For Indians, ax marked first chapter of disaster

Columbus Dispatch ^ | Sunday July 29, 2012 8:04 AM | Bradley T. Lepper

[SunkenCiv]

The ax is significant because it predates the documented arrival of European explorers in the region by a century or more. It likely was brought to America by Basque whalers or fishermen who traded it to some coastal-dwelling Indian for animal furs. It then must have been passed from one tribe to another until it was eventually acquired by a resident of the Mantle site.

European artifacts also have been found at the late prehistoric Madisonville site in Hamilton County in southwestern Ohio. Although large by Ohio standards, it wouldn't have compared to the Mantle site. Archaeologist Penelope Drooker estimated that Madisonville probably never had more than 300 residents. It was, nevertheless, one of the most important sites in the upper Ohio valley during this period.

Archaeologists have recovered nearly 500 metal and glass artifacts of European manufacture from the site, including several bits of Basque iron that might well have passed through the Mantle site. The Ohio finds represent the southernmost documented occurrence of this material.

In addition, there are a few artifacts from Madisonville, such as a small brass bell, that are known to have originated with the early 17th century expeditions of de Soto in the southeastern United States. Madisonville is the northernmost site where one of these bells has been found.

Basque iron and Conquistador brass turning up at American Indian villages long before any Spanish explorer, fisherman or fur trader had arrived in the region reveal just how cosmopolitan American Indian communities could be in the pre-contact period.

Far-flung networks of trade long had been a part of the indigenous cultures of America.

[Paladin2]

Free trade apparently worked in America long before the ‘rats arrived.

[blueunicorn6]

The curse of living past 30. The curse of not having the neighboring tribe come in and kill every male and making slaves of the women and children. The curse of the horse. The curse of hospitals and regular meals and a warm place to sleep. The curse of dentistry. The curse of retirement homes instead of letting the old people starve to death. Man, if only they could go back to the good old days.

[muawiyah]

Certainly there were trade routes, and some of them were ideally situated. US 15, in the East, follows the old Carolana road, later the Carolina road, etc. It was even earlier a feeder route for the better known East/West Warriors' Road. That one is still around too.

Still, when DeSota made his journey of discovery, 1541 was still in the 16th Century, not the 17th Century!

The writer of that piece sure messed up ~ plus, the Indians didn't die out from European germs ~ they were killed by hanta virus. That particular virus depends on a major increase in food supply for rodents, and that almost always happens within a few years of the end of a major drought.

The plagues finally reached the Iroquois homegrounds in the 1640s.

BTW, I hadn't realized these Indians had managed to collect so much European stuff ~ but then again, the Mayans had reached that area by maybe the 12th or 13th century ~ so the cultural levels in the SE were much higher than most folk imagine ~ life was still hard, but they had manufacturing operations underway for long shelf life smoked meats, cured tobacco, cured marijuana, dried root crops, cured hides, stone hand axes, arrowheads, and pottery. One larger pottery making site is located right near here at Fort Belvoir. There were 20,000 folks living there who paid their way making pottery sold all over Eastern America. With the coming of the Europeans the Indians shifted to making European style pottery!

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
PreColumbian iron from Europe. America B.C. by Barry Fell (1976) find it in a nearby library A fascinating letter I received from a Shoshone Indian who had been traveling in the Basque country of Spain tells of his recognition of Shoshone words over there, including his own name, whose Shoshone meaning proved to match the meaning attached to a similar word by the modern Basques. Unfortunately I mislaid this interesting letter. If the Shoshone scholar who wrote to me should chance to see these words I hope he will forgive me and contact me again. The modern Basque settlers of Idaho may perhaps bring forth a linguist to investigate matters raised in this chapter. [p 173] To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[I see my hands]

[SunkenCiv]

:’) /bingo

[blam]

Indians passed on their collective knowledge in stories passed on mostly by the senior members of the tribes.

Seniors and the very young were the first to succumb to the European diseases...when the Europeans arrived in the interior and discovered vacant Indian settlements...no-one knew who built them. Most knowledge had been lost when the elders died a generation earlier.

[martin_fierro]

For Indians, ax marked first chapter of disaster

Yeah. Hot women started swarmin' all over 'em.

[CrazyIvan]

“But other than that........what have the Romans ever done for us?”

[muawiyah]

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=madisonville+oh&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x8841ad1d1c1c759b:0x490e9ddc74943dae,Madisonville,+Cincinnati,+OH&gl=us&ei=icohUIjtMaqW2QX4lYGABw&ved=0CHYQtgM Madisonville itself is laid out with a rather interesting tilt to the East ~ about what the declination adjustment is for a magnetic compass in that area.

By 1797, supposedly the year for first settlement in this town site area almost none of the surveyors were using magnetic compass readings for N to lay out a baseline from which to draw all the other surveying for an area ~ but in the 1500s and early 1600s there were parts of Spanish North America there were using magnetic compasses!

This was part of Spanish North America back before the mid 1700s and as late as the Revolution there were Spaniards in the region who felt that way ~ and probably still do.

let me suggest this site began quite a bit earlier, the Indians didn't do all the collecting, and there are probably still some Spanish design grinding wheel segments buried in the soil thereabouts. That would be for the grist mill for grinding corn to make mash to make alcohol to boil off in a still and use as a trade good with the indians.

To the degree possible these European settlements with stills were uphill. That way if the Indians down hill got to whooping and hollering you were relatively safe.

[expat2]

Why use a magnetic compass when you have the sun and stars? Magnetic north is quite different from True North.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I was dying to write “Never bring an ax to a gun fight”, but after reading the article, there is nothing about the ax.

[1010RD]

Did the Shosone ever confirm the Basque connection?

[P.O.E.]

[muawiyah]

They were surveying but not highly precise surveying ~ just to carve out enough lots of sufficient size to graze a horse, allow for a cabin, grow some wheat, etc. whatever a man needed or wanted. Oh, and give them space. These were European born and raised folks and America was truly incredible ~ everything was not only bigger, anyone could be more expansive.

This 'town' had a stockade somewhere ~ or maybe it didn't ~ but enough lots were carved out to give it a general shape and outline ~ which I have found in less than 50 townsites anywhere in North America East of the MIssissippi. They are more common to the West.

BTW, at Cincinnati magnetic North and celestial North are pretty much the same place ~ there's a small but still discernible difference.

[muawiyah]

They were surveying but not highly precise surveying ~ just to carve out enough lots of sufficient size to graze a horse, allow for a cabin, grow some wheat, etc. whatever a man needed or wanted. Oh, and give them space. These were European born and raised folks and America was truly incredible ~ everything was not only bigger, anyone could be more expansive.

This 'town' had a stockade somewhere ~ or maybe it didn't ~ but enough lots were carved out to give it a general shape and outline ~ which I have found in less than 50 townsites anywhere in North America East of the MIssissippi. They are more common to the West.

BTW, at Cincinnati magnetic North and celestial North are pretty much the same place ~ there's a small but still discernible difference.

[Tallguy]

Some evil republican pre-columbian Indian outsourced the brass bell factory to Spain... (CNN News feed)

[SunkenCiv]

I’ve never read that he did. It may have appeared in one of the issues of ESOP that I don’t have.