Musings

Yeah, it’s still damp and overcast out….

The prime mover approach to explaining events in history—and prehistory—is seductive, however simplistic it seems once real data are marshaled. Certainly, the introduction of a new technology can mark a dramatic change in a society, but there is more to that change than just the new technology (or agricultural crop, etc.)—after all, it does not substitute for an existing technology or behavior, so not only is something of the old supplanted, but other aspects of technologies and behaviors will be altered.*

Among a series of desultory activities, today I dipped into Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron (2006), which we picked up on from a lovely little bookstore we stumbled over in Ocracoke, Books to Be Red. Thubron traveled the Silk Road westbound the year the SARS worries clouded China. He began at Xi’an, an old capital of China far west of Beijing, in the modern nation’s interior. On page 15, Thubron describes visiting the archaeological site just outside modern Xi’an (population in excess of 8 million people), famous for the platoons of buried terracotta warriors, entombed along with chariots and horses (and more!), as part of the funerary architecture honoring the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang.

Reassembled from the grave-pits, a terracotta messenger stood ready with his horse behind him. His harness and saddle were in place, but there was not yet a stirrup. The heavy stirrup was a Chinese brain-child as early as the fourth century AD, it seems, and as it travelled westward, stabilising its rider in battle, it made possible the heavily aromoured and expensively mounted knight. To this simple invention some have attributed the onset of the whole feudal age in Europe; and seven centuries later the same era came to an end as its castles were pounded into submission by the Chinese invention of gunpowder. The birth and death of Europe’s Middle Ages, you might fancy, came along the Silk Road from the east.

The Silk Road brought goods and ideas eastward, changing China. They learned polo from Persians and adopted their decorative motifs, which included peacocks and winged horses (similar to dragons, the Chinese probably thought). Although the name is fairly modern, silk was shipped westward on the Silk Road, and for a long time. For example, Thubron reports Chinese silk has been found in tombs in northern Afghanistan that date to 1500 BC.

Oh, I could go on!

Let me just say: however naive the prime mover explanation may be, I have rarely encountered such a proficient use of the concept—and here Thubron deftly tosses us a pair of prime movers!

* Often changes extend to labor patterns, which necessitate myriad adjustments, some quite extensive…. Oh, don’t get me started!

Posted at 5:59 PM | 1 Comment »

Today has been so overcast that the outdoors seems like it just quit raining, although it hasn’t really rained since the dark hours. Droplets still cling to vegetation, signs, vehicles—no significant evaporation under these conditions!

In the meantime, I’m trying to track down a good bread machine recipe that uses lots of flax (aka linseed) meal, which is high in omega-3s and fiber, yet tastes good. Historically, flax was a darned important plant in the Old World, for both food and fiber (linen* is flax-thread cloth).

* A bit of etymology: lingerie is from the French linge, referring to washable linen clothing, thus undergarments.

Posted at 3:11 PM | Comments Off on Drippy, overcast

The lichens and mosses are very happy to soak up our winter rains.

We walked to the Saturday organic farmer’s market (with real farmers, even if they use hydroponics and greenhouses) this morning, and I lost count of the houses we passed with “for sale” signs in front of them….

The common technical term for this kind of market is the (weekly—or similar; periodicity varies) periodic market. They concentrate marketing, and are perfect if the vendors or buyers have to invest considerable travel time to reach the marketplace. Traditional market systems feature periodic markets, which allow vendors to be part-time or small-scale. In areas where most market activity is conducted at periodic markets, the market day rotates among major communities/market locations across a region.

Personally, I think periodic markets are pretty darned interesting when you think about their origins and development…. Bunching up trading is advantageous in multiple ways: e.g., it’s easier to tax by spatially and temporally bunching market activities, it’s safer for participants, it frees everyone for non-market activities (especially production) on the intervening days, it allows different communities to have markets with no simultaneous competitor in the immediate area.

* Apologies; this refers to the Mother Goose nursery rhyme: “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig…“.

Posted at 5:13 PM | Comments Off on We didn’t buy a pig*

Happy Boxing Day!

Wikipedia says the Boxing Day tradition of the wealthy giving gifts to those below them on the social scale (and the Brits are SO aware of this relationship) has its antecedents in the Roman Saturnalia, which also happened in December and featured social role reversals.

Posted at 6:22 AM | 1 Comment »

I couldn’t help it. Yesterday I mentioned the Currituck lighthouse toward the northern part of the Outer Banks. Tada! Here it is.

