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From Komorikid:
Mick wrote
| This has always struck me as clear evidence that the megalith-builders were an Atlantic-based and, as you say, an essentially maritime culture. On the other hand the historical population that best matches the distribution of the megaliths is the Goidelic- (Celtic)-speakers of western Britain-Ireland-France-Iberia and yet these people are not notably maritime or Atlantic-oriented. They seem altogether too stay-at-home to qualify as latter-day megalithics. |
One possible explanation can be found if one follows their bloodline literally.
All these people share one vital component in common; one that is a dead giveaway. They all share the Rh negative blood group. If we follow the blood trail we find the highest incidence is in Morocco and West Africa. It then travels in a specific direction northward through the Atlantic Islands to North-western Spain, South-western France, West Ireland, West Scotland, The Hebrides, South-western Norway then slowly dissipates as you move East across the Baltic.
The Rh-negative people who populated all the islands of Western Europe, from the Canary Islands to the Lofoten in the Arctic, all were sailors, fishermen, ocean explorers. They all had the same dark hair and long skulls of the Berbers and Basques. All boats needed leather sails which had up to that time been supplied by the reindeer camps on the grand plateau in southern France until the herds diminished around 10,000 B.C. and a new supply of deer had to be found. Actually it had been found already in the most out-of-the-way place existing: in arctic Finnmark, in extreme northern Norway. The reindeer hunters then collected their tools of the trade and moved from southern France to the Norway. The harvesting of reindeer from the huge Arctic herd was soon under way. At Mount Komsa they established their cultural centre, carving their typical symbols, boats and implements on the rocks, just like they had done in Morocco, Euskadi, Ireland, and a little later would also do at the southern tip of Sweden.
The frequency of Rh-negative people in Scotland and Northern Ireland is very high. It is higher than in Ireland and England; higher than in France or Scandinavia, excluding the concentration around Bergen. What of the master builders? With a hiss and a whisper come the words: "Still alive". If Scotland and Northern Ireland carry a higher concentration of Rh-negative than their neighbours, then they are not a mixture of those neighbours. Of course they are mixed WITH those neighbours; everybody is some sort of mixture. But there is some different underlying line, unique to the group. It is not Viking, Angle-Saxon, Norman or Dutch. Those are all blond blue eyed tribes and Rh-positive. It is not Kelt, Gael or Gaul because they are no more Rh-negative than anyone around. There is no one else. The Picts and the Northern Irish are the close relatives of the boat builders after all and probably ARE the boat builders
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Thanks for that magisterial tour d'horizon, Komoro, with which I scarcely disagree. (Without necessarily endorsing it either).
However, you have carefully skated round the central point of my argument. Thus when you say:
| The Rh-negative people who populated all the islands of Western Europe, from the Canary Islands to the Lofoten in the Arctic, all were sailors, fishermen, ocean explorers. |
You are replacing analysis with truisms. People who live on islands must be (or once have been) ocean explorers just as people who live on the coast are sure to be sailors and fishermen (to some extent or other). But that cannot disguise the fact that some people who live near the sea have maritime cultures, some don't. And all the people you mention--Berbers, Celts, Canarians, Picts, Lapps, Basques--don't.
Actually I'd put the whole thing the other way round and ask "How come cultures that lie along the eastern littoral of the Atlantic tend to be universally un-maritime?"
There is a reason.
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admin
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From Komorikid
| But that cannot disguise the fact that some people who live near the sea have maritime cultures, some don't. And all the people you mention--Berbers, Celts, Canarians, Picts, Lapps, and Basques--don't |
This is either a trick answer or I've missed something important.
By my recollection the following applies:
Berbers from North Africa are related to the non Phoenecians - Sailed across the Atlantic - excellent sailors
Norse - Vikings Sailed across the Atlantic - excellent sailors
Canary Islands - Hard to tell since the Spanish wiped the original culture out.
Western Irish - sailed across the Atlantic - excellent sailors
Basque - Origins in Galicia NW Spain- excellent sailors
Western Scotland - well known Shipbuilders and Sailors
I didn't mention the Lapps as sailors.
If there is a reason my logic is twisted please tell me.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Look, Komoro, we're necessarily being rather impressionistic here. You clearly have a "feel" for history so I am requesting you "feel" what the situation is. I have already acknowledged that all coastal peoples utilise the sea to some extent but I invite you to say whether this qualifies as "maritime" or not.
Let's start with one I didn't mention, the Vikings. Because that is a matitime culture (but of course one that is thousands of years after the relevant time frame.)
On the other hand, let's take their near-neighbours, the Lapps. They are just as decidely non-maritime which seems only par-for-the-course since herding reindeer at sea is probably not such a good idea but then their near-neighbours the pre-Viking Scandinavians would no doubt have said that growing oats and raising cattle is best done on land too.
