Baltic Sea Orientation

 Let's Jump Right In!

                    The Baltic Sea opens on the Atlantic Ocean and is in the northwestern part of Europe. I has a complex geological history. It seems best to begin with a bit of its geographic present. It may be best to put on a wetsuit first. The water is rarely warm.

                It has been called a brackish inland sea with a geological history which has proven difficult to clarify. We know that it is is a sea marginal to the Atlantic and that it drains into that ocean through the Danish Straits by way of the little Kattagat Sea. Some of its major features include the Gulf Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland,  the Gulf of Riga, and the Bay of Gdansk.

                It is brackish because the following major rivers flow into it include the Oder, Vistula, Neman, Daugava, and the Neva. Brackishness is aided by rainfall and snow, and he flow of other smaller rivers and streams; and also the salty waters of the Atlantic.

                In the Baltic Sea, not far from its entrance to the Atlantic Ocean, one may encounter Kattagat, an area of a rather shallow sea bounded by the Jutland Peninsula in the west, the Danish Straits, the rest of the Baltic Sea, and the shores of sweden to the east.

The Gulf of Bothnia:

                The word bothnia to refer to lowland shores or to low lands in general. The Gulf of Bothnia is bordered by lowland shores. The Gulf is not shallow, but the land beneath it continues to rise since its release from its Ice Age Burden of  ice. The Gulf still freezes over in winter, but that may change in our lifetime.

                I will probably feel the need to do more research on the history of Sweden and Finland find much about the history of this Gulf. When you have knowledge of this Gulf feel free to inform us about it or of anything else related to the content of this essay, at our "comments" app. I will add now that Ottar, a Viking adventurer, is said to have referred to this Gulf of Bothnia, in the 9th century, as the Kven Sea. In the 15th century, a Danish navigator referred to it as the Mare Gotticus. Bothnia Bay may be called a northern extension of the Gulf of Bothnia. 

The Gulf of  Finland:

                The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost branch of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland on the north and Estonia on the south, and to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the the river Neva flows into it. Other major cities on this gulf are Helsinki and Tallinn.

                In the early post Ice Age the Gulf of Finland was preceded by the Littoriana Sea. The Littoriana stood as high as 30 feet above the the level of the sea in about the year 2,000. By some 4,000 years ago that sea had reeded to near present levels.

Archaeology:

                Archaeologists have found that the lands along the Gulf of Finland began to be settled by 9,000 BC by people physically very much like you and I. To me, archaeology is a kind of continuation of history and writing of its discoveries is much like writing history. So, we do seem well oriented toward the doings and happenings of those who precede us. Of course with new discovery and research our orientation is likely to change. We continue to learn. As recently as 1905 AD, eleven neolithic settlements had been found along the Gulf of Finland coast. The early cultures found there have been named the Finnic, Eesti/Chud, Votes, and Korela.

                Later, roughly between 700 AD and 900 AD along the Neva river and the Gulf of Finland settled East slaves, Ilman Slavs, and Krivichs. They practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Between about 7oo AD 1,200 AD the river Neva and the gulf were part of the waterway from Scandinavia to the Byzantine empire. I will consider the sentence above to be fact until I find strong evidence to the contrary.

                Historic information for this area becomes more abundant from about 850 AD on. From that time on this geographic are may be said to have been held in Russian hands until 1219. At that time the Danes took control. During this time the city of Reva was established in what has been called the area of Tallinn. There is a lot to be learned about this area. From 700 and 800 documentation became increasingly abundant. 

The Gulf of Riga:

                The Gulf of Riga lies between modern Latvia and Estonia on the Baltic sea. We can learn more of this gulf through some study of the histories of Latvia and Estonia. A look at the history of the cities of Riga, Parnu, Jumala, and Kuressaare can increase our understanding.

