Lights Out at Cahokia

[uniface]

Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked “the beginning of the end” for what was once America’s largest city, archaeologists say.

http://westerndigs.org/epic-fire-marked ... s-suggest/

[kbs2244]

"From there, the team notes, other changes in material culture quickly began to manifest themselves all over Greater Cahokia — like new methods of making clothing and pottery, and even new visual symbols showing up on ceramic decorations — all part of a gradual but undeniable social reorganization."

So what else was going on around 1100 CE ?

[Minimalist]

War, rebellion or dynastic strife were the first three ideas which popped into my head.

[uniface]

Comet ?

[E.P. Grondine]

No, uniface, no comet.

Aside from that, min, why bother looking at the First Peoples' memories of what happened, when speculation is so easy and fun?

Well, since they say history will be repeated by those who forget it,
I suppose that history will also be repeated by those who never knew it in the first place.

[uniface]

No, uniface, no comet.

You sure, EP ?

There were a bunch of them in Europe around then.

[kbs2244]

Isn't it around that time that the Aztec were supposed to have moved south from NA and N Mexico into the Central Mexico area?

[Ernie L]

Isn't it around that time that the Aztec were supposed to have moved south from NA and N Mexico into the Central Mexico area?

and thus the housing market collapse of 1100 in NA.

[Minimalist]

No, uniface, no comet.

Aside from that, min, why bother looking at the First Peoples' memories of what happened, when speculation is so easy and fun?

Well, since they say history will be repeated by those who forget it,
I suppose that history will also be repeated by those who never knew it in the first place.

Because, as you well know, I don't put much stock in ancient folklore....no matter who writes it.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi min
Most of the folklore I deal with was created only several hundred years ago, and concerns fighting wandering savages.
More modern parts of it concern "Mound Builders", "Hopewell", and "Adena".

The rest of it varies from theosophist nonsense to other nu-age cr*p.
In massive amounts, spouted by otherwise nice people.

While I could lecture on ethnography for hours, min, someday you will have to face when some later religious text(s) happens to line up with contemporary documents and digs.

In the meantime, your problems with religion/nationalism are not mine.

You might want to study some of the non-OT major problems, such as Homer, or the Alexander cycles, and starting from there.

[Minimalist]

Hmmm..... so:

4. But the Fates were resolved, as I suppose, upon the founding of this great City, and the beginning of the mightiest of empires, next after that of Heaven. [2] The Vestal was ravished, and having given birth to twin sons, named Mars as the father of her doubtful offspring, whether actually so believing, or because it seemed less wrong if a god [p. 19]were the author of her fault. [3] But neither gods nor men protected the mother herself or her babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess he ordered to be manacled and cast into prison, the children to be committed to the river. [4] It happened by singular good fortune that the Tiber having spread beyond its banks into stagnant pools afforded nowhere any access to the regular channel of the river, and the men who brought the twins were led to hope that being infants they might be drowned, no matter how sluggish the stream. [5] So they made shift to discharge the king's command, by exposing the babes at the nearest point of the overflow, where the fig-tree Ruminalis —formerly, they say, called Romularis —now stands. [6] In those days this was a wild and uninhabited region. The story persists that when the floating basket in which the children had been exposed was left high and dry by the receding water, a she-wolf, coming down out of the surrounding hills to slake her thirst, turned her steps towards the cry of the infants, and with her teats gave them suck so gently, that the keeper of the royal flock found her licking them with her tongue.

Titus Livius, The History of Rome, Book 1

So here we have a tale written down centuries later and there have been multiple archaeological finds which confirm the veneration of the she-wolf in Roman culture. I guess therefore that you accept this tale? What about the earlier part where it was Mars who came down and did the dirty deed with their mother? Does this then become evidence that Mars and the rest of the Roman pantheon exist? Exactly how far back into mythology are you willing to ascribe fact?

[E.P. Grondine]

The Romans were nearly as good as European colonists at making up "history".

In any case, Etruscan excavators tell me that they have found no sign of an impact event in the Volsinii region, which is what Pliny wrote happened: "quo nihil terribilissimus mortalium timori est", or something like that.

Did an asteroid or comet impact lead to the end of the Etruscan League and the rise of Rome?

I would have loved to have checked that out personally, as well as the reports of an impact having occurred at Bazas in France.

In the event, I don't know; I never got the chance to write "Man and Impact in Europe".
"Man and Impact in the Ancient Near East" was supposed to follow on "Man and Impact in the Americas",
and that would have funded work and play in Europe.

The former President of Estonia did pretty well with his impact related books, and my estimate is that a version of "The Bible as History" with impacts added in would have done pretty well.

Oh well. As my Iroquois acquaintance Sid put it:
"You know how you make the Creator laugh?'
"Tell him you plans."

If its any comfort to you, I guess we should be thankful for the miracle of each day, as well as the challenges presented to us.

PS - The Lenape wampum count date for the fall of Twakanah ("Cahokia") can be found in one of the appendices of "Man and Impact in the Americas". You do have your own copy available in an convenient place for reference use?

[Minimalist]

Seriously, E.P. there are times when you remind me of those ancient aliens nuts. They see aliens in everything they look at....it's a lucrative scam... and you see a celestial bombardment everywhere you look....in what you admit is a less than lucrative scam.

Folklore is not a solid basis for a scientific study. As I've said before, if Firestone had resorted to folklore he would have been laughed out of the profession. So he went for science and even then the old-wing has resisted fiercely although it seems that the latest finds are backing him.

[E.P. Grondine]

Firestone is a nuclear physicist.
I was a space journalist and historian.

We each brought what we could to the HSIE problem.
We stumbled into it through vastly different routes,
and started in on it only when no other answer was left.

The same thing that happened to many others doing research in widely different fields.
Impact is the only thing that explains the data.

The bulk of Firestone's archaeological work was done by Kennett and his associates.
The same thing happened to them.

I went through large amounts of materials to try and locate and isolate impact accounts in time and space.
Simple data recovery, to try and guide further data recovery.

Recent impacts are a previously unexamined phenomena in the social sciences,
and a powerful tool for ethnographic work.
I simply was the first to do rigorous work on them.
While I was not the very first,
I was the first to do really rigorous work.

I tried to cash in, but got hit with a stroke before I could.
There is nothing wrong with making money;
as the Chinese leadership recently noted: "It is glorious to be prosperous".
I did not know it at the time, but in Native American thought, it is wrong to make money selling history.
As wrong as selling healing or spiritual guidance.

It does have its rewards, though.

My current thinking is that others will make careers from my work.

Remember that data always wins in the end.
That is as true for archaeological and geological data as it is for data in other fields.

And that is as true for Near Eastern Chronology as it is for the mega-faunal extinction.

You conveniently leave out of your comment both the known extinction event, along with the First Peoples' accounts of how it occurred. Along with the archaeological and geological record.

By the way, there have been numerous other recent impacts.
I worked on them as far as I could for my book.

As first editions of Clube and Napier's books are now going for $300 per copy,
you might want to buy up as many used copies of my book as you can.

[uniface]

http://io9.com/a-mysterious-fire-destro ... 1390275275

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -city.html