continuing proofs America is wacko [2]

Here's a more scholarly article: http://www.archaeology.org/news

It's only been dated by context at this time, but if it turns out to be as old as the surrounding 2000 year old pottery, I think it can legitimately be called ancient for a wooden canoe.



Dugout Canoe Discovered in Ocala National Forest

OCALA, FLORIDA—Seven-year-old Koen Ergle told reporters about his discovery of an old can, old bricks, three golf balls, and a dugout canoe while taking a scuba-diving lesson from his grandfather in Owen Lake. “He was on my secondary respirator and I could hear him making noises and pointing to the wood. I started fanning the sand off and still wasn’t quite sure what it was,” added his grandfather, Ken Ergle. Archaeologist Julia Byrd of the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, is documenting the canoe and beginning the conservation process while waiting for the results of carbon dating testing. But pottery near the canoe could be 2,000 years old. The canoe will be housed in the Marion County Museum of History and Archaeology.

Yeah 2000 is better, that makes it at least old (I can go for a walk and stand in a 4500 year old structure round here, so I tend to think of anything after about 1000bc as relevantly modern!   )

Yeah I know. Some of the ruins over there gave me chills, even without knowing anything about their stories.  

I don't care which continent it's on, I love the early marine archaeology. Isn't it amazing how all these craft are more similar than different, all the way around the world thousands of years ago? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1234529.stm
Bronze Age boat 'oldest in Europe'
By the BBC's Rebecca Jones

A boat found more than 40 years ago near Hull has been identified as the oldest of its kind in western Europe.

New scientific research carried out on the remains shows it is at least 4,000 years old.

The boat was one of three discovered by amateur archaeologist Ted Wright on the banks of the Humber at Ferriby near Hull.

We didn't know what we'd found to begin with, other than we'd found a boat

He first noticed three oak planks sticking out of the mud while walking with his brother in 1937.

Mr Wright went on to find the remains of another boat in 1940 and most importantly a third in 1963 after years of dedicated shore watching.

Historians knew the boats were old, but only now do they know how old.

New scientific techniques suggest the boat Mr Wright found in 1963 is 500 years older than everyone thought.

That means it date backs more than 4,000 years to the early Bronze Age.

The boat would have been about 16m long, with a flat bottom like a raft with the ends and sides curving up like a large canoe.

It was made of huge oak planks sewn together with twisted yew branches.

There was room for up to 18 paddles, with nine timbers or thwarts across the boat which could have been used by paddlers or passengers to sit on.

What is not clear is whether the boat had a mast and sail.

Keith Miller, a regional inspector of ancient monuments, said all three boats shed new light on the lives of our prehistoric ancestors.

"These boats were the kind of crafts that were used for crossing the English Channel or the North Sea.

"They were certainly used in the Humber estuary and the surrounding rivers," he said.

"They were large enough to carry not just people but animals as well.

"They would have been used for trade and they could have been used by the immigrants of the early Bronze Age who came from the Low Countries and settled in the north east of England."

The boat provides important historical evidence, but that may not be the end of the story.

More fragments have been found on the shores of the Humber in the last few years and scientists believe there may be more boats waiting to be discovered.

The vessel will be unveiled as part of an exhibition at Hull and East Riding Museum for National Science Week.

We used to play in this is a kid-



Adam’s Grave is located near Ardnadam Farm, 3 miles north of Dunoon on the A815.
The monument is the local name for a neolithic cairn, which is believed to date from 3500 BC. Two portals and one cap stone still remain of the stone burial chamber.

Over here anything that predates the nail is ancient. There's some cities where you can find structures downtown that are 200 years old!   They usually always have historical placards. A place can't survive 150 years without gaining a placard, it simply isn't done.

But the real test is if a human institution has survived as long as the building. One of my favorite places in New York is McSorley's alehouse. Started around 1860 and maintained by the same Irishman for 50 years, after which control passed to his son who so adored his father he refused to change a thing. Finally it devolved to the family of a longtime patron who realized that by now the fact that nothing had changed was the place's best selling point. It took a court case in the 1970's for women to first gain admission, the last bar in the city to ban women because mixed drinking in public never happened until the 1920's...too recent to be relevant. They only sell two ales (light and dark) by an unchanging recipe; a platter of crackers, cheddar cheese and raw onions is the primary menu item as it has been since the place opened; and each morning they strew sawdust on the floor the way they have for the last 150 years.  

