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The dolphinitive history of the world (History)
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aurelius



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The trained faunal assistance given to human kind in TME as portrayed by Mick and Hatty was a memorable and bold aspect of their thesis - especially the role of birds such as cormorants and crows in navigation.

Nowhere though do they include those very intelligent mammals the dolphins and porpoises, at least they are not indexed. But how about this: a porpoise buried in a "medieval" grave

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/19/medieval-porpoise-grave-on-channel-island-puzzles-archaeologists

The idea that the locals cut the oblong out of the Guernsey rock to fill it with salt and preserve the meat seems tenuous for such an ephemeral indulgence and the other explanation, 'religious significance' is the usual catch-all. Not clear how the archaeologists can be sure it is C14th, either.

But what if the porpoise was a much valued assistant in drawing fish close to the shore, or guiding boats? Porpoises have a lifespan of up to ten years for which training could be a worthwhile investment.

This story appears in British Archaeology as well as The Guardian.
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Mick Harper
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Archaeologists digging at an island religious retreat have unearthed the remains of a porpoise that, mystifyingly, appears to have been carefully buried in its own medieval grave. The team believe the marine animal found on the island of Chapelle Dom Hue, off the west coast of Guernsey...

Adjacent to Lihou Island and its Venus Pool. By the way my lecture on all this (rather than a ten-minute trailer) has just been put on YouTube by Megalithomania. In four days it has got 4,500 views and thirty reviews and comments. (How do you look at the comments, it won't let me). Add your thumbs up here (I’ll be watching). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_S6zkh_PY

....was buried in the 14th century
.
As Aurelius points out, with no justification whatsoever. It does though makes this something modern, something quirky, something of no great significance, move along.

When they first spotted the carefully cut plot they were convinced it was a grave and would hold human remains, but they were taken aback when they dug further and unearthed the skull and other body parts of a porpoise.

This is fair enough (is a poropoise roughly human-sized?) but as we know, in academia 'taken aback' does not mean 'taken back'.

more later
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Mick Harper
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Quite why the porpoise was buried so carefully on the island, which is thought to have been used by monks seeking solitude, is a mystery.

The bigger mystery is why people keep going on about ‘monks seeking solitude’. Lihou Island, where there undoubtedly were monks, has (and I think had in the fourteenth century, and I think a lot longer than that) an expensively constructed causeway that meant monks were not in solitude for about twelve hours a day. A sort of Marlene Dietrich style solitude.

Porpoises were eaten in medieval times but it would have been easier to dispose of the remains in the sea, which is only 10 metres from the site.

This is interesting since it is not clear whether this is, or might once have been, a Venus Pool i.e. covered twice a day by the tide. I hate having to send Borry over there in his yacht to find out but Hatty is too valuable.

Philip de Jersey, a States of Guernsey archaeologist...

Well, the States appointed head of archaeology, and pretty well respected throughout the profession. This is the bloke we entered into discussions with over The Megalithic Empire and various later Guernsey related subjects. He was entirely affable and totally sceptical. He put Forgeries up on one of his book sites but later removed it.

...said: “If they had eaten it or killed it for the blubber, why take the trouble to bury it? Some effort was made to create a neat hole.”

Yes, sirree.

more later
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aurelius



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I was asked what the differences were between porpoises and dolphins. Porpoises are smaller, it is said about 2 metres, which could have suggested a human burial site.




Dolphins are by far more prevalent than porpoises. Most scientists agree that there are 32 dolphin species (plus five closely related species of river dolphin) and only six porpoise species.

The harbor porpoise has small pointed flippers and no beak. The dorsal fin is small and triangle-shaped.

So what’s the difference? It essentially comes down to their faces (who can forget Flipper’s famous “grin”?), their fins, and their figures. Dolphins tend to have prominent, elongated “beaks” and cone-shaped teeth, while porpoises have smaller mouths and spade-shaped teeth. The dolphin’s hooked or curved dorsal fin (the one in the middle of the animal’s back) also differs from the porpoise’s triangular dorsal fin. Generally speaking, dolphin bodies are leaner, and porpoises’ are portly.

Dolphins are also more talkative than porpoises. Dolphins make whistling sounds through their blowholes to communicate with one another underwater. Scientists are pretty sure that porpoises do not do this, and some think this may be due to structural differences in the porpoise’s blowhole.

Dolphins and porpoises have many similarities, one of which is their extreme intelligence. Both have large, complex brains and a structure in their foreheads, called the melon, with which they generate sonar (sound waves) to navigate their underwater world.

It is likely that more (or fewer) differences between dolphins and porpoises will be revealed as researchers continue to investigate these intriguing sentinels of the sea.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphin_porpoise.html

More to come...
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aurelius



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The Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is the only one to be found in European waters. This species is typically 1.2 to 1.7m long.

Harbour porpoises are slow, unobtrusive swimmers and can be unobvious to an observer, particularly in stormy weather. They tend to surface gently 3 or 4 times and then dive for a few minutes. They are shy, unlike many of their dolphin relatives and will avoid boats where possible. Harbour porpoises travel alone, or in small groups of up to 6. Unlike dolphins the harbour poropise rarely breaches fully out of the water. They are typically seen on their own or in small pod sizes.


http://www.orcaweb.org.uk/species-sightings/harbour-porpoise
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Mick Harper
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De Jersey said it was possible that a monk hid the body of the porpoise because he was not supposed to have it,

Phil, please.

or that the body was placed in the hole in salt to preserve it. “It may have been packed in salt and then for some reason they didn’t come back to it.”

Better, but it would appear not to have been particularly efficacious, this being the only example of said method in the whole history of culinary experimentation. If not, write in, but we’re talking rock-cut, next to the ocean, remember.