Now you yourself have pointed to a close relationship between leather-producers and sailors (which was news to me, so thanks for that, and rather useful as it happens) so why the hell DIDN'T the Lapps become just a tad maritime?
But you must resist the temptation to "list-and-shout":
Berbers from North Africa are related to the non Phoenicians - Sailed across the Atlantic - excellent sailors
Canary Islands - Hard to tell since the Spanish wiped the original culture out.
Western Irish - sailed across the Atlantic - excellent sailors
Basque - Origins in Galicia NW Spain- excellent sailors
Western Scotland - well known Shipbuilders and Sailors |
The Swiss are excellent sailors (they curently hold the America's Cup) and may well be related to the non-Phoenicians.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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So, we've got these three groups of people....no, we've got one group of people, the AryoSemAltic-speakers, going three ways. One lot are hopping across from Brazil to the bulge of Africa, one lot are crossing the northern Pacific and one lot are going from North America to Europe.
First question: are these, by pre-historic standards, difficult journeys. I mean 'difficult' in the sense of being 'unfeasible for large groups'? Tricky.
One common misapprehension concerning ocean voyaging: ocean-voyaging is not inherently difficult or dangerous. You just get in a boat and sail away. To be perfectly honest coast-wise sailing is much more difficult and much more dangerous. The seas tend to be rougher and hitting bits of land (especially rocks) much more likely. So, theoretically, if you can sail at all, you can sail anywhere.
So why didn't we do more of it? Well, that's down to navigation. Coastwise sailing doesn't require much in the way of navigation, whereas ocean-crossing is completely pointless without it for the simple reason that you wouldn't be able to find your way back.
But suppose you didn't want to find you way back. Suppose you were engaged in a full blown bridges-burnt, last-man-turn-out-the-lights volkerwanderung, leaving one continent for ever in order to make a new home in a new continent? Well, then the odds change. Then you only have to land in the right continent and continents are hard to miss whatever your skill-levels, navigation-wise.
So the soon-to-be-Semitics jump aboard in Bela Horizonte and say 'Eastward Ho, James, and don't spare the horses'...no, forget I mentioned horses...and after the short hop across to West Africa they set off towards their manifest destiny.
The soon-to-be-Altaics gather their reindeer together and start trekking across the Bering Straits...(I know, I know but I.m leaving a lot out for the sake of narrative drive).
Which leaves the soon-to-be-Indo-Europeans chomping at the bit in Labrador. But they've got a problem....anyone see what it was?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Mick Harper wrote:
| Actually I'd put the whole thing the other way round and ask "How come cultures that lie along the eastern littoral of the Atlantic tend to be universally un-maritime?" |
The answer is obvious -- and you know it.
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admin
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From Komorikid
Because it wasn't the eastern seaboard then. The eastern seaboard of Europe was west of Ireland.
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Ray
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| When and why all these people needed to leave the Americas for the 'New World' is a matter you need not bother your heads with now but suffice it to say it involves the Mystery of The Disappearing North American Horse. |
An entire continent was evacuated? How can anyone read your latest bombshell without being bothered about how why and when?
But as to the the American horse disappearing: it seems it didn't - not quite.
Ishmael posted an article on the GHMB a while back entitled Where do these horses come from? He was referring to a curly-coated beast that crops up all over the American continent(s) but nowhere else. Since then I've come across further interest - in print form and, if I remember correctly, on TV. It seems the consensus is that these horses are remnants of the indigenous stock. If true their numbers must have been small and confined to remote areas by the time the westward migrations from Europe were under way.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| An entire continent was evacuated? How can anyone read your latest bombshell without being bothered about how why and when? |
Ray, always take your medication before posting. I merely said some people left somewhere by three routes.
| But as to the the American horse disappearing... |
Whenever I say this is "a matter you need not bother your heads with now" some of you appear to think this an open invitation to immediately bother your heads with it. Extraordinary behaviour.
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Ray
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I'd say that if they left earlier than eight thousand years ago they might have had a bit of bother from sea ice.
Apart from that the currents wouldn't work in their favour from Labrador. The Gulf Stream misses this part of the coast, even in optimum conditions, because there is an arctic flow coming down from Greenland which would either take them south, or worse, sweep them up towards the frozen Arctic.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Ray wrote
| Apart from that the currents wouldn't work in their favour from Labrador. The Gulf Stream misses this part of the coast, even in optimum conditions, because there is an arctic flow coming down from Greenland which would either take them south, or worse, sweep them up towards the frozen Arctic. |
There is a cold current running south between the west Greenland coast and Canada but it would carry any vessel southeast once it cleared the southern tip of Greenland and out into the North Atlantic where the predominant current (the Gulf Stream) would sweep that vessel East with landfall anywhere between Spain and Norway depending on the time of year.
