From szoraster@zycor.lgc.com Sun Sep 10 11:46:57 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA73152 for ; Sun, 10 Sep 2000 11:46:56 -0700 Received: from lgchexch001.lgc.com (lgchexch001.lgc.com [134.132.92.92]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA25681 for ; Sun, 10 Sep 2000 11:46:52 -0700 Received: by lgchexch001 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Sun, 10 Sep 2000 13:46:45 -0500 Message-ID: <462F323275D6D311BA0200805F356C52AD827C@lgcadev001.zycor.lgc.com> From: Steve Zoraster To: "'classics@u.washington.edu'" , Late Antique , BYZANS-L Subject: RE: The NTD virus - shortened, with a response. Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 13:47:55 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Robbins [SMTP:crisica@idt.net] DW posted the following (here edited) from the London Times: _____________________________________________________ Oh, brother! But there is a serious warning to be taken from this, namely that even the best of minds can be infected by NTD (Nutty Theory Disease). Don't believe it? Then let's take a look at some of the equally ludicrous theories that were put forth as causal to a Dark Age that will be more familiar to the Classics community, that which afflicted Greece and virtually the entire Near East at the end of the Aegean Bronze Age. But something did happen at the end of the Aegean Bronze Age: "Destruction by fire was the fate of the cities and palaces of the eastern Mediterranean during the [12th century] Catastrophe. Throughout the Aegean, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant dozens of these places were burned.... "In the aftermath of destruction many centers were rebuilt, and a surprising number of them were on or within sight of the seacoast. Tiryns, Troy, Ialysos, Tarsus, Enkomi, Kition, Ashdod, and Ashkelon are the best known.... Another expedient, favored especially by the survivors of the Catastrophe in eastern Crete, was to locate new towns high in the mountains.... "Egypt escaped the Catastrophe, ...., although after Ramesses III pharaonic power and prestige entered a sharp decline." (Drews, Robert, 1993, "The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe CA. 1200 B.C.", ISBN 0-691-04811-8, pages 29-30.) And from earlier in the same source: "Egypt was spared the destruction of its centers during the Catastrophe. It was not, however, spared the fear of destruction, for between 1208 and 1176 the pharaohs had to battle repeatedly against invaders...." That's probably enough to show that NTD can affect even the most distinguished figures in a field. It would further seem that nutty theories and dark ages tend to go together, although not necessarily in that order. Again, something did happen at he end of the Bronze Age. It seems appropriate for historians and archeologists - and maybe even crackpots - to put forth hypothesis which others can knock down. Earthquakes, massive migrations, ironworking, drought, system collapse, and raiders are all explanations examined and rejected by Dr. Drews. Drews himself states "The Catastrophe can most easily be explained, I believe, as a result of a radical innovation in warfare, which suddenly gave to "barbarians" the military advantage over the long established and civilized kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean." (page 97.) Now, I find Dr. Drews explanation unsatisfactory, but I hadn't thought to classify it has an example of NTD! After all, Robert Drews is currently Professor of Classics and History at Vanderbilt University, and a little bit out of my league. And in this regard. let us return briefly to the London Times article, which said: >Dr Baillie also cited the death of King Arthur, which is dated to 537, 539 and 542 in various works [...] Looking back on this, then, we may wonder where was this calamitous Dark Age that Dr. Baillie from Belfast and his Irish-oak tree rings so ominously and boldly asserted must have begun in ca. AD 550? Even if we take the definition I had earlier suggested for such as it might be seen in the eyes of the then contemporary peoples, that Dark Age did not begin in ca. AD 550. In Britain, at least, it ended in ca. AD 550. And from that point on we find no support in the historical record of Britain for some nuclear-type winter, fierce frosts, a catastrophic environmental downturn, devastated agriculture, crop failures, famine, a malnourished population vulnerable to the plague, and plague-carrying vermin everywhere hastening the spread of the disease, and all this leading to the onset of a spine-chilling and meteor induced Dark Age. What we find is just the opposite. Whatever. Something happened around 534AD. Something big. Either a volcanic eruption or a comet/meteor impact, which affected the weather on both sides of the Atlantic. The evidence is there in the tree-ring data in Europe and North America and in sediment cores from lakes in Mesoamerica. For all I know, its repercussions caused the "Dark Ages" in Britain to end around 550 AD. It's worth looking at seriously. It is sometimes said that specialization has been one of the keys to the Western world's remarkable success. We leave the question to philosophers and tinkers. But our Dr. Baillie is a specialist, one in archaeology and palaeoecology it seems. So we do not doubt that his Irish oaks have those tree rings, and we imagine that his training in those disciplines would define for him the parameters and limits of the reasoned conclusions that can be drawn from those tree rings alone as evidence. But we suggest that it may be wiser to demur on fervid speculations regarding human and historical conditions where there is no supporting evidence at all. Dr. Baillie could have continued to publish in journals like "The Holocene", and no one on these lists would have ever heard of him. And maybe in 10 or 20 years some "real" historian would have made a connection.... Which brings me to those who demand real history, or real science, or at least a real scientist in a related field. Dr. Joel D. Gunn, Department of Anthropology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is editor of a JUST released book titled: "A.D. 536 and its Aftermath - The Years Without Summer." You can find out more about the book at the bottom of the web page: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc063098.html . You can buy it in the United States from Oxbow Books and David Brown Book Company (http://www.oxbowbooks.com/) by calling: 1- 800 791 9354. Cheers, Steven Zoraster www.szoraster.com .