Science Fridays
Post # 89
I live out in the country, in the big woods. Although I have three neighbors right across the road from me, we are like an island, or rather a small archipelago. There isn't anyone else near me for at least a half mile one way, and a full mile the other direction. We're spread out like that here. Drive about a mile, and then there's a small cluster of houses, go another half mile and then there's the lone cattle or horse farm. Therefore we consider someone who lives up to five miles away as one of our neighbors.
In Minnesota, on a larher scale, the towns and cities are like that too. You go down the freeway for about fifteen miles or so, and then there's a small cluster of small communities. There's one larger one, and then smaller ones that are almost like satellite towns. And then there's the Twin Cities, Rochester, Saint Cloud, and Albert Lea - each of them has smaller communities that turned into suburbs (The Iron Range towns are like a bunch of small suburbs that have no main hub city).
On a very much larger scale, a galactic scale, it is the same way. Most galaxies have satellite galaxies orbiting around them. Our own Milky Way has several. The most prominent of these are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Pegasus Galaxy, and Leo I, II, and III. They are technically separate galaxies, and are therefore our closest galactic neighbors (in Stargate Atlantis they were in the Pegasus Galaxy, and were too far away to get to by gates. They had to travel there by Asgard ships until the creation of a series of gates known as the Carter/MacKay Bridge). Looking at things from an urban/suburban viewpoint you could say that they are all just really a part of the Milky Way. They do orbit us, after all.
The Large Magellanic Cloud
Looking at it that way, we would have to say that the Andromeda Galaxy is our closest galactic neighbor, along with its satellites (suburbs). But just how close is Andromeda.
If I told you how many light years away (a lot), you would have no real concept of how close it is. It is a concept that is hard to wrap our heads around.
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across, and almost twice that distance if you count all our satellite/suburb galaxies. Andromeda, our giant neighbor is twice that at about 200,000 light years, and counting its orbiting, suburb galaxies it is about twice that at 400,000 light years across. Presently Andromeda is is about 2,000,000 light years away from galactic center to galactic center. From edge to edge however, Andromeda is only about 1,700,000 light years away (you're probably thinking, "only? This Wisenheimer is calling 1,700,000 light years 'only'?") Looking at it another way Andromeda is only five times its diameter away from us. That's really close - and it's getting closer.
Yes, Andromeda is speeding toward us. Presently it takes up a huge portion of our night sky. It takes up about 6 1/2 "moon widths." Through the naked eye however, it only appears as a fuzzy looking area (on a clear night away from any cities, such as at my place). NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site recently created a composite picture to show Andromeda's size in our night sky (picture below).
Astronomers say that in about 1000 to 10;000 years it will be so close that it will take up our entire northern sky. It will continue to look larger and larger until it collides with our own galaxy. It will swallow up our own galactic center and take many of our stars with it, leaving the remnant along with our own suburb galaxies to orbit as a new satellite-suburb galaxy. Talk about consolidation! That won't happen though, they say until about 3 million years from now. Various college astronomy departments have published videos of this whole scenario.
I'm going to be gone again at another reenactment this weekend, so there will be no more posts again until at least Monday night. Have a great weekend. I will.
Post # 88
I have another archeological find to report on today. This one is Spanish, and dates to about 1567, during the latter part of the Renaissance. But, before I do I will write briefly about the main tribes of Waabidengwayan (white faces) my people ran into (my native ancestors).
There were four main tribes of white people we had contact with, followed by a major fifth. Although there were German colonists in California and on the Gulf Coast, their time here was short and their influence small, as were the Swedes in Delaware and New Jersey. The Portugese made quite an impact on the western hemisphere, but their influence was way down in South America (Brazil), so for us they were worlds away and we never even knew about them. We heard rumours of the people in Alaska (the Russians), but that was also far away from any contact with any of the Annishinaabe nations. Our early dealings were primarily with the French, Dutch, English, and Spanish, and later on the Americans. Of course during the Immigrant Period (1860's - 1920's) we had contact with many kinds of Europeans. These were mostly Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, and Finns, with a few Polacks thrown into the mix. Unlike them, we made distinctions between their tribes, and had different names for them all, whereas they just called us all Indians, or Injuns. For instance we called the Finns the "Sweat-Lodge People" and called the talkative, chatty Norwegians the "Gingos" our word for chipmunk. Bur for the sake of this article I'm talking about the four tribes of early contact.
First up I'll talk about the French. La Francé, we called them, because that is what the Hurons and our brothers the Aadawe (Ottawa) called them as many of them (and us) learned how to speak French. We also called them the Gookoosh-wisiiniyag, the pork eaters. The French were by far the friendliest for us. They sought to understand us, and their people often married into ours. Their venture in North America, was mainly commercial, for trading. Other than the area around Quebec City, they weren't bent on settling every place they saw.
