"Forbidden Archaeology" Website Up, Other Plans Continue to Develop

8/22/2016

And now the semester really begins. This is the first full week of classes and at some point I'm going to have to get my act together and start leaving myself time to pack a lunch in the morning.

The website that we'll build during the Forbidden Archaeology course is up and running here. That site is where the student blog posts and projects will go, though there is still quite a bit of time before those will begin being added. I created a section of the site called "Synopsis of Activities" which I plan to use to post a blurb about each day's class. I'm not planning on writing a blog post every time the class meets, but it will be helpful, I think, to provide a summary about what's going on both for our benefit here and for yours. Who actually ever reads the syllabus, anyway?

Jim Vieira has made his arrangements for air travel, and as far as I know everything is moving along as scheduled for his visit. I'm looking forward to meeting with Vieira and I think it will be a lot of fun to have him interact with the class. He and I have never met before and have only spoken on the phone once. If I understand our email exchanges accurately, his visit will involve at least some consumption of malt liquor and, possibly, heckling a Trump rally if we're able. While I'm not yet sure about all that, I do at least know what time I'm supposed to pick him up at the airport.

I've cashed out the now-irrelevant Scott Wolter travel fund. With the blessing of those that donated, I'll roll that money over into the fund I set up to support Vieira's travel. Vieira is paying for his own air travel and I've got the hotel covered on my end (through a very generous local gift), but I'll still need to feed him something, I'm expecting, and there will probably be some other out-of-pocket expenses.

6 Comments

AutumnalScholar

8/22/2016 12:54:50 pm

Wow, you start the school year rather early down there. We've got another two weeks before ours starts.

Anyways, the class sounds fascinating, exactly the sort of class I would've wanted back when I was an undergrad.

All the best.

8/23/2016 04:24:21 pm

Very cool. Jim Vieria has a lot to do with why I got interested in the mound building cultures from around the world :)

Gunn

8/23/2016 05:17:37 pm

"Sometimes it's hard to tell cutting edge scientific speculation from pseudoscience."

That's a wonderful mouthful. I read the three assigned readings (linked from the Synopsis of Activities) showing the differences between science and pseudoscience, and it helped me understand the whole "falsification" issue. It seems as though a proposal has to be made in the negative (or testing/questioning mode), and then that negative has to be disproved.

For instance (merely as an example), I would need to propose this statement about the "code-stone" I found: "It is illogical and academically unsound to think that a medieval Norse Code-stone would be found in far-inland America." Then, I would need to amass acceptable facts and evidences to help prove that statement to be false. If I'm not mistaken, logic and speculation may enter the picture for consideration.

Well then, using this model, and using stoneholes in rocks as a determining scientific inquiry, I believe I can expect to find something purposely buried by medieval Norsemen on a remote ridge near Appleton, MN. So, in the near future, I aim to help in entertaining the hypothesis that Norsemen did make it far inland in America...and I hope to do this by using facts and evidences to dispel the notion that they did not (also, hopefully, through a sanctioned, professional archaeological dig).

But first, a comprehensive, exhaustive inquiry will need to be made of stoneholes, yes, in the form of a "Scientific Stonehole Database," since this will be the main basis for understanding the likely reality of the Norse Code-stone I recently discovered.

Attempted persuasion is allowed, so, in this case I would hasten to mention that the Norse Code-stone discovery site is very near where a great ocean-to-ocean waterway circle is completed, or hooked together (coming from Hudson Bay and from Vinland through the Great Lakes). This is the as-yet unrealized, overriding significance to the many medieval Norse evidences in the region.

Gunn

8/24/2016 07:44:33 pm

From day 3 of Synopsis of Activities: "...the relationships between the dynamic past human behaviors we're trying to understand and the static things that are the residues of those behaviors."

Indeed, though I never looked at the Norse Code-stone as being passive, being a smidgen attached to it. But, yes, it is very stationary and hasn't changed a bit in several hundred years.

A recent deciphering of coded runes in Scandinavia suggests the medieval Norse enjoyed being playful with codes. I'm guessing this kind of behavior could be considered as being dynamic, or energetic, and I guess the Norse Code-stone could be considered as a "residue" of this now-known-about behavior...a stone residue expressing a known past medieval Norse cultural behavior, no doubt.

So far then, Andy, everything seems to be making pretty good sense on the remote ridgeline--as a "stonehole storyline" to possibly evaluate; but we need to dig up an earthier "residue" to possibly prove the point that medieval Norsemen made it far into America's interior way before Columbus showed up.