Why would they be in Labrador? In the time frame we are talking about that part of N America would have been pretty cold. Why not further south around the Caribbean?
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Ray
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| There is a cold current running south between the west Greenland coast and Canada but it would carry any vessel southeast once it cleared the southern tip of Greenland and out into the North Atlantic where the predominant current (the Gulf Stream) would sweep that vessel East with landfall anywhere between Spain and Norway depending on the time of year. |
I was hoping no one would notice that. It's true that they would be carried south, at least in the summer months - but for a quite considerable distance before hitting the Gulf Stream. Which raises the question; why set out from there in the first place?
| Why would they be in Labrador? In the time frame we are talking about that part of N America would have been pretty cold. Why not further south around the Caribbean? |
Which time frame are we talking about? If it's the glacial period, then yes, Labrador would have been a place to avoid - although there were a couple of climatic windows. After 7,500 BP the North East coast would have been idyllic for a while. So much so that you have to wonder why they would want to leave.
As to the Gulf Stream carrying them to the coasts of W Europe: only in temperate times - allegedly. During the glacial cold currents from the Arctic prevented it from flowing so far north. They would have ended up in Africa.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Some interesting answers, one of which hinted at the central problem, but just to make things simple for you, and to avoid getting into the Great Wisconsin Glaciation Controversy, I shall relocate my Indo-Europeans. I wish I could also rename them back to Aryans but the times are still not right.
So we remove them from Labrador (where, incidentally, I usually place them in order to take advantage of the Red Ochre People who have the necessary mystery and giant middens to fulfil the role) and, in honour of Ishmael, we'll stick them in St Johns, Newfoundland instead. That way you've got the Gulf Stream and the prevailing westerlies (and no icebergs) to take your boat across at a steady five knots. Actually (cf Kon Tiki) a raft will do, anything indeed that will float for a month and is big enough to take a family group and a month's supplies.
And note, very little is required by way of any kind of seamanship skills to reach Europe. Yeah, I know, I saw the Cruel Sea too, and it's all very dangerous but that's just Hollywood...er...Elstree. When we talk of seamanship we really mean 'carrying a payload to a specific place at a good speed'. When it's a one-time family move, none of this applies. You stick granny and the kids somewhere and the rest of you able-bodied goons just go round battening down the forelocks or whatever it is sailors pretend to do. Frankly, getting to Europe in one piece is practically unavoidable. .
So, you've made it across the Atlantic, land hoves into view, what do you do next?
A couple of things I didn't mention: 1) You are specifically wishing to join up with the rest of your family/tribe/clan in, let's say, Silesia. And 2) you belong to The Megalithic Organization which is a bunch of people with...well, with megalithic skills. Not that you personally have any of these skills, you understand, you're just a farmer (or possibly a farmeress) but you are part of The Organisation.
How can they help?
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Ray
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| So, you've made it across the Atlantic, land hoves into view, what to do you do next? |
Presumably we don't borrow some horses and head off into the sunrise..
Has there been any two way traffic over the Atlantic before now? I ask because if not there's no way we could have the remotest idea of our kinfolk's whereabouts - or even if they made the crossing at all.
Assuming that there has the first thing is to ascertain what part of Europe we've fetched up in. We can divine the answer by 'reading' the local megaliths. Those of us who understand these matters - and there will have to have been one on board - will be able to interpret the alignments and by this means work out our latitude. This person will already know what latitude our Silesian folks are living at, so all we have to do then is adjust our bearing accordingly.
| A couple of things I didn't mention: 1) You are specifically wishing to join up with the rest of your family/tribe/clan in, let's say, Silesia. And 2) you belong to The Megalithic Organization which is a bunch of people with...well, with megalithic skills. Not that you personally have any of these skills, you understand, you're just a farmer (or possibly a farmeress) but you are part of The Organisation. |
How can they help?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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One of the wonders of the human condition is that when told
| Not that you personally have any of these [navigational, megalithic] skills, you [and your family] are just farmers |
human beings immediately assume
| we can divine the answer by 'reading' the local megaliths. Those of us who understand these matters - and there will have to have been one on board - will be able to interpret the alignments and by this means work out our latitude. This person will already know what latitude our Silesian folks are living at, so all we have to do then is adjust our bearing accordingly. |
No, Ray, you are a farmer, everybody in the boat is a farmer, your father was a farmer and his father afore him; you don't know what latitude means never mind what latitude Silesia is and, no, you seem not to have a Master Mariner with a Higher Cert in Geonavigation and a working knowledge of Central European Geography aboard. Most remiss of you, I'm sure, but there it is.
Now get back on the bleedin' boat and tell us what you do next. If I were you I'd get in touch with The Organisation pronto, though I thank the Good Lord I am not you at least twice a day.
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