The Dutch were a complete bomb. They had bad leaders during their colonial phase. They first of all viewed all native peoples as being the same - just a bunch of "Indians." They executed native men and women, for anything they saw a a crime. When one of their pigs wandered off they accused a Delaware woman of stealing it and had her shot for it. Later on the pig wandered back. When the Delaware responded with an attack and a war started. In the process of the war the Dutch attacked the villages of other nations, because they made no distinctions between "those Indians." If the English hadn't beat them off the continent, their colony would have still failed. About half a century after their failure they came back and only set up various, temporary fur posts. This time they were better at relations with the native populations. Even during the time of their colony they were good at trading. They were the first ones to trade us guns, forcing the other nations to follow suit. Their 18th Century traders continued in that tradition. They also traded their silver, rather than trying to force us to trade for whiskey. They also traded all the other standard trade goods of blankets and kettles, and such. We sometimes called them the Mazina-ininiwag, the coin people.
The next ones are the English. The Hurons couldn't pronounce an "L", so they called them the Yangees. That name for them stuck for most other native people. We all called them the Yangees. The name Yankee, comes both from that, and the Dutch word Junkers. They were in the continent just to settle. Trading for them was a chore they felt they had to do to appease us, while they took up all the land. Their prices were higher than the French or Dutch (smaller payout for furs), and they didn't like it if their people married native women. They always wanted the natives to be their scouts, and often assumed that they were. They made some distinction between various native peoples, but very little. One good thing to say about them though, is they did uphold their treaties. For instance The Ohio River valley was off limits to settle, because Kan-Tuk-Kee was a sacred place to all native peoples, and not to be owned by anyone. When English colonists snuck in there anyway, we would report it and the English soldiers would come and force them back to the accepted lands. This was one of the sources of contention between the Yangee colonists and the Yangee King, George III, that led to their Civil War over here.
When their Civil war was over, and the English colonists became independent from the Crown, they broke every treaty made by the Yangee Crown. They broke treaties with people or changed the terms of a treaty faster than the ink could dry. They enforced these broken treaties with their sabers, which is why we call them the "Gichi-mookoman," the long-knife (today many shorten it to Gichokomo, or Chokomo). Even so, a higher percentage of our populations enlist into the armed services than the percentage of Americans as a whole. We also hold the flag with more honor than many white Americans. I would say it's not so much that they love the country, but that they love the land that the country sits on.
Finally there were the Spanish. In the southern hemisphere they just over ran everything. On the Eastern Seaboard they didn't do so good though. In the mid 1500's they tried to settle colonies throughout Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. They thought the native people were their slaves. As such they didn't "exchange" gifts or trade. They thought that a one time gift sold them into Spanish service They freely beat or whipped the natives. They also used the native women and adolescent girls as a tool for their sexual needs. Viewing them all as slaves, from the minute the Spanish flag was planted on a beach also let them think it was okay every so often grab a few, and bring them to the auction blocks of Spain. For this reason we sometimes called them the Awaakan-Maji-Manidoowag, the Slave Devils.
Almost entirely due to their inability to build relationships with the natives, or even to see us as human, their North American colonies on the Eastern Seaboard came to a quick and violent end. Most of the colonies were completely massacred. The difference between their ways though, and ours, is that warriors of those southeast native nations didn't make the killing of the women and children a part of their goal. They would have been captured, brought back to their villages, and eventually adopted. Their northern colonies were there and gone, long before the English or French got to the region.
The Spanish Fort recently discovered in North Carolina met with the same fate. It only lasted about two years before its colonists were massacred and carried away, according to archeologist and historian Robin Beck, of the University of Michigan, working at the dig site.
This fort, known as Fort San Juan is being considered as the very first one in what is now the US interior. It was built by a Spanish Capitan by the name of Juan Pardo, and the colony's purpose was to find gold. That was the usual purpose for Spanish settlements. This is the largest of the forts that Juan Pardo built.
This archeological find wasn't found by construction workers, like so many others lately. It was found by a dig team from many universities, who were already excavating the site in the foothills of the Appalachian Mts. It was also the site of an even more ancient Mississippian Mound Builder settlement. While excavating the mounds, they first found some of the Spanish barracks. "We have known for more than a decade where the Spanish soldiers were
living," another excavator, Christopher Rodning of Tulane University,
explained in a statement.
It was only about a month ago that the foundations of the fort were found. They also used magnetronomy to probe down and see what is buried beneath the surface. Some of the features they found in this way are the entryway to the fort, and a moat, 15 feet across and about 5 1/2 feet deep. Also by just sheer digging they found an iron clasp of some kind.
Soon the dig season will be over, and the various archeologists and historians will go back to their universities and analyze their data, and publish papers on it. They are, however, looking forward already to coming back next year to continue working on what has now become a multiple dig site.
post # 87
Since Friday afternoon I was at a reenactment in Danbury, Wisconsin. I actually got home late on Sunday, but after unpacking I was too tired to be able to write a post. The event was a Fur Trade era rendezvous. The site for the event is the same site that had a fur post 200 years ago. The North West Company built the post there to trade with the local natives who lived there, mostly Ojibwe. The post was called Fort Folle Avoine, meaning "wild oats" for the wild rice that grew there. After the NWCo got well established a second company, the XY Company had the gall to build a fur post 50 feet away from the NWCo fur post. The Burnett County Historical Society along with many hard working volunteers have rebuilt the posts and the accompanying Ojibwe village on the same site.