There was a time in Scandinavian history, before devastating disease repeatedly struck, when land was deemed scarce and explorations were in order. We can read about a bishop visiting Vinland early on. Would it be so surprising to find out that the Church also had an interest in land south of Hudson Bay? Is it too much of a stretch to entertain a storyline having some European entity interested in claiming this geographical area where the Hudson Bay and the Vinland waterway routes dwindle down and merge?

Well, I can imagine an interest in this aforementioned region all the way from AD 1100-1200 Iceland, even, well before the time of the Kensington Runestone--especially when considering how this previous drive for land, once strong, was abated by disease.

(Just some idle speculations....)

Andy White

8/26/2016 11:08:20 am

Right - in a simple "classic" scientific framework, you need to present the hypothesis in a way that allows it to be disproven:

"The Norse journeyed into the interior of North America" cannot be disproven. How can anyone provide evidence that something like that DIDN'T happen? There's really no way to falsify that statement.

"The Norse did NOT journey into the interior of North American," in contrast, can be easily falsified by finding evidence that they did. So that has to be the default position.

For some people, the KRS is enough evidence to falsify that statement. For me (and I'm guessing the large majority of other professional archaeologists), it's not. A single artifact that can potentially be explained several ways (genuine, hoax, misunderstood) isn't, on it's own, enough. Archaeologists won't be convinced until there's an actual good site in Minnesota or elsewhere that can be conclusively tied to a Norse journey. The evidence to falsify the default position will need to be something with good archaeological that can't be faked or explained more simply some other way.

Gunn

8/26/2016 05:05:42 pm

Thank you, Andy.

You've summed up why I'm so excited about the proposed Norse Code-stone find. Even though I'm an amatuer, I realize the importance of good archaeological provenance. Nothing will be believed unless reputable professionals pull it from the soil. That's been the problem with most of the medieval Norse metal artifacts over the years...although one cannot say all the artifacts are without any category of provenance at all.

In fact, our hero, H. Holand, went to considerable lengths to help establish some degree of record for many of the artifacts currently in the Kensington Runestone Museum. Many of his details are buried in his old books, which is how I matched up the Erdahl Axe with the west bank of Davidson Lake--which by coincidence has two skerries and is about an actual day's journey from Runestone Hill...and just off the Chippewa River, as is Runestone Hill. So, in essence, a portion of the inscription appears to be true, if we assign old Mrs. Davidson any credibility at all.

I'm very sincerely hoping that whatever was seemingly purposely buried in association with the proposed Norse Code-stone will end up being something that could not be faked or explained away. That is actually my expectation, since both a visible medieval encoding and an audible modern "hit" seem to be combined to afford me with this expectation of finding something buried several hundred years ago.

This would be different from the Biblical definition of "faith," for instance, where faith becomes the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen...because in this case, something is seen...which is a special arrangement of stonehole rocks, and something is heard, too, which is modern technology giving probable confirmation to the notion of the past Norse encoding. So, I have "seeing" and "science" working together.

To me, seeing (in miniature) the very real and purposeful encoding of several stonehole rocks is beholding something real, not imaginary. It doesn't even take much interpretation to see that a spot of earth was pointed to by the arrangement of stonehole rocks on the ridgeline--the very same spot of earth pointed to by my ferrous-only metal detector.

As an aside, and just out of curiosity, Andy, what do you make of that stone basin near Wilmot, SD, as seen in Wolter's X book? (Not surprisingly, the large rock is accompanied with stoneholes.) I contend that this artifact is as genuine as the metal-working rocks only recently discovered at Point Rosee, which caused a great stir. But there are no great stirs in MN or the Dakotas, currently, though I think there will eventually be, especially when certain artifacts can be more closely examined, and when others are found.

I'm hoping that when an archaeological dig is finally performed where the Code-stone indicates to dig, something identifiable to a particular time and place will be discovered (Iceland?). It seems probable that something was buried to recognize the discharge of the Pomme de Terre River, which reaches farthest north into the MN River watershed. When a suitable dig is conducted, I think we will eventually see evidence of medieval Norse waterway "marking," perhaps in association with attempted land-uptaking...and maybe a few hundred years before the KRS was erected in MN.

I need to locate an archaeologist who is interested in this situation and who can be licensed by the MN State Archaeologist's office. So far, no success. I'm willing to put in the first $1K towards a professional exploratory dig...which would entail simply going down in one spot, deeper than a regular metal detector will hit. What will be found? We now know the medieval Norse were clever and playful with codes, since that deciphering in Scandinavia last year. So then, maybe a playful code-stone would fit quite well into the concept of Norse expeditions into this region--well before the time of Columbus.

"Forbidden Archaeology" Website Up, Other Plans Continue to Develop

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