Missing Link

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Re: Missing Link

Postby spiral » 4:05 pm

As part of his work on terraces....Spiral has developed a unhealthy interest in stones and quarries...It's a bugger knowing where to start as orthodoxy appears equally baffled....

Basically everyone accepts that the Ancients were using a lot of wood...Then along potter the Romans who would have (by common consent) needed a lot of stone, gravel etc...not least for their roads and some urban building, along with the odd villa...but nobody really knows where it came from (unless it's Purbeck marble).

The archaeologists haven't helped, until recently by showing little interest in "low status" stonework and guessing where the high status stuff has appeared from.

Your canny ancients were probably adept at passing off the bad for the good....a practice that appears to have carried on till the formation of THE... British Stone Classification (Stone Federation GB)

"There are many different classification schemes for stone, which have prompted the industry to simplify descriptions. This has led to many problems when, for instance, a stone laid as a granite is actually found to be a different stone type altogether and does not perform as expected. The British Standard BSEN12440 (Denomination of natural stone) addresses the classification problem and insists upon the correct identification of stone type and origin."

Thank heavens.
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 9:56 pm

Stone me!
I've been a bit worried about our local stone masons.
"Megaliths'R'Us" and "Menhirs without men hairs"
Perhaps their "ancient concrete" isn't as ancient as I expected?
Or are they fobbing me off with Roman concrete?
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 10:45 pm

Spiral's interest in concrete and stonework may yet prove to be very healthy. At least, healthy for the state of one's finances.

Like M'Lady Boreades, who was showing an interest in relocating to somewhere with space for more hens and less children. (We might pin a note to the front door to tell the children we've moved). The pics in the advert looked nice. But the small print said: "Concrete screening test has graded part of the ground floor accommodation as Class B."

We thought, now then, that's not the usual kind of florid prose one usually finds in an estate agents' blurb.

Sure enough, a quick search revealed that: Thousands of homeowners in the south-west are discovering their properties may be worth 25% less than they thought because they have "infected" concrete. These homes, built between 1900 and 1950 using cement mixed with waste from tin, lead and copper mines, are said to be "mundic" – a Cornish word for chemical pyrites embedded in the waste and which turn to sulphuric acid when water penetrates the concrete. The acid then causes the concrete to crumble.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/n ... -mortgages

So - "mundic" - a new word for the TME vocabulary.
It's not just what they put in the pasties.
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Re: Missing Link

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:42 am

And three crouched human burials

"What makes this site really significant is we have evidence of early Saxon occupation mingled with the latest Roman remains," said Mr Macaulay, deputy regional manager for Oxford Archaeology East.

Saxon pottery, beads, worked antler and metalworking residues were uncovered.

He added: "This a rare example of the Roman to Saxon transition in the east of England."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-c ... e-49019401

Image

A later Roman or early Saxon child was found buried with a bead necklace and bone-carved hairpin in the shape of an axe


Oh dear. It's like Meet the Family. And Hyacinth Bucket wouldn't want to be reminded about her distant relics and relatives I'm sure.

Looks like Mr Harper should contact them about infringement of copyright. Must be a load of back payments in that.

Who'd have thought of it. Celts, Romans and Saxons all living in the same house. Sounds like a Notting Hill squat.
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 12:06 pm

Do we know anyone interested in the history of the English Language and where it came from?

Frisian is the closest of all to English. Linguists have had years of fun arguing the toss on whether English comes from Frisian, or visa-versa. Actually, there's a third option. Both English and Frisian came from somewhere else. That somewhere else, and the "lost history" behind it, would be The Doggerland Revelations.
Frisian has the distinction of being the closest of any language to English. ... The unique closeness of this relationship has always provided something of a problem for the theory that English is descended from the languages of German and Danish invaders who came from much further east than Friesland. However, if we accept that both English and Frisian have been spoken in their current locations for the last 10,000 years -- and that the proto-English which gave rise to both of them was also the language of lost Doggerland -- the paradoxes vanish.

https://www.panshin.com/trogholm/wonder ... rland.html
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Mick Harper » 12:37 pm

This is a truism. Since Frisian is the nearest same-family language to English, it follows that it is likely to be the closest relative to it. There has never been any paradox about the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic languages generally, the paradoxes start when it comes to the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and English.
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 3:01 pm

If I remember correctly, we covered this about six (or more) years ago, while we were discussing St.Sheila and Radlical Linguistics. In particular, the "First Settler Theory".