The Bay of Gdansk:

                The Bay of Gdansk has a lot of history which may include my Prussia, Polish, and German ancestors. The Vistula river flows into this bay. Some consider that this Bay of Gdansk as extending to Russian Kaliningrad and to the coast pf  Lithuania.

There be Kursenieki:

                There are Kursennieki on the bay of Gdansk. They have been therelong. They call their language Curonian. Some linguists have seen it as related to Latvian. Kursenieki have also called Prussian Latvians. Who are these people? They live on a well visited seacoast and near the outlet of a navigable river. So, they are likely to have been long subject to much social and cultural exchange.

Kattagat:

                Let's travel back to where the Baltic Sea meets the Atlantic ocean. Near there is the little Kattagat sea. The name Kattagat may be of Swedish origin. I seem to have heard of a queen Kattagat who may have been a Swede. This little sea is certainly Scandinavian area.

Jutlandic Peninsula:

                The Jutlandic Peninsula juts into the Kattagal Sea an is part of Jutland. The peninsula was once called the Cimbric or  the Cimbrian Peninsula. I is now a part of Denmark.Yutes and Cimbri have lived there.

                Jute was the name for some of the powerful Germanic invaders of England. Remember the Romans once calle everyone in the area not only Germanic, but just plain German. I am not certain what to call the people of then Peninsula. might have called them Norsemen, Vikings, or Scandinavians. It seems that a few others feel a similar confusion. But, there is a reason the Peninsula is called Jute. It was a area of a lot of activity before, during, and after the Roman empire. Anyway, there the peninsula is at the Kattagat Sea.

The Cimbri:

            Let's not pass the Cimbri too quickly. The name is not very familiar to me, but it does appear that they were on the Jute peninsula before the Jutes and the name is familiar. Some authorities have thought that were what we have called Gaulish or Celtic, that makes them Indo-Europeans. I am not the only to have called it the Cimbrian Peninsula. There may well be something of interest to learn. I may have heard Cimbri mentioned in relation to Irish prehistory. Perhaps we can learn more of things Cimbri. So, far I see no documentary evidence. 

                I do find that there is evidence for an amazingly long time of seasonal migration from a Baltic sea area, and perhaps England and Ireland to the Iberian peninsula and perhaps even to the Balearic Islands. So, there seems to have been ancient and regular travel from this peninsula to that one; Cimbric to Iberian and back. It sounds right, but I am surprised, even pleasantly amazed.

                There was even a Cimbrian military expedition by the Cimbria against 1st century Rome! Seems I remember some Irish got into something with Rome along with a number of Phoenicians. Who are these Cimbri? Who were they? Ah, history.

                Now I am just finding that there Were Belgians of Cimbrian origen. The Romans may have called the German, but they called everyone in the area German. I am less than sure of who the Celts or Gauls were other than that they were almost certainly what we have called Indo-European. And I do remember reading that a people who could have been Cimbrians, but who some called Celts, joined Carthaginians to resist Rome. 

                OK, I had best stop here. Until I get some more information, or I hear from you. Remember blog sites are meant to be interactive.

                Please help me to correct my errors and mistakes or to add some info. Use a "comments" app or my email.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                                            rcs

Archaeology, preHistory, and History From Times Before the U.S.

 A glance, a peek, a little look into the past of one region on Earth

                As there was no United States yet during the times we will look at here it might be better to say that this is a look at pre-Columbian North America. That is the lands now claimed by the people of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. There is much to learn of and from these times. You may take the following as a brief  introduction to topics which are entertained on this blog which includes essays, videos, archaeology, prehistory and a bit more.

                    In the Americas precolumbian times are those times before around 1492 before Columbus had touched on the american continents. A time that began for us when we began to the many different peoples who were encountered by those arriving soon after Columbus. Archaeology is a quickly growing science which is often actually digging up items from the past doings of humans and analyzing them. Prehistory is the history which comes to us not written. I is not a precise time. In away it is information about the past from before there were historians. With this little review I am ready to move forward.

