A landmark Book

[uniface]

If you are at all interested in the history of the native people in New England and Eastern Canada, across to the upper Great Lakes and down through the midwest to the Gulf of Mexico and on into Latin America, then "Man and Impact in the Americas" by E. P. Grondine will be the best book you ever read, without a doubt.

For an example of one of the impacts he covers, the earth passing through the tail of the comet Encke in 536 AD, triggering worldwide climate changes that included the crop failures that began the Dark Ages in Europe and, over here, collapsed the Hopewell civilization in North America. And so forth through 465 pages of densely researched text (the last 78 of which are verbatim translations of the traditional histories of the Six Nations, the Natchez, the Shawnee, the Creeks and the Lenape).

Each impact is discussed from a scientific perspective first (the author was a reporter who covered NASA for scientific publications), and then from the descriptions of them found in the traditional histories. Together, these paint a surprisingly detailed picture of the history that it's usual to assume is "lost," but isn't lost at all -- only ignored.

And now recovered and re-assembled.

This is a landmark book in the recovery of North American History before Columbus. You can get it (and should. Without delay) for $35 plus mailing from Amazon, or postage free from E. P. Grondine, P.O.Box 158, Kempton,Ill., 60946

[E.P. Grondine]

Thanks, uniface -

These impacts and ensuing climate collapses are an incredibly powerful tool for chronological work. So many of the First Peoples histories were dismissed as myths when they mentioned them, and that combined with translation errors generally led to their histories being dismissed as nothing more than myths.

For one example, consider how their accounts of the comet fragment impacts of ca. 10,900 BCE are being treated right now.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Uni is your Santa, E.P.: he brought you free advertising!

[uniface]

Spreading the word about a great book is a civic obligation.

You do have your own copy of it. Right ?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Spreading the word about a great book is a civic obligation.

Spreading undue panic is a civic crime.

[Digit]

Spreading undue panic is a civic crime.

Indeed!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 891362.ece

Roy.

[E.P. Grondine]

Spreading the word about a great book is a civic obligation.

Spreading undue panic is a civic crime.

Its just the facts for the last 12,900 years or so, RS. Using smaller impacts and the ensuing climate collapses, a factor in man's environment which had not been rigourously considered before, as a chronological key and a key to understanding Native American histories. And that's what makes it a "landmark book".

And there's no need for you to panic, as we already have the technology to find and deal with these things.

It is simply getting NASA to carry out the instructions the Congress has already given them in the George Brown Jr Amendment.

Roy has a pretty good take on it: "First people deny a thing, then they belittle it, then they say it was known all along!" Von Humboldt

[uniface]

You do have your own copy of it. Right ?

Right ?

So that you've at least a fair idea of what it is you're dismissing out of hand (?)

[Digit]

To discount impacts, or massive floods, or sea level changes, or temperature changes is to study only part of Man's history.
A bit like working out the plot of a book from just the final chaper I think.

Roy.

[Cognito]

In addition to extraterrestrial events, diseases played a critical part in the unfolding history of humankind. Many ancient and successful pandemics are recorded in the genome of humans and may be dated, adding to our knowledge of who was where and when. These areas of science entwine when one considers that comet dust results in famine which results in starvation and the spread of disease from immunological compromise, and so on and so forth.

[Minimalist]

My complaint with the book, Cogs, was that it relied on folklore far too much and actual science far too little.

[uniface]

And when has any groundbreaking account ever been the last word on anything ?

And with formal science (to the extent that a field as squishy as archaeology can ever pose as one) only beginning to address the issue (when it does at all), is this even an available option ?

[Minimalist]

I'll take an iridium layer, or ice core analysis, magnetic microspherules, or nanodiamonds over some ancient poetry any day.

[uniface]

All of which they're still sorting out and arguing over.

Then the complaint would be that undue weight was assigned to this conclusion or that one. Not to mention that it would require a thorough overhaul tantamount to starting over from scratch. Which would be absurd -- both in light of the circumstances, and of the ever-shifting picture as more studies address the issues.

What's wrong with acknowledging a valuable book as a valuable book within its own parameters and on its own terms ? You don't expect groceries at a hardware store, or petrol at an animal shelter. Why dismiss a work dealing with the collective memory of cataclysmic events to be weighted down with considering evidence that's too sketchy at this point to settle anything and, in any event, is tangental to the theme of it ? You might as well fault studies analysing nanodiamonds in the black mat for not including (even featuring) the material E. P. has dug out and presented.

Realistically, any possibility of assembling the big picture from quantitative minutae is probably thirty years in the future. In light of which, working from the other end -- outlining the big picture within which the P238 and similar oddities still being discovered and catalogued have a frame of reference -- is, in my view (if not yours), a happy choice.

[Minimalist]

Why dismiss a work dealing with the collective memory of cataclysmic events

I did not dismiss it. I said it is overly reliant on folklore and not hard science.

If Professor Firestone had trotted out native american legends as a basis for his comet theory how far do you think he would have gotten?

That's all I'm saying.