Archaeologists Unearth Stonehenge Bodies

bob, BTW, do you knoiw about William Smith? There's an excellent book, "The Map That Changed the World," by Simon Winchester. William Smith is the gentleman that started the science of Geology in the UK. I was introduced to the book accidently. On the cruise boat in the Galapagos Islands a couple weeks ago, the book shelf had the book, and I started reading it on board the boat when we had some free time. I barely got started on the book, so I checked out the book from the library a couple days ago. It's historically factual, because Winchester uses Smith's diaries and other records. It's really fascinating if you're into history and science. c.i.

I love that enamel. It's something you can really get your teeth into.

Boom, Boom - fangs for the memories!!

I saw this on "Meet the Ancestors", a BBC production with a hyper-maniac presenter. My favourite bit was the discovery of some burials alongside an ancient British abbey. He was always asking the question, 'Why were these people buried here?' My answer (fairly loud), 'Because they were ******* dead!!'. Needless to say my wife banned such interactions.


Back to specifics, body parts like bone and enamel will contain isotopic information about the actual site that their growth occured in. If you drink water for 20-30 years from the same well, or consume locally grown food, this will appear in the molecular make-up of your body tissue. Julien 'I-Can't-Believe-They're-Dead' actually found that one of the burials was of a man that had migrated from France, based on such evidence. Still, I think they buried him because he was dead and would have smelt.

(Just listening to a Weird Al parody of Chop Suey, by System of a Down--that guy cracks me up. What a wonderfully abusrd sound track to typing an silly story.)

Your remark reminds of a biographical anectodote that a famous linguist of the 19/20th centuries once told on himself. He was in northern Norway to research the language of the Lapps, and the dialect of Norwegian which had arisen among them. He found an old man who was both literatre and fluent in modern Norwegian, and, becoming excited by the potentional resource, he began to pump him for voculary and verb forms.

He became carried away, and asked at one point: "And what do people around here say when they die?" (Looking for conjugations of "to die," ain't he silly ? ! ? ! ?)

Long pause . . .

"Well, around here, when people die, they don't say anything."

Which reminds me of my youth, when I helped "digging" for some medieval tombs (hopefully older) close to the old Abbey in my hometown.

Instead of those, archaeologists found a Frankish pottery - which led to the circumstances to draw new maps: Franks at that time lived 100 kilometers more eastward than thaught before.

Thanks, Mr.S. -- isotopes, that's what it was!


Around here, answering the TV set with commentary like "Because they're ******* dead!" is roundly cheered. We talk back to that box!

Well, comments like, "Because they're ******* dead" sounds like somebody has a hold of reality. c.i.

I love thoughts expessed that way.

Example:

I met a man with a wooden leg named Smith.

What was the name of his other leg?

My favorite:

(To concierge) "Call me a taxi..."
(Concierge) "You're a taxi."

Setanta you probably know this. Thought I'd throw it in for those who don't:

THE KOLA LAPPS
The self-designation is saam' -- saamm'lja 'Lapp' and the language is called saam' kill. Philologically saam is the same as Finnish hämä (cf. Hämä County and the kin name hämäläiset), originating from shämä -- an early proto-Baltic-Finnic tribe to which, among others, the Lapps and Hämäläinen belonged.
Other people called the Lapps by the name fenn ~ finn and since the 12th century lapp. It is presumed that the name Lapp was introduced by the Swedish Vikings in the 9th--10th centuries and is a translation loan of the Lapp word vuowjosh which means 1) a wedge-shaped piece of cloth or leather as well as 2) a small group of fishermen and hunters. The Vikings introduced the name Lapp into Swedish, Finnish, Russian (ëîïü, ëîïàðü) and later into German, Hungarian, Estonian etc. The Saams themselves consider the name Lapp derogatory. In the Estonian language Lapp also serves to denote a people who live somewhere remote (cf. lappeline 'remote', lappele 'to somewhere remote', 'to a remote place'). The use of the name saam has been encouraged in the Soviet Union since the 1920s but this usage has spread only in recent decades.

There is written evidence of the Kola Lapps from the 9th century when Ottar, a Norwegian Viking, described the Kola peninsula and the local terfinns. Around the year 1000 the name ëîïü appears in Russian chronicles. The descriptions of Saxo Grammaticus date from the 12th century (Lapps as good archers, skiers, sorcerers and the fortune-tellers). Finnmark in Norway, Norrbotten in Sweden, Lappi~ Lapland in Finland and Murman in Russia have their origins in the 12th century when the Lapps had been scattered over a wide territory.

Habitat. As late as 1917, the Kola Lapps were found all over the peninsula. In 1926 they were mostly in four parishes: Kola-Lapp (Êîëüñêî-Ëîïàðñêàÿ), Aleksandrovo, Ponoi and Lovozero (Luyavr). Their territory has considerably diminished since the beginning of collectivization. In 1989 the majority of Lapps lived in the Lovozero National District (85 % of reindeer as well) which makes up 37 per cent of the Murmansk Region.

Thanks, Bobsmyth, and no, i didn't know that much detail about those people . . .