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Going Walkabout (British History)
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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the point is that the number of different journeys is always going to be infinite.


They aren't infinite if they are going to places of exchange that are not massively far away.

They are just fairly routine journeys, albeit taken many times.

You must be careful with this infinity thing. An infinite number of occurrences of the same journey is not the same as an infinite variety of journeys.
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Mick Harper
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It's just basic network theory. Let's imagine there are a hundred of these "places of exchange" of yours. Tell me, Groucho, if you are at Place 87 and you want to go to Place 24, how precisely do you find somebody at Place 87 that a) knows where 24 is and b) is prepared to take you there and c) what is he supposed to do when he gets there?
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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Too abstract: A railway network conforms to your question, except for one thing: I don't want to go everywhere, or, as in your interesting question, an abstract 'anywhere', although I think your and my answer to (c) is 'trade', although in my case that involves intermediate goods, such as salt, and not collecting a rag bag list of things to make something that other people, due to their specialisation, can make much better than I can, and with whom I can trade, at a place of exchange - we usually call these markets.

And you still haven't addressed the public goods question, about who invests in these rugged signs.

However, facts are the key, and simply assembling them, without fear/favour, or even an agenda, is an important element of the neo Logical Positivism endeavour known as AE, or indeed any proper scientific endeavour worthy of the name:

Naturally manufactured cairns might get you out of your rugged sign issue - anyone who has walked in the peak District,Cumbria and N Wales is familiar with these. (Just playing devil's advocate, but these cairns are very helpful to your model)

Of course we are on the right end of an expansion in population/popularity of walking and thousand of years of track use, nevertheless this might give you a source of rugged signs.

Of course a supply of stones isn't always available. Not necessarily a problem:

A few years ago when walking, mapless as usual, I got into conversation with another 'travelling light' walker about orientation and not getting lost. She recounted to me something another similar walker had said to her, which was how you could find tracks by Hawthornes.

I wasn't too convinced at the time, but in my many years of seeking out old tracks, embankments and very interesting holes in the ground up round here, have found hawthornes to be a pretty good guide. I hope this helps you with your rugged signs problem.
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Mick Harper
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Well, you'll just have to read the book. Suffice it to say that if you want to conduct long distance trade in a given country (and everybody benefits from it so everybody does) you have to come up with a system of signs. If you've got literacy, it's easy-peasy because you just read the signs (or have them read to you). However roadsigns pre-supposes roads, at least continuous tracks, so you can get from one sign to the next.

Without literacy (and even without continuous tracks) the signs have to be big enough and bold enough to obviate both problems.
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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And looking forward to it, (the book).

Reading signs might be easy peasy, but only because we are immersed in our modern signs for all imbeciles culture: Signs proliferated when everyman and his dog got into a car and didn't know where they were and were too busy to ask.

Turnpikes had fewer signs, milestones in the main, and the Jaggers' pack horse trails fewer still, possibly because they were inter-generational experts.

Pre literacy actually means fewer signs, because you know a lot of stuff already.

The continuous tracks issue, and lack of same, according to your earlier posts, is very interesting, because it is remarkably easy for tracks to be made, and persist. Are you falling into the 'trackless wastes myth?

I hope not.

Your answer contains the differences between us:
long distance trade


I don't have anything like even the beginnings of the answers to the problems of long distance trade. My Occam's Razor instincts lead me to suggest that this was a sub specialism of a much more prevalent intermediate and short distance trade model, with local and other centres of exchange.

Off on my hols now, and so won't be marking any more of your work, Harper, until the end of the month.
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Hatty
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When you say you 'find tracks' via hawthorn, do the bushes seem to be in a straight-ish line? I've also noticed hawthorn beside tracks acting like a hedge (haw=hedge) and thought what a good barrier to stop animals veering off.
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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Yes, it could be local planting to do that - generally I am a bit suspicious of over straight lines. On the other hand the boundary line might be the result of the original definition provided by the hawthornes.

I don't know my biology but I get the impression that hawthornes are long lasting plants.

My initial reaction to this information was that they would have seeded off in all directions over time, thus rendering them useless as navigational guides, but in practice you seem to get reasonably directional clumps.

They flower up very visibly in May.
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Hatty
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Yep, whiteness is helpful in navigational terms.

Would the tradition of cutting branches of 'flowering may' discourage plants from seeding in all directions later in the year do you think?
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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The simple answer is that I don't know.

But, if so, who prunes them?

Possibly a collective/votive exercise?

In favour of what?

It is all a bit metaphysical, yet the hawthornes are actually, empirically, up there.
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Hatty
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Could Maia, for whom May is named, be the female equivalent of magus , an astronomer or star-gazer? The may flower, with five white petals, resembles a star or pentagram.
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GrouchoMarxthespot



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Haw does equal hedge - a long held identification suggesting that the Hawthorne has an ancient pedigree in being a marker plant.

Hedging itself is worth a thought: It both contains, and divides, (to hedge one's bets). Of course not all boundaries equate to a path, nor all paths become a boundary, but, quite often the two coincide.

I think that it is quite likely that Hawthornes have been used as pathway markers.

This brings us nicely on to the meaning/origins of 'mayflower'.

Could Maia, for whom May is named, be the female equivalent of magus , an astronomer or star-gazer?


If the Mayflower was indeed a guide then we might reasonably expect a number of 'may words' to have survived.

If you look up 'dismay' it equates to a removal of a power.

In short a 'may' was a valuable thing - a permissive right, perhaps to travel freely, without let or hindrance. The only real contemporary analogy I can come up with is that of a licence - to lose your licence, (a permission and a competance/power/ability) would have been to be 'dismayed'.

Conventional wisdom has it that the naming of the blossom 'Mayflower' stemmed from the calendar naming of the month of May, (as you describe, to Maia).

What if the blossom had already been described as 'May'. not for calendar reasons, but for previous and ancient permissive reasons to do something for which you had the power?

This might tie in with the meaning of 'magus' - someone with ability/power/right to do something, including travelling.

Would the tradition of cutting branches of 'flowering may' discourage plants from seeding in all directions later in the year do you think?


If travellers cut blossoms from the hawthorne to demonstrate their bona fides as travellers, and their right to be travelling, then this would both reduce the likelihood of random self seeding, and increase the likelihood of propagation of the hawthornes along the pathway.

In short: The hypothesis is that the 'May' of the Mayflower relates not to a calendar event, (the naming of the month in which the flowering occurs), but relates to an earlier concept of the ability, (power, knowledge and permission), to travel along the route as a boa fide traveller - the Mayflower becomes a symbol of safe passage.
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Ishmael


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Brilliant brilliant brilliant!
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Hatty
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Completely agree. Folklore, so often rooted in Megalithia, turns out to have an eminently practical raison d'etre, despite the mystical connotations of 'bringing in the may' and suchlike.
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Grant



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Thought you might be interested in this Guardian article about pre Roman roads.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/16/roman-road-made-by-britons?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

The bit about the ancient post is very exciting.
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Mick Harper
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And Malim thinks a huge post that stood in 1500BC close to the crest of the hill was a trackway marker.

Here's the bit that proves The Megalithic Empire is correct! Not that anybody else seems to think it very important.
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