These things may be common in Europe, but in the US (and I suspect in Ozhobbitstan as well) such things are a cherished and rare anomaly.

halfwise wrote:One of my favorite places in New York is McSorley's alehouse.

If I'm in NY I'll buy the first round if you show me this place! 

Oh most definitely!  But you should get there when the place opens at 11 am.  It used to be part of the lower class east village, now it's part of the youth trendy east village.  Crowds up quick these days, and you lose your chance to browse all the old newspaper clippings and portraits on the wall. But the kids are cognizant of the history, and one girl in a group I was seated with told me she came because they heard about the place from her grandfather, who used to come as a teenager.

Pretty yawn inducing for a Brit where pubs survive generations, but nearly incredible for us.

Leelee! Always a treat when you stop by.

Hi leelee, great to see you back again.
Hello Hasia  

I am actually more struck by the character and atmosphere of buildings from 100 years ago than 2000. 2000 is so long ago I cant get my head round it, but 100 years ago seems so much more interesting to me.

I'm not sure which I prefer- I have been in some very impressive, atmospheric modern buildings.
And I have been in some very atmospheric ancient ones.

And the difference in feeling for me seems similar to yours Mrs Figg, the ancient stuff feels alien. Its unknown, in purpose, design and often how it was done.
With a more modern building I can conceive it in use, even if it no longer is, I can ascertain the likely function of parts of it and at least guess at its purpose.

But I also enjoy the sensation of distance in a really old place, of being in something truly unknown to your own experiences.

I find the atmosphere of a house is fresher the younger it is, the very oldest places I have been to seem to hold little trace of its makers. i went to the Pantheon in Rome maybe (2000 years old), I was expecting to get an overwhelming sense of history, but it felt empty and sanitized, I went to Gawsworth Hall, Elizabethan, and was overcome by a sense of dread, this was when I was 6 years old, I went back 20 years later, same experience only worse. Found out later its one of the most haunted houses in the UK. Went to a Victorian house my cousin lived in, and totally freaked out, by all accounts there had been a murder and a fire there many years before. Some houses I refuse to go in because the atmosphere is wrong.

I have no sensitivity to such things, I kinda wish I did - might make life more interesting.

Down by the water is the Bridge Cafe, said to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country. Cell phones drain their batteries notoriously fast in there: now there's something I can test! Heard about it recently, but before I could put it through its paces, Hurricane Sandy hit. The place is still there, but closed after an inspection deemed it unsafe. May never reopen.  

thats a shame.

halfwise wrote:Cell phones drain their batteries notoriously fast in there: now there's something I can test!

A lot of the time that happens because you're in a no- or low-signal area and is constantly searching for a network.  My dad lives at the bottom of a hill which blocks the nearest cell phone tower and my phone's battery drains extremely fast when I'm at his house.

You buzz killer.

95-Year-Old Man In Nursing Home Resists Going To Hospital . . . Police Arrive And Shoot and Kill Him With Stun Gun And Bean Bag Rounds

http://jonathanturley.org/2013/09/19/95-year-old-man-in-nursing-home-resists-going-to-hospital-police-arrive-and-shoot-and-kill-him-stun-gun-and-bean-bag-rounds/

If this is accurate then its as disgusting as it is inept. What the hell is going on over there?

Chicago Tribune article says that the incident involved the Park Forest Police Department.  A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that Park Forest, Illinois is a town of a little over 20,000, so there's a fair chance that the police department is small and not especially well trained.

Doesn't make the incident any less inexcusable, of course.  But this is a pretty bizarre story so I'd be curious to know more details.

Just to add one point, this man was a WWII Combat veteran. I would never make the mistake, or do him the dishonor, of assuming he wasn't a very real threat to the officers.

If he was like many of that generation and he decided a fight was called for, he would win or die trying. You gotta respect that.

Apparently he had sat down in a chair by the time they shot him.

http://burnpit.legion.org/2013/08/95-year-old-wwii-veteran-killed-after-being-tased-and-shot-police

From that article:

First they tased him, but that didn't work.

That doesn't tell the whole story of course, but it's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Not to excuse the officers or the people who trained them, but I refuse to see this old man as a victim.

I just dont understand this- in 20 years of care work I have variably been attacked with a bottle, fists, bitten, scratched, threatened with a knife and one memorable occasional a dining room chair. I have restrained violent patients and Ive been punched full in the face by violent patients. I have never known a single incident where it has been felt necessary to call the police in, let alone to shoot someone with a tazer or anything else. The mentality behind restraining a 96 old year in this fashion is beyond my capacity to reason.