Posted on 06/17/2018 4:13:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Museum collections in Sweden contain thousands of Iron Age board-game pieces. New studies of the raw material composing them show that most were made of whalebone from the mid-6th century CE. They were produced in large volumes and standardised forms. The researchers therefore believe that a regular supply of whalebone was needed. Since the producers would hardly have found the carcasses of beached whales a reliable source, the gaming pieces are interpreted as evidence for whaling.
Apart from an osteological survey, species origin has been determined for a small number of game pieces, using ZooMS (short for Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometer). The method shows that all the pieces analysed were derived from the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), a massive whale weighing 50-80 tonnes. It got the name because it was the right whale to hunt: it swam slowly, close to shore, and contained so much blubber as to float after being killed.
Whalebone gaming pieces appear at the same time as production features for blubber and large boathouses were multiplying in northern Norway. The gaming pieces were probably made in this region, from where they were transported south and ultimately used as burial gifts in Sweden.
The origins of large-scale whaling in northern Europe have long been shrouded in mystery. Written sources refer to whaling on a large scale during periods corresponding to the Viking Age in Scandinavia. Ninth-century sagas about the Norwegian merchant Ohthere/Ottar (a guest and informant at the court of King Alfred the Great) mention his extensive hunt for large whales, but these stories have long been controversial as factual sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Left: a board-game piece made from whalebone at the end of the 6th century CE, found in Gnistahögen near Uppsala, Sweden (photograph by Bengt Backlund, Uppland County Museum). Right: the bone structure of the gaming piece compared with reference bone from minke whale (photograph by Rudolf Gustavsson, Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU). Credit: Bengt Backlund/Rudolf Gustavsson
So? Not a comment to the OP personally, just a comment about the title. Humans have been smart and resourceful for thousands of years. This should not be a surprise.
One can't help but wonder if we're cycling out of the era of remarkable accomplishment for Western Civilization. Lots of the same mistakes are being made as the ones that collapsed Rome.
The Eskimos and Aleute people have been hunting wales in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years.
They take the skin boat to tuna town.
They're still eating it. Most Norwegian cuisine is based on a dare.
Indeed history repeats itself. We haven’t changed much physiologically in 10s of thousands of years (apologies in advance to those who think we’ve only been around for 6 thousand years). There are stories in Hindu mythology of flying machines and nuclear weapons. I believe we’ve been through this cycle many times and may continue to do so.
LOL! I haven’t watched that one in ages.
It's interesting to contemplate that the Battle of Senlac / Hastings was in 1066, while the Roman Empire continued in the east until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Even if I accepted the idea of history repeating, I wouldn't be worried about it.
Heh... yeah, as a civilization, I think we owe much of our cuisine and our arts to teenaged boys trying to gross one another out, or outdo one another.
Navigation is older than civilization, that is becoming clearer. Alas, history tends to have been written by landlubbers.
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