From which, the foreword:

For more than two hundred years, research into the origins of the languages of Europe has been focussed on a single proposition: that they derive from *Proto-Indo-European, a theoretical language which is believed to be ancestral to Sanskrit, an ancient Indian liturgical language, and Old High German, which was used for Biblical translations in medieval Europe. These two languages are by thousands of kilometres and by thousands of years remote from each other. Despite the passage of more than two centuries, no evidence whatsoever has been found to support this thesis. The hypothetical "Proto-Indo-European" people have not been identified; the date of their migration, their ethnic composition, their place of origin, and their fate are as mysterious now as they were when similarities between Sanskrit, Old High German and several other early written languages were first pointed out in 1782. Perhaps the real Indo-European problem is that there has never been a new start in IE studies, as there was in social anthropology with Malinowski. A new start is proposed here. First Settler Theory offers a rational alternative. It traces European language back into the camps of the Palaeolithic reindeer herders who survived the disastrous eruption of the volcano Toba 75,000 years ago. Every aspect of this dramatic new theory has been explored and tested rigorously. Here at last is the key to the prehistoric languages of Europe, and to much more.
Sheila McGregor
Courthill House, near Inverkeilor, Angus, Scotland


Re Doggerland, chapter eight is of interest.
"The North Sea Zone (Nsz) (Flandrian, Scandinavian)" - pages 109 to 117

Why is she living in Inverkeilor? (you might ask)
https://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=56.65 ... __&style=s

Perhaps from there one has a view over what would have been Northern Doggerland (c.Scalp Bank and Marr Bank).

Image

Scalp Bank and Marr Bank are not so famous as Dogger Bank, but are still significant.

Image

As Doggerland was not completely swamped by the Norwegian tsunami, but only partly, and then gradually split and submerged. Given the final phase probably took a good few 100 years, the Doggerlanders had plenty of time to move. For Northern Doggerlanders, the nearest current-day coastline is (roughly) to the north-west from Montrose to Berwick on Tweed. Which would be lowland Scotland, with a Gaelic Doggerlanderish. For Southern Doggerlanders, the nearest coastline is either west to England, (roughly) Grimsby to Lowestoft, with an English (Norfolk) Doggerlanderish, or south-east to Frisia where Doggerlanderish became Frisian.

The Isles of Scilly give us a modern mini-version of how Doggerland might have appeared before final submergence.

Image
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 6:34 pm

Besides the Isles of Scilly, at the opposite end of the British Isles, we have an even better example of what used to be much larger island(s).
Orkney.

Image
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Mick Harper » 3:48 pm

You've got a thick line round some islands. I don't know why they show it was all one island. You compared this to the Scillies but there was not even a line round them!
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Re: Missing Link

Postby Boreades » 5:07 pm

Mick Harper wrote:You've got a thick line round some islands. I don't know why they show it was all one island. You compared this to the Scillies but there was not even a line round them!


Looks like we've got a bit cross-threaded.

The advantage of showing the marine contours, and shallow areas (shaded in green and blue) is a much more immediate understanding of what the land would have been like in megalithic times. With a sea level back then of about 50 feet lower. So all the areas now shaded in green and blue would (back then) have been above sea level.

Re "areas to be avoided" - the footnotes say:
These areas are IMO-adopted. Orkney Islands and Fair Isle. To avoid the risk of pollution and severe damage to the environment, all vessels over 5000 GT carrying oil or other liquid hazardous cargoes in bulk should avoid the areas indicated.

IMO = International Maritime Organization
https://www.imo.org/en/About/HistoryOfI ... fault.aspx

Perhaps the silly Scillians haven't got adopted by the IMO yet?

It's a similar story for Shetland, which also would have been a single island in Megalithic times.

Image
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