Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

[TisILeclerc]

They dated the piece of iron through a mark the maker had stamped into it. Without going through the video again I couldn't tell you what the 'exact' date was.

They confirmed the maker's stamp by examining tools made in the period in a museum in the Basque country that deals in such stuff.

They then examined documents drawn up officially at the time describing what the Basque fishermen were doing, where they were doing it and how they did it. They state quite clearly that they were trading with the natives.

If you watch the video you will get more out of it than my half remembered ramblings.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

If you run the numbers for 'the twentieth century' I am sure you will get round to my way of thinking. However, if I may backtrack un peu, high grade stuff came from Sweden and a lot wasn't imported at all being from very low-grade domestic sources. This last perhaps points to why Spain no longer features (if your figures are correct for the 21st century). For reasons I do not really understand, iron ore is/was economical to tranship rather than refine in the country of origin. Spain was the nearest source but with the development of 200,000 ton ore carriers and super-open cast mines, presumably the Basque country can no longer compete. Nor can the orefields round Corby.

[Boreades]

No I won't. For reasons you do not really understand, you have confused import and export.

Edit: P.S. i've tried explaining this before.
e.g. why Cornish tin ore was smelted in Wales, not in Cornwall.

[TisILeclerc]

Another article today in the Daily Mail about Must Farm. Lots more photographs for your collection as well as videos. The importance of this site is enormous. Especially as it shows trade with the med and middle east.








http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -Fens.html

[Mick Harper]

I entirely agree. One is baffled as to how orthodoxy (including the excavators of Must Farm I fear) continue in their belief in such a backward Britain.

[TisILeclerc]

[Mick Harper]

Yes but why use the largest harbour in Europe to do all these things? And why do much the same thing on the same scale at Portsmouth Harbour, Langstone Harbour, Chichester Harbour and Pagham Harbour? Surely they didn't have that many boats? Though of course they would need that much salt.

[TisILeclerc]

We still have ports in the country. Not many now but they still exist.

But we have not ships to speak of. All sold off or scrapped.

But other people have ships and they sail to our remaining ports to sell us things. Because we don't make things.

I went across the Channel a few years ago and was amazed at the number of overloaded Chinese junks, sorry Chinese ships full of junk making their way to us and the poundshop.

Whatever they were trading in the iron age and before was of value to someone and traders always come to trade. We can see that from the Bronze Age gear found in Cambridgeshire, top quality stuff.

All you need is the port and the infrastructure to deal with what turns up. And the more the merrier. Aldi isn't the only Lidl in town.

[Boreades]

Be brave, mon ami!

We might not be the powerhouse we were when Britain 's Cornish/Welsh/Scottish/French engineers invented things and Britain sold them all round the world. But those ships from China (arriving with containers full of brown boxes) don't go back empty. The UK is still a world-leader in exporting rubbish. Millions of tonnes of paper, metals, etc are exported every year.

http://www.rwmexhibition.com/files/rwm_ ... 2014v3.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable ... y-security

All thanks to people like you & Mick & Hattie carefully separating your rubbish into separate bins and putting it out for the local council. Even if it does end-up in landfill in China. (Sadly, Chateau Boreades is an exception, because of our own award-winning organic recycling schemes)

This still needs lots of ports.

More to the point: Once upon a time in TME we did touch on the evidence for v.large volumes of goods traded in and out of pre-Roman Britain. I will award a spot prize for whoever can remember the safe place we put it in.