Green warriors, ping.
>Seems obvious that a expeditionary force would reuse broken weapons, etc. Hard to believe this is a first.
That is true; for an expeditionary force you would want to be as self-sufficient as possible so as to maximize the length of time of the expedition.
Another example of bias in science.
Any practical observer would note that the remains were damaged weapons being melted down to MAKE NEW WEAPONS.
What kind of moron with a first grade education could consider this to be a recycling plant for concerned environmentalist whackos.
I want proof; i.e. where did they process paper, plastic and asbestos waste.
We have a giant smelter in Holt, Alabama near Tuscaloosa. It can melt down metals for reuse but the Greens like it closed because it seems that those furnaces produce a bit of air pollution.
So I guess these Vikings were polluters too.
To go one step further, when you consider how difficult it was in pre-industrial days to even get metal mined (every bit being extracted by human muscle power) smelted (ditto) and made into an implement (again, all by individual efforts) you would have to be crazy *not* to recycle as much as you could. Although that recycling would involve charcoal fires (very messy) and not a lot of environmental restoration of the area afterward (because zero-environment-impact anything had do be done by hand in a subsistance-level economy).
Say it ain't so, Brett.
It is hardly noteworthy that metal weapons were recycled or refashioned into other useful tools. It was common for used or useless metal to be melted into musket-balls during the Revolutionary War. Swordsmiths and gunsmiths reused parts and remelted metal all the time. This is not a particularly unique scenario.
Maybe environmentalists aren’t the people to ask about the realtities of ancient warfare.
SnakeDoc
Gee... Warriors gathered up expensive loot from the battlefield. Metal at the time was worth a great deal. To make this into some kind of ecological lesson is well... nuts.
You could also say that this is where they piled their dead enemey's weapons after a battle and just forgot about them.
You could say this is where Bug Bunny and Elmer Fudd left their weapons after filming the "Kill the Wabbit" cartoon.
Mostly BS and conjecture to fit a pre-detirmined conclusion.
The vikings obviously didn’t produce enough CO2 to prevent their villages in Greenland from being overrun with ice.....
A fat lot of good “being green” did for them....
If we put all these broken axes into a mail truck and drive to Michigan, it just might pencil out...
Somehow, I don’t think they were trying to ‘save the planet’...its just an indication of how precious metals were before mechanized mining.
I seriously doubt that the 11th century was the first time that scrap metal was melted down and re-used.
Historians and metal detector enthusiasts have made the find which is being heralded as evidence of how the Norse invaders recycled their fearsome array of weapons.
Oh! Good Grief! Gimme A Break!
(Please allow me to make a slight "correction")
Historians and metal detector enthusiasts have made the find which is being heralded as evidence of how the Norse invaders recycled REPAIRED their fearsome array of weapons.
There!
Fixed It!
Greenie Idiots! "Recycled"! Yeah! Right! My @ss!
These early eco-warriors sure left a lot of trash lying around... /irony
These people are desperate to make our current civilization seem like the greedy plunderers when compared to past times, it just isn't true.
180 miles in 4 days. thats a heck of a forced march.