[HN Gopher] Plant remains from a 15th century royal shipwreck in...
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       Plant remains from a 15th century royal shipwreck in the Baltic Sea
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2023-02-11 07:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (journals.plos.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (journals.plos.org)
        
       | durnygbur wrote:
       | They must be really bored and with abundance of research funds up
       | there in Sweden... the contents of wrecks in Baltic Sea seabed
       | are mostly disappointing.
        
         | ggm wrote:
         | This one is definitely not disappointing and no archeologist I
         | know has ever said they were disappointed with finding things,
         | any thing.
         | 
         | Many archaeologists point out that the mundane, everyday
         | objects turn out to be more informing than golden jewels. Huge
         | amounts of information were lost at digs in a pursuit for grave
         | jewellery rather than doing science.
         | 
         | If you find a broach all you know is they liked gold and traded
         | for it. If you find a nit comb, you know they had nits, and you
         | may find DNA and trace diseases, and the comb may be amenable
         | to chemical analysis to origins. (I know that analysis of gold
         | and jewels is also informing, so this is more said for dramatic
         | effect than truth, tradelinks about economies thousands of
         | kilometres apart have been found in the chemistry behind
         | jewels. The point is that mundane objects like spice speak
         | volumes. Where does mace (nutmeg skin) grow? How does it get to
         | the Baltic in volume? Henbane is useful in dying and medicine
         | and as a hallucinogen. Which purpose did it fill?)
        
           | durnygbur wrote:
           | > Hembane is useful in dying and medicine and as a
           | hallucinogen. Which purpose did it fill?
           | 
           | For consolidation of power. I guess most historical
           | occurrences of "insanity" were simply attempts of elimination
           | by deliberate poisonings.
        
             | ggm wrote:
             | Statistically fewer poisonings than other uses. Putting the
             | morals and politics to one side it's much more likely to be
             | mundane. Arsenic was used in dye and as a wood preservative
             | and insecticide far more than to kill people.
        
       | flobosg wrote:
       | Discussion from yesterday:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34754288
        
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