The event was a great time. We were inflicted with light rain, drizzle and mist for one of the days, but we were able to teach/interpret history to the public anyway. Besides that, I spent a good deal of time visiting some of my greatest friends, sitting around their fires and hiding under there canvass during the times of the worst rain. In that way the rains were a blessing. In the evening a group of us that can play various instruments got together to play blue grass music and gospel songs. Among them there was some really great talent. We had a couple of banjos, several guitars, a couple of mandolins, a phenomenal fiddle player, and an equally awesome Dobro player. Some of them also played for us at the Sunday morning church service. I still have the sound of that Dobro going through my head two days later.
Musicians at Church
Rendezvous Church Service. Note the nicely shining sun.
By Saturday night the weather cleared, but was still unseasonably cold for the end of July, and on Sunday it got sunny and warm. The weather was already nice by the time of the church service. By the end of the day our canvass was all dry so we didn't have to deal with packing away wet canvass. It was a necessary and restful weekend.
Now onto today's post.
While building a new housing development in England the remains of a huge mansion were discovered. The mansion was originally built near Wellington during the mid 12th Century. By the mid 14th Century it was abandoned for reasons unknown. According to Bob Davis the senior archeologist for Wessex Archeology, there are also no records of this mansion ever existing. Everything about the site is a complete mystery.
There is a series of stone foundations for a whole series of buildings besides that of the mansion (chateau?). After the site was abandoned stones and other building materials were cannibalized from the site and used elsewhere locally. A piece of floor tile depicting a knight on horseback was discovered, and it matches another one in Glastonbury Abbey in nearby Somerset.
The researchers use this to point out the historical significance of the newly discovered building site, due to the floor tile being also found in such an important building. Glastonbury Abbey burned during the 12th Century, and the rebuilding took until the 14th Century. That corresponds to the same time when the "mystery" mansion was abandoned.
Excavation the site will continue for about another month.
I have my own simple, but not very detailed theories about the mansion's origins and its demise. One just has to ask, "what was going on in England during the time it was built, and during the time it was abandoned?" The mid 12th Century was a time of political and social turmoil. Anglo-Saxon England had only been taken over by the Normans for a little less than a century. The two cultures hadn't completely melded yet. William was hated, and his son William Rufus was hated even more - enough to die in a "hunting accident." He was followed by Henry, who did pretty good at finally beginning to unite the factions that would become the new nation. Having no one else he felt was worthy to take his throne, he got the barons and earls to agree to pass the crown to his daughter Mathilda.
After his death some outlaw cousin Stephen thought he would make a better ruler, and thus began a civil war. Yay, more chaos. The country that was still too young to be connected, was divided, but not nice and neat. It was spotty. A cluster of villages would be loyal to Queen Maude, and right nearby would be a few villages loyal to Stephen. Right on the other side of Stephen's villages would be more villages loyal to Maude, and so forth, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
It finally ended when Maude's son Henry II (of Anjou) came in and *royally* kicked Stephen's butt. (pun intended). Peace finally reigned over the fledling nation (but not for the Archbishop of Canterbury - but that's a different story).
Because Henry II was also the son of Geoffrey the Duke of Anjou, this next series of Kings are called the Angevins. Henry Married Eleanor of Aquitaine. As a result of this, as big as England is, the Angevin kings had more land holdings in France than they did in England (or just about, anyway). They all spoke French and most of them spent most of their time in France. King Richard Lionheart only spent a total of six months of his reign in England. That's why the various factions were able to meld into one culture. They were left alone.
During Henry II's reign things like Parliament were established. So was the policy of setting up totalitarian colonies in other people's lands filled with the baser sort of men and drunk and disorderly soldiers to impose brutality upon the local inhabitants. By definition they called this latter aspect of occupation "order." If anyone other than the monks in Angevin England could have read, the definition in their dictionaries would have given that as a definition for the word "order." ["to inflict pain, burden, and misery until the objects are too scared and beaten to ever raise their eyes above waist level"]. This policy continued and was adopted and adapted until the days of G.A. Custer, when it ultimately failed.
The newly discovered buildings and mansion most likely had to have been built then by a supporter of Maude or someone who came over with Henry II, otherwise it would have been torn down. In the rebuilding period right after the civil war, there was also a lot of unbuilding. Supporters of Stephen were tried as treasonous dogs, and many were hung and/or drawn and quartered. They had their lands seized and their building burned down and torn down. It is possible though, that these buildings were built by a supporter of Stephen, but were viewed as just too nice to be destroyed and were just handed over to a supporter of Maude and Stephen.
As to the "mysterious" abandonment of the mansion, that is easier to guess. In the mid 14th Century (seriously right in the middle of the century), in 1347-51, the Black Death had its European tour. On third of the population of Europe perished, and the other two thirds were traumatized by it for life. I'm sure that the neuroses they developed over it were also passed on to their children and grandchildren who had to put up with them. During this short period of death and mayhem whole villages died out and were abandoned. This is the most likely scenario here.
