Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Schooner]

Spat tea. Cheers!

[CKPR]

On 17/11/2020 at 16:23, Nearholmer said:

. But, why were the incomers more "fit"? Their technology wasn't more advanced, was it? Something about the organising capability of the incomers? Or, were they continually topping-up their numbers with new immigrants from home, and simply elbowed their predecessors out of the way bit by bit?

 

If anyone knows more/better, I'd be fascinated to hear.

 

 

This is half-remembered and I can't give any references [for which omission I would have marked students down during my time in the academy] but it has been speculated that psychopaths and people with forms of schizophrenia are over-represented as colonisers. I think the reasoning is that such people tend to more restless and dissatisfied with their own society, more sensation-seeking and also less risk-averse and thus more inclined to make a new life in the colonies in a 'do or die' manner. As a result, traits of aggression, callousness and over-confidence are common in colonisers and this gives them an edge over native populations in which such traits tend to be suppressed to ensure social cohesion. 

[Nearholmer]

Except when they land, fail to make a go of it in difficult territory, and starve. Or, drown on the way. 

 

But, what you say does make sense.

 

PS: Is an inability to feel sympathy for the plight of starving or drowning psychopaths an indicator of psychopathy? Just asking for a friend.

[monkeysarefun]

16 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Well that went well didn't it .......... 

 

 

 

Hey, give Tony a chance, he's new.. Remember his "No cuts to the ABC or SBS" No changes to Medicare etc etc.....? He's the right guy for the job.

[Regularity]

27 minutes ago, CKPR said:

I think the reasoning is that such people tend to more restless and dissatisfied with their own society, more sensation-seeking and also less risk-averse and thus more inclined to make a new life in the colonies in a 'do or die' manner.

Or possibly, the settled and stable members of the original Society "encourage" the more extreme elements to go somewhere else, for example the "Pilgrim Fathers", who left a religiously intolerant Europe because even by the standards of evangelical protestantism of the day, their views were seen as too much... ...which explains a lot, the ultimate conclusion be President Trump.

[DonB]

My wife is very firmly of the opinion that archaeologists, especially on site at a Dig,  "Make it up as they go along" 

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Or possibly, the settled and stable members of the original Society "encourage" the more extreme elements to go somewhere else

Albeit at the cost of the original society subsequently collapsing due to a plague caused by un-sanitised telephones.

[Caley Jim]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Except when they land, fail to make a go of it in difficult territory, and starve.

Which is why there was the Act of Union in 1707.  Look up The Darien Scheme.

 

Jim

[Schooner]

4 hours ago, DonB said:

"Make it up as they go along" 

"Ritual!"

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

4 hours ago, DonB said:

My wife is very firmly of the opinion that archaeologists, especially on site at a Dig,  "Make it up as they go along" 

 

I sincerely hope your wife has the requisite undergraduate and post graduate degrees to back up that assertion.

 

In my time in the field we did strenuously strive to think ahead so that any anomaly could be explained within the research objectives of the dig. It's called keeping the dig Director happy. Hell hath no fury like a dig Director who has just seen some anomaly throw his carefully crafted reasons for the research grant completely upended.

 

I remember on one occasion when I had to explain to a Director that the nice parallel line of stones he could see in a photograph were not the remains of a wall, but in fact were just the exposed edges of the natural bedrock stratigraphy. That did not go down at all well, especially when I patiently explained basic geology to him. But then having a Ph.D and being paid to be there meant that one had some latitude when it came to breaking bad news. He he he ....... 

 

Then on another dig one of our well published expert members uncovered what he thought was the boss of an Iron Age shield, Being somewhat versed in early metallurgy I was a little sceptical and pointed out that it looked like a cheap enamelled tin plate. When, after some laborious and very careful cleaning, he discovered the inscription "Made in China" on it I tried not to be too amused.

 

No wonder archaeology was once referred to as being not a science but a vendetta ..........  

 

But it is all good fun - especially if there is a reliable and close by source of cold beer.        

[Edwardian]

Archaeology is, of course, useful and fascinating, indeed, vital, but its limits are frustrating to an historian, driven to find a coherent narrative. Some Archeologists seem to feel the need to overcome the limits of what their science can reveal and whenever I do read archeologists, I find that, in print at least, they have an irresistible urge to extrapolate beyond what the meagre material to hand can sensibly support; inferring a belief system from a potsherd.

