
By the 1920s this kind of thing had become explicitly racist - I'll post
examples after my next visit to Liverpool's Picton Library - the idea
being that `natives' couldn't possibly have done the job without someone
like a British colonial administrator to tell them what to do.
By this time another view had become popular: that Egypt was a colony of
Atlantis, and the Great Pyramid was built by wise Atlantean priests, using
levitation or somesuch - nothing so demode as manual labour. What's the
betting that these wise Atlanteans were pictured as white?
Then we got Erich von Daniken - whose tendency to confine his attentions to
non-European cultures is notorious - telling us it had to be aliens.
I am sick of this stuff. The people who insist on endlessly recycling this
tainted genre should take a good look at the shit they're wallowing in.
[deletions]
Martin Stower
Subject: Re:Early Human occupation of Southern Mesopotamia: was: Linguistic debates are of marginal archaeological interest to most.
From: Piotr Michalowski
Date: 12 Sep 1996 12:30:22 GMT
> Steve,
>
> The letter you quote is not unambiguous evidence that wood was imported
> from the Gulf to Mari. Here's the problem. Are you aware that the
> term "Dilmunites" in line 7 is the same word translated in line 14 as
> "nobles"? Check the original; the word in both is "dilmun." What
> Potts skips over all too lightly is that Dilmun is multivalent. It's
> attested on four bilingual lexical lists as an adjective that simply
> means "noble."
>
> So the problem becomes, how can you tell whether dilmun means "person
> from Dilmun" or "member of the nobility"? We have translators relying
> on intuition, saying to themselves that "Dilmunite" works here so we
> will use it, but it doesn't work there so we will translate it in the
> next line as something else.
>
snip
>
We are in agreement on many of these points. As much as I admire
POtts as an archaeologist, his use of textual data is not always
the best. In the case of the letter that has been cited by Steve,
the translation leaves much to be desired. There are indeed no nobles
in this text; it is a message concerning the provisioning of a
caravan that, among others, included envoys from Dilmun. A much
improved, collated text, together with a very different translation,
is found in B. Groneberg's article in Memoires de N.A.B.U. 2 (1992).
Since you have been working in Dilmun I assume that you know of the
collective work edited by POtts, Dilmun: New Studies in the Archaeology
and Early History of Bahrein (Berlin 1983) and Theresa Howard-
Carter's long review article of this work in the Journal of Cuneiform
Studies 39 (1987) 54-115, in which she suggests that Dilmun was a
city in southern Mesopotamia and not necessarily Falaika. The
early data is also completely rendered in W. Heimpel, Das Untere
Meer, Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 77 (1987) 22-91.
Subject: Re: Norse sailings to Vinland/Markland (Was: Deep Sea Sailing in Palaeolith)
From: mbwillia@ix.netcom.com(Mary Beth Williams)
Date: 12 Sep 1996 11:24:01 GMT
In <516qrp$nug@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com> matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt
Silberstein) writes:
>
>In sci.archaeology mbwillia@ix.netcom.com(Mary Beth Williams) wrote:
>
>[discussion of Norse in North American mostly snipped]
>
>>The peoples of Eastern Canada and Maine are matrilineal and
matrilocal,
>>meaning that the status of women was much more elevated than it would
>>have been among women from patriarchal societies such as the Norse.
>>What then would be the impetus for these women to marry Norsemen?
>
>MaryBeth I pretty much agree with you. However, I disagree with the
>implications of your question. If there had been Norse living in the
>area then I can imagine many reasons "gene mixing". Love, lust,
>attraction, politics, and social pressure create all kinds of
>interesting situations.
And familiarity also is known to breed contempt... Where would be the
attraction for women raised under egalitarianism to marry patriarchal,
hygenically-challenged, hairy, vermine-infested, socially-clueless,
status-less, etc., etc. Norsemen? Rape, I concede, may have occurred,
but we know that rape is seldom a useful means of *gene-mixing* as it
seldom results in pregnancy, and it would have also greatly threatened
any relationship between the Norse and local people. By the time that
Verazzano arrived along the coast of Maine in 1524, it was obvious the
level of contempt local Indians (purportedly, my ancestors, btw ;-D)
held for Europeans, as they stood on the shore and *mooned* the
visiting ship's crew, and refused to allow them to come ashore
(although, of course, they did take their *trinkets*, which they forced
the Europeans to tie to the Indian's ropes so they could be pulled
ashore.)