The compound’s only open for the high season, so we could only scrutinize it from the street. It seems somewhat far inland now; I don’t know if the shore has moved away from it since it was built.

Posted at 5:32 PM | 3 Comments »

Sorry for the late post; we spent the day in Athens! Our visit to the dead people was incidental to Other Events. This cemetery is within UGA’s limits, and is a popular place for picnicking, sunning, and the like. We just took a few photos and kept going.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

Without a doubt we’re in a deflationary period with few $$ available for loans. Still, some projects underway ahead of this mess are going strong, including several in and around our beloved Piedmont Park. Here, they’re pouring concrete for the revitalized natatorium* (will have wifi!), adjacent to Lake Clara Meer. Up the hill, the Bot Garden (and the Park) are getting a new parking garage that’s supposed to be quite green, vegetated and attractive (it’s still bare cement and rebar right now), although it’s been extremely controversial. And, on the edge of the park, the Piedmont Driving Club (“now in our second century”), is rebuilding a whole wing and redoing its parking area.

On a personal note, it’s windy, so I’ve been jumpy all day….

* Trivia: the TBS program “Adult Swim” was named for a sign on the door of this building, I’m told….

Posted at 4:49 PM | Comments Off on Pouring concrete

Many of the still-standing old houses across the countryside are empty. Many more are now gone, leaving a few tall trees and abandoned vegetation, unless the house site has been bulldozed and turned into pasture or field or pine plantation.

Serendipity dragged us out of the house to drive a triangle in the central Georgia Piedmont. We made a beeline to just west of Athens, then commenced our wander. We scrutinized the Georgia Atlas, and chose the smallest roads that we hoped were paved, since the unpaved roads are pretty dry and dusty in this drought….

We dropped south to Eastville, crossed the Apalachee River at North High Shoals (ex-textile mill town), meandered down to Bostwick, and scooted into Madison. Madison is famous for its lovely residential antebellum architecture; accounts vary on why the Union army didn’t burn the town, as they did many others, when they marched through on their way to Savannah in 1864.

From Madison, we turned west. You have your choice of four parallel routes. The newest is Interstate 20. The old highway it replaced is US-278 or the Atlanta Highway. That one superceded the Dixie Highway. The oldest road, following an Indian path, is the Hightower Road. Hightower is a corruption of the same Cherokee word that Etowah is. Additionally, it is possible the Hightower footpath followed a Late Pleistocene megamammal trail.

Hencequently, we set off along the Hightower route, but it disappears frequently. We went through Dorsey and Rutledge, through Social Circle (where we thought of Nell, whose maternal ancestors lived here, I think), and on to Jersey. I had never noticed Jersey on the map before. West of Jersey we found the historic Gum Creek Court House (they use four words), high on a well-mown hill. Then we did a little detour down and up the Haynes Creek valley (well on the sides of it), then found the Hightower Road again, and followed it over to Norris Lake. Never had heard of Norris Lake. Looks like some places here are second homes, like an old resort community with some architecture upgrades.

We crossed the Yellow River and immediately encountered sprawl, more precisely, the Georgia International Horse Park, which was built for equine and mountain biking events during the 1996 Olympics. From there we were in suburbia, and we made a beeline for home, looping around the north side of Stone Mountain.

We didn’t take many photos, but here’re a few:

* Sorry to get your hopes up, Marquis, but this isn’t about a bike race….

Posted at 7:31 PM | 5 Comments »

Quicken and iPhoto serve as a diary of sorts of our days, along with this blog. I see that two years ago I was freshly arrived in NM, trying to adjust to the elevation, and exploring the Gila Cliff dwellings.

It is totally unplanned that tonight’s menu includes brussels sprouts (those cute Brassica buds!), fresh not frozen, just as it did that day…. Thanks, Kel!

Posted at 2:07 PM | 1 Comment »

Glyph from stone set in wall of closed patio next to the tower, Palenque, Chiapas.

I love it when archaeologists get creative in inserting the past into the present.

David Stuart, a well-known Maya epigrapher, has composed “Obama” in glyphs (it’s “o-ba-ma-a”*), and you can buy t-shirts, cloth bags, or ball caps imprinted with it….

* Oh, you’re asking about the duplicate “a”? That’s explained here. Those crazy Mayas!

Posted at 5:27 PM | Comments Off on Past meets present