 

That said, many professional historians write utter b0llocks, and I often feel that I would now make a better historian for having given up its study in favour of the forensic training of the Bar and some first hand experience of how the world works. 

 

Perhaps the limitations of both disciplines are summed up in the anecdote my Tutor (historian, all round wowser and utterly ghastly woman) was over-fond of quoting:

 

Archeologist (boasts to Historian): "Archeology cannot lie!"

 

Historian: "That is because archeology cannot speak"

 

 

 

[TheQ]

I remember working on a dig and everyone expecting pre 1500 remains and what do I find 18 inches down.... a tin of cherry blossom (part used), We later found out the site had been used for the assembly of the local yeomanry at the start WW1, and assembly of troops pre D day during WW2. The churning of the mud had gone down that far...

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

25 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Archaeology is, of course, useful and fascinating, indeed, vital, but its limits are frustrating to an historian, driven to find a coherent narrative. Some Archeologists seem to feel the need to overcome the limits of what their science can reveal and whenever I do read archeologists, I find that, in print at least, they have an irresistible urge to extrapolate beyond what the meagre material to hand can sensibly support; inferring a belief system from a potsherd.

 

That said, many professional historians write utter b0llocks, and I often feel that I would now make a better historian for having given up its study in favour of the forensic training of the Bar and some first hand experience of how the world works. 

 

Perhaps the limitations of both disciplines are summed up in the anecdote my Tutor (historian, all round wowser and utterly ghastly woman) was over-fond of quoting:

 

Archeologist (boasts to Historian): "Archeology cannot lie!"

 

Historian: "That is because archeology cannot speak"

 

 

 

 

 Yes, however, one must also remember that well over 97% of human existence lies in the realm of the archaeologist rather than the historian. Therefore the only means of understanding that vast record less period of human existence is by careful extrapolation using primate evolution and the physical artefacts coupled with early ethnographic accounts of the remaining few human societies that once existed in a world free of any permanent written records. And in truth a pot sherd or a stone axe cannot lie - it is a mute testament to an actual event in the past. It has no politics or feelings or aspirations it is simply what it is. But a history book or any other scholarly study can say whatever the author wishes it to regardless of its factual basis. 

 

Certainly there are over-enthusiastic people in both disciplines. But then there are over-enthusiastic people in all professions who are ever willing to string an idea out to the point of absurdity. I am reminded of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani whose theatrics represent the worst of what is a profession that increasingly has turned to theatrics and defending the indefensible.  

 

The times when pot sherds, or stone tools were assiduously compared to define actual human cultures are long gone. They are recognised simply as the most convenient means of relative dating when other means are not available.  Yet for mapping the spread of Roman period trade etc. the long recognised Samian ware is still most reliable. So it is a bit of one and a bit of the other. But coming back to over-enthusiasm someone like Giuliani wouldn't last five minutes in a first year archaeological tutorial, he'd be immediately consigned to the tin foil hat section. One wonders why his supposedly educated colleagues have not done so.

 

History also evolves in its understanding through taking careful note of sociological studies of behaviour in modern communities. What is someone's b0llocks today may, in a few years, be a sign of prescience. Historians like lawyers, journalists, authors etc., write or express opinions influenced by their own ingrained biases - in fact most people who write cannot escape those biases. It is for the diligent scholar to recognise a writer's social background and upbringing and to recognise from that how the data they cite might be skewed. It is true for the archaeologist as well - we have long retreated from the Rousseauian ideal of the noble savage. We have in the last half-century or more come to recognise that both our ancestors, and surviving indigenous people are as venal or as pleasant in the same proportions as in the teeming mass that constitutes the current living human population, and that is because whatever our colour or ethnicity we are all the same species. And we all are driven, no matter how humble, by trying to get a bigger slice of the economic cake.

 

It is, however, a pity that it took us a couple of million years to learn to write ......... 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

That said, many professional historians write utter b0llocks, and I often feel that I would now make a better historian for having given up its study in favour of the forensic training of the Bar and some first hand experience of how the world works. 

 

If you have not read Cecil Torr's Small Talk at Wreyland I urge you to do so at the first possible opportunity.