However, this depends on there being Norse
>around to interact with. As you say, there is no evidence for any
>significant effect.
>>and after a few generation it would
>>>hardly be possible to distinguish their descendants from the
>>>other natives (except for some colour differences). This
>>>acculturation is what happened to the Norse in Normandie.
>
>>The problem I have with this line of argument is that, aside from no
>>physical or *cultural* evidence, it also does not take into
>>consideration the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the
>>regions where you speculate long-term contact occured.
>
>I think this is the most pursuasive argument. I could imagine a lact
>of "technological" and "cultural" evidence (the surviving Norse may
>not have known anything useful to pass on) but I can not image a
>reason for the lack of stories. Even a little bit of contact should
>lead to tales about the Norse.
>
>>As the Wabanaki
>>have a number of *stories* describing their contact with other Indian
>>groups, why are there no such tales regarding such an important
>>phenomena as meeting such *alien* people, particularly when such
>>meetings inevitably would have lead to the tragedy seen in later
>>meetings with the the Basque and French, i.e., epidemic disease
(events
>>which _are_ documented, btw, in Wabanaki oral tradition.)
>
>
>
>Matt Silberstein
>-----------------------------
>The opinions expressed in this post reflect those of the Walt
>Disney Corp. Which might come as a surprise to them.
>
MB Williams
Dept. of Anthro., UMass-Amherst
Subject: Re: Norse sailings to Vinland/Markland (Was: Deep Sea Sailing in Palaeolith)
From: kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie)
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:24:10 GMT
The Outlaw wrote:
>Kaare Albert Lie wrote:
>>
>> Obviously the northernmost Greenlanders (of the WS) finally had
>> enough of the severe winters, and emigrated to Markland or
>> Vinland, where they knew the climate to be better. There is no
>> report that tells of their return. So what happened to them?
>> Could some of their descendants be among those Natives later
>> caught like wild animals and brought to Lisboa and London?
>My question is, how would they have reached Markland? The Greenlanders
>were never able to build vessels of any appreciable size because of the
>lack of timber to hand. It was even in the 'agreement' with the King of
>Denmark (where the Greenlanders recognized him as their ruler) that x
>ships per year would be sent to trade with them as they had no way of
>obtaining many materials localy (iron amongst these I believe).
The earliest Greenlanders had ships, of course. They came to
Greenland by their own ships. And the early Vinland expeditions
tell about ships. These early ships were obviously built from
European materials.
Later on, as they needed more timber for new ships and for roof
beams in houses and churches, for chests, doors, etc. (there were
16 churches in the Norse settlements in Greenland - and in one of
the churches they had allowed themselves the luxury of building
one wall entirely from wood) they probably got it from the
nearest source that they knew about, which would be Markland. And
going to Markland for ship timber, it would be rather stupid of
them to bring the timber to Greenland and then build new ships.
The obvious solution would be to build the new ships in Markland,
and then sail them home. But lack of iron was a problem. In the
report that tells about the ship blown off course during traverse
from Markland to Greenland in 1349, it says that the ship had no
anchor, and that it was smaller than the Icelandic ships. The
lack of anchor indicates that it was locally built in a place
where there was no iron (or very little iron) - and that would be
either Greenland or Markland. But it must have been built in a
place with timber available, which excludes Greenland. (There was
driftwood to be found in Greenland, but a ship builder would much
prefer to pick his materials of different dimensions and shapes
in a wooded country. They needed to select lots of branches and
roots with natural curvature for ribs, for stem and stern.)
Another report says that in 1189 the Greenlander Asmund
Kastanrasti came to Iceland in a ship that was nailed together
solely with wooden nails, and bound together with sinews. Wooden
nails instead of iron nails was unusual, and again indicates that
Asmund's ship was built far away from available iron supplies.
The most probable place would again be Markland.
You are right in saying that Greenlandic ships were not large.
But the sea route from Greenland to America is shorter and easier
than going to Iceland. The reported route was first coasting
north along the west coast of Greenland and crossing over to
Baffinland around C. Dyer (2 days/nights of sailing reported),
and then coasting south again to Markland (Labrador) (another 2
days/nights reported) and/or further south to Vinland. No long
open sea crossings.