                    I see now that what I have written here is mostly about what has now become that part of North America, which became the USA. As I am a Gringo, I have a reason, often called an excuse. The name Gringo was originated by Mexicans at one of those times the people north of the Rio Grand chose to fight with those people south of the Rio Bravo and those people chose to fight back. History which is simple is usually best not trusted. The Rio Grand/Grande and the Rio Bravo are both the same river which in my experience is neither grande nor bravo. In English neither big nor fierce. 

                        

                Anyway, when combatants rested from shooting one another they often sang. Often they sang nightly. Those north of the river very much liked a popular song with the refrain, "And green grow the rushes ho." On the south side of the river one asked another what the noise was and the other answered. "It's the Gringos" the plural of how "Green grow" sounded from that side of the river.

                    Now I have simplified the story, but that's history.

                    And now I will go on with short form of the history while being as honest as I can in hopes that you will be the wiser for my telling.

               

                 We have have learned from early post columbian persons(often indirectly) such as the Spaniard Hernando de Soto and his report on his 1540 to 1542 travers of what is now the U.S. southwest and also and also from other early Spanish visitors and colonists. Now that was a long sentences, but it was my effort to shorten and simplify this story of history. I hope you enjoyed my effort on your behalf. You may read it again if  you so wish. That was less than 200 years ago. Religion is part of history. One of the most recent bringer of many hundreds of such bringers came about 2,000 thousand years ago. Now on YouTube we are being told of human doings of  before Noah's flood. Others on You Tube are telling us that we were up and doing 20,000 years ago and probably had experience more than one really big flood and some really big comets, and a lot of parties. Some real experts are tellings that it is very likely humans were up and doing more than 200,000 years ago. Between those times and this there have been some curious happenings and doings.

                    The Spanish were not the first to arrive in the Americas which we once called the New World. Most of those we called Indians  came in waves after the last Ice Age and some before that. Just before the Spanish came the Portuguese had followed the cod here. Before that came the Vikings. It seem that the Dutch followed the Portugues everywhere and got to this New World before the English.

Spanish:

                    The Spanish looked around a lot and did some finding. The next people who came in some numbers and did considerable looking around were the French, French voyageurs. We have learned from those them. They wrote about their doings as did the Spanish. So from them we have some documented stories we can call history. The French came about 100 years after the Spanish and what we have called Native Americans, had already suffered a lot. What we have called Voyageurs,were interested in fur and traveled to where it could be gotten. They learned to trade with the early comers we have called natives, persons born to the land.

French:

                    Many French arrived. They moved up and down the Mississippi drainage basin and elsewhere. They observed the native Americans and found them and their settlements less impressive than the Spaniards had. I the past century the native culture had deteriorated greatly. The great die-off had begun. 

A French visiter, an artist. saw the Indian activity with the eyes of an artist and saw it as curious, but not impressive. A caption on a 1590 painting of his done in what is the northeast Florida read, "Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it." His painting may have have been exactm, but his captio is likely to have been written with more humor than understanding.

                    The early Spanish and later the earliest French who traveled up and down the Mississippi river and its large tributaries such as the Missouri and Ohio rivers were privileged to see many mounds and other earth works still in use and cared for.

                After about 1670 priests and others traveling these rivers were finding most of the mounds becoming grown over with grass and some brush. However, some of the sites, like those at what was to become the present of the city of Saint Louis, Were still able to impress them. Avery few, like those at Natchez, were still occupied and French colonists found it necessary to remove Indians by force.

English:

                By 1770 the Indian population east of the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast and all along the Mississippi and its tributaries was greatly diminished. The Dutch, English, were adding to the Spanish, Portugues, and French European arrivals. English were arriving in great numbers and learned little of what the various Indian culture had been 200 years earlier. Still we have gather much information about the mounds, other earthworks, and Indians themselves from the writings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Haven, and later Wesley Powell.