Another intriguing theory is that the animal had some sort of religious significance to the people who used the island.

As Aurelius says, the old standby.

“The dolphin has a strong significance in Christianity...

No it hasn’t.

... but I’ve not come across anything like this before,” said De Jersey.

Told you.

“It’s the slightly wacky kind of thing that you might get in the iron age ...

Told you.

... but not in medieval times.”

Told you.


more later
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Mick Harper
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He said it was the most unusual find in his 35-year career.

An astonishing (and promising for us) thing to say since he was in on the Jersey 70,000 coin hoard, one of the most significant (and unusual) archaeological discoveries of recent times. Which by the way has never been given a satisfactory explanation (except as per my lecture).

“It’s very peculiar, I don’t know what to make of it. Why go to the trouble of burying a porpoise in what looks like a grave. It’s a wonderful surprise.”

This is a combination of, as readers of THOBR know, ‘more research needed’ and, as readers of Forgeries know, “world first syndrome’. I will bet you 70,000 of your old British pound coins it won’t be quite surprising enough to disturb a paradigm.

As well as the porpoise remains, shards of 14th-century pottery, a prehistoric stone tool and what is believed to be the remains of the walls of the monks’ retreat have been found.

So, let’s see. This teensy, apparently uninhabitable, certainly pointlessly inhabitable, islet was being used before Roman times, still being used in late medieval times and had a structure on it. Fancy!

The porpoise remains have been removed and will be studied by a marine expert.

Ladies and Gentleman, it’s a porpoise.

ends
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Hatty
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The first (only) time I've 'met' dolphins was on a ferry returning to Guernsey from Sark. They did that dolphin trick of 'playing' with the boat, swimming alongside and under it. It was entertaining, and rather reassuring, as if the boat had acquired an escort. The man next to me said he was a boat-owner and had often seen dolphins in St Peter's Port. Guernsey is a stopping off point for cruise liners en route from America to wherever and a massive ship had anchored just outside the port entrance, but clearly dolphins don't get scared off.

The boat trip is relatively short but tricky, especially near Sark which has a tiny harbour and everywhere else looks too rocky to be accessible to boats. Sark of course has a spectacular causeway, La Coupée, joining the bigger island to Little Sark which also has a Venus-style pool.
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aurelius



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I wish the porpoise would turn out to be a small dolphin...
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Mick Harper
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Well, yes, it has to be added to our two-species categories, one big and one small (one wild, one feral domesticate) but it is hard to compare with the others, eg Dog and Wolf, now you've gorn and put this here rather than the Crying Wolf thread in the Life Sciences section. Don't change it! And don't worry, the AEL admin bloke will attend to it once the jizzock changing him over to a smart meter has stopped going on about issuing a formal notice about his oven. All right, you wouldn't want to cook your dinner in it but really! My headaches are caused by you lot not carbon monoxide.
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Wile E. Coyote


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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-38922138

An archaeological dig at a Shrewsbury church has uncovered an ancient animal burial site.
Archaeologists said the finds, which include a calf, a pig and a dog that died while giving birth, were "unprecedented".


Eh?

"It gets more and more bizarre with every moment," said lead archaeologist Janey Green.


Captain's Log....

In total, two dogs, a calf, some birds and a pig were found on the site at the Greek Orthodox Church, on Oteley Road, along with the remains of an early medieval woman and a pit full of human skulls.
The pig was found with a leathered coffin, although Miss Green said further testing was needed to see if the animal was buried in the container.
The animals were found alongside medieval human remains. All of the finds will be reinterred by the church.


I hope that does not include the animals?

"We have excavated foundations for the church that are very early medieval - and possibly Saxon," Miss Green said.


Aha.


She said she did not know why the animals were buried together and was working on a number of theories, including a possible link to a nearby Bronze Age site.


Jesu that's a relief, I thought they might be suggesting that these were christian animals. Whatever next, an East West Porpoise grave.
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Mick Harper
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That's a good point. Someone find out whether porpoises have a sense of direction and whether it is different from dolphins.
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aurelius



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aurelius wrote:
I wish the porpoise would turn out to be a small dolphin...


I meant the porpoise, the Guernsey one - because the contrasting habit of dolphins of swimming closer to the surface would have been easier to navigate by. Still, I get your other point, despite lack of familiarity in reading the Life Sciences threads.
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aurelius



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Mick Harper wrote:
That's a good point. Someone find out whether porpoises have a sense of direction and whether it is different from dolphins.


Harbour Porpoises use

echolocation for detection, ranging and identification of objects ͑ Kastelein et al. , 1997, 1999 ͒ , and for orientation ͑ Verfuß et al. , 2005 ͒ .


as this very technical study confirms -

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/49638606_fig1_FIG-1-The-study-facility-showing-the-harbor-porpoise-in-position-for-testing-at-the
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Mick Harper
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As you're too idle I suppose I had better make a start parsing the article.

The harbor porpoise Phocoena phocoena

The presumptive ex-domesticate, though it may be porpoises are domesticated dolphins and this is just one (sub)species produced by a feral population.

one of the smallest cetaceans

I don't like that. Smacks of careful ignoral. Surely the writer knows and should say exactly where Phocoena phocoena stands in the pecking order. Could someone find out or find out why it is not possible to find out?

has a wide distribution area in the coastal waters of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere.

Very significant. Surely a natural species over millions of years would be world-wide by now.

The harbor porpoise uses echolocation for detection, ranging and identification of objects Í‘

Yes, so do all cetaceans (do they?). It is long distance navigation we are concerned with.

Its echolocation signals are of short duration Í“ low frequency

I assume ditto all cetaceans (are they?). But lots of fish and mammals manage migratory routes on less (or more?).
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