tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6232479.post6998283330310433965..comments2023-10-05T10:19:06.886-05:00Comments on Blogonomicon: Okie VikingsAlanDPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00910363728370240226noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6232479.post-42107191231889319902008-02-25T18:00:00.000-06:002008-02-25T18:00:00.000-06:00Following graduation I went to work and study Arch...Following graduation I went to work and study Archaeological Field Methods in Mitchell, South Dakota, where we excavated a sit about 1,000 years +/- old that had been a village on a creek-bluff that overlooked what would have been cultivation fields. <BR/>The given theory is that they were <I>predecessors</I> of the Mandan, simply because the later Mandan conveniently inhabited the same range...<BR/>Basically they/we didn't know much of anything about the site's inhabitants except some obvious things and some geo-historical data. <BR/>On the obvious side they built stockaded villages and houses within them, they cultivated, and they ate a lot of deer - and the place burnt down a couple times. On the geologic/historical side (aided by pollen-counts), they moved up from Missouri into an area that previously had been arid (again indicated by pollen-count at X-layer, etc.) but a fairly dramatic climate shift rendered it wet-enough to sustain crop growth. It lasted about 150-years? and then they disappeared. Vanished.<BR/>Fortified stockade construction implies conflict with regionally nearby co-habitant "tribes" who saw resource-usages in profoundly different ways. In this case one side felt it was necessary to defend a static patch of cultivated land and a village lifestyle while other regional inhabitants probably dealt with resources very differently as mobile hunter-gatherers.<BR/>The evidence of the village burning down (charred post-holes) and reconstruction on a slightly larger and altered plan/scale, indicates more than just fire-carelessness and could well be attributed to animosity and violent conflict with neighbors who well-knew how to set fires and drive game. <BR/>Fire was a frequent danger on the Settler's prairie, caused by lightning strikes in the arid atmosphere - but this was densely wooded at the earlier time as evidenced by the large amount of timber necessarily cut-down to create the houses and the village walls. <BR/>The villagers may have shared the work of de-forestation with naturally occurring wildfires, because when settlers arrived some 1,000 years later there were very-very few trees on the rolling grasslands, and place-names like Two-Trees were given as appropriate.<BR/>It could have been Vikings?? <BR/>We know they traded things that originated with people on the Gulf at the mouth of the Mississippi, by shell-goods specific to that location that have been found. Certainly Vikings would have had conflicts with their "neighbors". <BR/>Given the large quantity of animal debris (mostly deer in the large sized bits, but lots of rat and smaller rodent bits indicating a good-sized population of vermin) and the lesser number of garbage pits (a significant indicator of household density), we assumed the village had a pretty strong odor also.<BR/>Anyhow....that's what little I know.NotClauswitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14358707844087117280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6232479.post-35127406819916877402008-02-25T13:16:00.000-06:002008-02-25T13:16:00.000-06:00Almost sounds like a plot point from Clive Cussler...Almost sounds like a plot point from Clive Cussler's "Treasure" altho that had a fleet of Roman ships caching the Great Library of Alexandria in Texas. Pity the Vikings couldn't have come up the Sabine River, between Texas and Louisiana.Mattexianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09364636677279037964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6232479.post-40336216941871622792008-02-25T05:47:00.000-06:002008-02-25T05:47:00.000-06:00Seems like I remember something about blue eyed mu...Seems like I remember something about blue eyed mummies (?) found in caves around Tn and Ky. back in the day.KurtPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12205267944616413162noreply@blogger.com