     

Us, Now:

                These days, 500 post Columbian years later, archaeologist are digging up a great deal of bone and artifact and providing us with much new information and providing fresh analysis. Since the great die off there is some return of population growth of population of those of Indian background, but many languages have been lost and much culture has been lost too. But a notable number of those named Indians and there culture is still among us; Americans all. Along with the archaeological information the is significant ethnological information available. You can find more prehistorical and historical information here on Mago Bill. Mago Bill history is mostly Irish.

                This example of the relatively new archaeological information available is from the not so new site of Watson Break. Watson Break is located in the present-day Ouachita Parish in the state of Louisiana. It dates from what has been called the North American Archaic Period. What is now Ouachita Parish has been home to many succeeding Native american groups in the thousand years before Europeans began to settle there. People of the Marksville culture, Troyville culture, Coles Creek culture, and Plaquemine culture built villages and earthwork mound sites throughout the area. a notable example is Filohiol Mound site located on a natural levee of the Ouachita river.

                Watson Break earthworks date to about 5,400 BP; which is about 3,500 BC. The arrangements of the mounds at WB was constructed over centuries by what is thought to be a hunter gatherer society. It is located near Watson Bayou in the floodplain of the Ouachita river. By the way, bayous might have been human modifications for communications and agriculture. The Break site consists of eleven mounds connected by ridges and causeways to form a large oval of nearly 900 feet across.Researchers believe the Break site is older than the better known Poverty Point site.

                Watson Break people seem to have planned and organized work forces to accomplish their earthworks.

                The site seems to have been abandoned around 2,800 BC.

                You can find out more about Native Americans on this History With RCS blog site and I hope to add more from time to time.

                When you have corrections, additions, questions, or other comments there is a "comments" app below for you to use.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                                        Richard Sheehan

        

                 

Mago and the Phoenicians

 Phoenicians                

                They had certainly heard of Atlantis, but that fabled land had disappeared thousands of years before the Phoenician posted themselves near the Pillars of Hercules. Those same pillars may once have been called the Pillars of Atlas or even the Gates of Atlas. They certainly guarded  the way to the great Atlantic sea and to the isle beyond the western isle. 

Those Phoenicians were a knowledgeable people who we might now begin to call Carthaginians. The knew much of trade and of navigation. They also knew of mining, metallurgy, language writing, warfare on land and sea. They knew that the islands not far beyond the Pillars not only contained gold, silver, and tin, but also contained men experience in mining and metalworking. They may even have known of the little people there who aided in the extraction of those precious metals from beneath the earth.

Carthage and the Carthaginians

                The name and title of Mago was very well known among those Carthaginian Phoenicians. I have found the use of the title among them as early as 750 BC. You my find that it was used much earlier. I do find strong evidence  that they were carrying on regular trade with Western Isles 500 and 400 BC.

The Magonids were a political dynasty of Carthage from about 550 to
340 BC. The dynasty began with Mago I, under whom Carthage became preeminent among the Phoenician colonies  in the western Mediterranean.  Under the Magonids the Carthaginian Empire expanded to include Spain, Sardinia, Libya, and perhaps Sicily. Diodorus and Herodotus tell us Of the Magonids better than do most Romans.

Mago

                There was a Mago II and then a Mago III who led Carthaginians. There also seems to have been a Mago who commanded, or navigated for, the trading fleet which connected the Western Isles to the Mediterranean. You may know, or have guessed, that the isle beyond the western isle is now called Ireland. 

                It might have been Mago, that knowledgeable shipmaster, who impressed an early Sheehan and led him, or her, to adopt the name Mago for their son.  My Irish great grandfather had the name Mago William Sheehan. That is the source of the name Mago Bill for this blog.

                So, Mago Bill has a history.

                You can find more about Mago Bill, Mago, Ireland, and a bit of Irish history at the Mago Bill blog website.

                Thank you for the visit. Come back and explore these sites.







                                                                                by Richard sheehan