[Nearholmer]

36 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

But then there are over-enthusiastic people in all professions who are ever willing to string an idea out to the point of absurdity

Not all professions, I suggest, because in practical professions the results of that sort of BS are things like dead post-op patients, bridges that collapse before they are even finished, weather forecasts so unreliable as to lead to harm etc etc, so BSers are rigorously weeded-out.

 

Law and architecture strike me as being right at the boundary between practicality and BS, in that work in both has to pass both practicality and ‘eloquence’ tests.

 

History, literature, archaeology etc? Of course, practical knowledge and skill is vital, but the refined outputs are by no means fully testable, and are of no practical use other than for manipulating people, and for that purpose it doesn’t matter whether they are right, wrong, or made-up, merely whether they are compelling. At worst, this the realm of almost unalloyed BS.

 

And then there is art.

 

 

[Edwardian]

51 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

 Yes, however, one must also remember that well over 97% of human existence lies in the realm of the archaeologist rather than the historian.

 

Which, I quip, is why we shall never know very much about it.

 

The anecdote I cited was, of course, told against archeologists (by a rather self-satisfied historian), but it could be framed the other way: 

 

"Archeology cannot speak", boast the historian

 

"But at least, then, it cannot lie" retorts the archeologist.

 

Whichever way it is told, it is a pithy reminder of the limits of the two disciplines.

[burgundy]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

Which, I quip, is why we shall never know very much about it.

 

The anecdote I cited was, of course, told against archeologists (by a rather self-satisfied historian), but it could be framed the other way: 

 

"Archeology cannot speak", boast the historian

 

"But at least, then, it cannot lie" retorts the archeologist.

 

Whichever way it is told, it is a pithy reminder of the limits of the two disciplines.

Which leaves one wondering what future archaeologists will make of Donald Trump's legacy (I will refrain from mentioning any examples closer to home). 

Best wishes

Eric 

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, burgundy said:

Which leaves one wondering what future archaeologists will make of Donald Trump's legacy (I will refrain from mentioning any examples closer to home). 

Best wishes

Eric 

 

Ah, the ancient mystery of the splendidly ambivalent "covfefe"

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Ah, the ancient mystery of the splendidly ambivalent "covfefe"

 

The 21st century's ephod?

[Regularity]

46 minutes ago, burgundy said:

Which leaves one wondering what future archaeologists will make of Donald Trump's legacy (I will refrain from mentioning any examples closer to home). 

Barring a major catastrophe, they won't need to, as this has all happened within the time span of excessively well-recorded history. 

The difficulty will be for historians trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I mean, imagine that only a record of his twitter-feed survived?

 

(If you have seen Woody Allen's "Sleeper", you will be instantly thinking of his comments about Nixon [agreed that he was a major criminal], and also the lampshade ["salad "].)

 

[Nearholmer]

It might depend how far in the future our imagined archaeologists are.

 

In, say, 5000 years time, all of our paper libraries might be dust, and our e-libraries might have entropised (if there is such a word) to nothing, so the diggers might only have really durable stuff to go on.

 

Trump might be well-advised to commission himself a few vast and trunkless legs of stone, otherwise there only be collapsed motorways (votive processional avenues, suggesting pilgrimages of immense length by vast groups of people), and that firm favourite graves, to extrapolate from.

[Regularity]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It might depend how far in the future our imagined archaeologists are.

Hence the caveat implicit in the remark about Twitter.

I suspect, though, that enough will survive to form a reasonable picture, and if not, then archaeology will be the least of anyone’s concerns.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

collapsed motorways (votive processional avenues, suggesting pilgrimages of immense length by vast groups of people), and that firm favourite graves, to extrapolate from.

 

Leading to sites of ritual deposition, don't forget, I mean, people don't just throw stuff away!

[drmditch]

Re: Genetic Markers

This may be wrong, but I  think I have read that the genetic differences between 'vikings' and 'saxons', all peoples from the east side of what we now call the North Sea and used to call the German Ocean, are very hard to distinguish.

[drmditch]

On 17/11/2020 at 21:34, Compound2632 said:

 

Not sure about "we" in this context as my ancestors at least were most likely inhabiting the Frisian marshes or the Hibernian bogs. But it seems to me that the Roman influence on Britain was much like the British influence on India, merely substitute railways for roads.

 

Language?