It is generally accepted that Markland (which means Woodland) was
Labrador. Where exactly Vinland was situated, is still an open
question. The only uncontested fact is that it was further to the
south along the coast somewhere - Newfoundland? New England?
.....
______________________________________________________________
Kĺre Albert Lie
kalie@sn.no
Subject: Re: Amerindian resistance mode (was: amerindian an offensive
From: lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Len Piotrowski)
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:58:52 GMT
In article rejohnsn@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu writes:
>[interesting analysis on the cultural power clash of meanings, snipped]
>Kind of wordy but I hope it makes sense.
>[snip]
It made terrific sense! Several of your points particularly resonated with me:
>But can Euro-Americans do that? Part of childhood is enculturation; we
>internalize a world-view that shapes not only what we see but how we see
>it. I doubt that it is possible to completely discard all of the
>cultural baggage we carry as adults so that we may percieve the world as
>other cultures do. But I am a Euro-American, which means I have felt no
>social pressure to discard the cultural perspective in which I was
>raised. Natives (and African-Americans and Hispanics and so on) do feel
>that pressure. (I doubt the difference of gender is as significant as
>that of culture, at least in this case). I suffer no penalty if I refuse
>to try to internalize a non-Euro-American world-view. On the other hand,
>if Native Americans did internalize Euro-American culture, would they
>really be Native Americans? (Is culture separable from biology?)
>That is sort of a moot point, because translation involves two entities;
>and it is more than whether a Native American has internalized
>Euro-American culture: it also matters how much Euro-Americans will
>accept her even having done so. The point here is that difference is
>beyond the individual.
The question, "Is culture separable from biology?" is an interesting one,
especially when considered in conjunction with the processes of acculturation.
I submit for consideration the observation that children from one culture
adopted into a family unit of another culture still become fully enculturated
into that other culture, despite any lineal, biological, or natural forces
having acted upon the several generations of genetic variation held by it's
ancestors. It would be interesting to examine the sociobiologist's reaction to
this cultural fact.
Another is the interesting situation posed by the interaction of members of
two cultural groups over the definition of a mutual situation. Power, it
seems to me, comes into play through the control of the context and processes
of negotiating the definition of the situation. For the sake of simplicity,
lets imagine the negotiation is over the meaning of one and the same thing,
like an animal. In as much as a dialog takes place solely among members
of a single culture within their familiar cultural contexts, one of a set of
meanings may be expected and predicted to result. Problems arise when the
membership of the interacting group are mixed between two different cultures,
and/or the contexts in which the negotiation is carried out is controlled by
one or the other group. The relative mix between cultural membership and
cultural contexts maps to a kind of power and dominance space that suggests
the number and kinds of outcomes possible from such a negotiation for
meaning. In the case of one culture being numerically, geographically, and
systemically commanding over another, the shape of the dominance space
relative to possible definitions of the situation would likely be favorable to
their modes of thinking. But this perspective is really only relativistic,
and not necessarily persistent from situation to situation over time.
I was a "volunteer" to an interesting experiment in race relations at school back
in the '70s when the struggle for Civil Rights was still a hot topic. It aptly
illustrated the role of power and dominance in the control of contexts of
meaning. White students were asked to attend a special discussion group (I
believe the class was Comparative Lit) which was designed to place them in a
minority position and face the consequences of their felt meanings in conflict
with those in control of the situation. Three or four white students were
seated in the middle of the front row while the room was filled with volunteer
Afro-American students, thereby shifting the dominance space away from the
normalized white perspective. We were then asked our opinions about such
things as inter-racial marriage, drug use and drug policy, voting rights,
etc., which were designed to illicit differences and conflicts of meaning. The
force behind control of the situation over the expression and possible
internalization of meaning was vividly made apparent to me.
However, once the context evaporates, what ensures the persistence of any
emergent meanings? In the case of acculturation, it's persistence of the
context and situation in which the learning process is carried out. In the
case of the dominance of one culture's ideas over another's, it seems to me it
is a matter of control of similar contexts and situations in which social
negotiation over meanings takes place.
Cheers,
--Lenny__