The Odissey: a Baltic tale?

[crazy canuck]

Viper, I think the evidence is conclusive there was no writing other than in Meso-America.  Sadly a lot of the oral history of the Indigenous North Americans has been lost, but what remains is remarkably accurate in terms of describing tribal boundaries.

Do you have examples of this remarkably accurate tribal boundaries thing?

Raz, to refresh your memory - actually you did ask me for an example and that is why I gave you an example.

[Razgovory]

Oh, so you did.  Sorry about that.

[crazy canuck]

No problem, it's hard to keep track of what everybody is saying.

[Josquius]

Okay, so you give me an example of using solely archeology to delineate political boundaries of an illiterate people.

Also, nobody said anything about 17th century Europe.  And the beaker culture mentioned in the link you provided me covers over half of Europe and some of North Africa.  Not great on telling me which polity built stonehenge.

Remember, this came from CC talking about using oral histories in a court case to delineate legal boundaries of a tribe.  That is to say, lines on a map.  He said archeology proves it.  I said archeology really can't do things like that.  You said archeologists do that all the time.  I simply picked a well researched, and famous archeological site and said prove it.

Solely archaeology is hard for any particularly well known people as for thousands of years you've had literate and illiterate people living in the world at the same time and they wouldn't have been completely ignorant of each other.
I could point to the celts for instance where we have a very good idea of their historic spread based on archaeology- but then we also have written records from the Romans and Greeks about them.
Look back into pre-ancient times though and you do get solely archaeology based interpretations of e.g. how beaker culture spread over time. They covered most of Europe at some point in history- this is true.

Again a problem here seems to be you're thinking in modern nation-state terms for ancient cultures which just didn't work that way. If you really must have smaller 'political borders' within this big border of the culture then basically you'd be looking at find a village and then walking distance from there is your border.

17th century Europeans are relevant as you replied Europe had contact with Britain when Stonehenge was built as if that was somehow equivalent to me pointing out Europeans a few hundred years ago had a lot of contact with the North American tribes we're talking about. The only way that would be comparable is through time travel.

[Razgovory]

The issue was exact borders.  Exact enough to for a legal boundary dispute in a court of law.  You said archeologists do it all the time.  Do you still stand by that?

[crazy canuck]

The issue was exact borders.  Exact enough to for a legal boundary dispute in a court of law.  You said archeologists do it all the time.  Do you still stand by that?

Yeah, as mentioned several times, the boundaries proven by oral history have stood up in court. I don't know what the issue is you are identifying as being problematic, and something that won't stand up in court.

I have given you an example do you have an example of it not standing up in court?

[Razgovory]

The issue was exact borders.  Exact enough to for a legal boundary dispute in a court of law.  You said archeologists do it all the time.  Do you still stand by that?

Yeah, as mentioned several times, the boundaries proven by oral history have stood up in court. I don't know what the issue is you are identifying as being problematic, and something that won't stand up in court.

I have given you an example do you have an example of it not standing up in court?

I'm not a Canadian lawyer.  I don't know about your laws.  I'm not an American legal expert either, so I don't if oral history has failed to persuade a judge in the US.  Since Native Americans have lost lots of legal cases and were simply tossed off their land I imagine that at least once "we were here 5,000 years ago my grandpa told me" didn't cut it.

[The Brain]

Since when is science decided in court?

[crazy canuck]

The issue was exact borders.  Exact enough to for a legal boundary dispute in a court of law.  You said archeologists do it all the time.  Do you still stand by that?

Yeah, as mentioned several times, the boundaries proven by oral history have stood up in court. I don't know what the issue is you are identifying as being problematic, and something that won't stand up in court.

I have given you an example do you have an example of it not standing up in court?

I'm not a Canadian lawyer.  I don't know about your laws.  I'm not an American legal expert either, so I don't if oral history has failed to persuade a judge in the US.  Since Native Americans have lost lots of legal cases and were simply tossed off their land I imagine that at least once "we were here 5,000 years ago my grandpa told me" didn't cut it.

The reason why the claims have succeeded in Canada and more particularly western Canada is because that is one of the limited areas of North America, where there were no treaties, and the argument of military occupation was weakest

We are getting a little off-topic since your main concern was that oral history was not precise enough to establish boundaries to claim land. That is obviously not so since there are a number of cases in Canada, where it has been sufficient and accepted by the courts to establish that claim.

[The Minsky Moment]

In the US experience, Dobbs and Bruen are exemplars of the very serious pitfalls involved when justices decide to take on the roles of amateur historians . . .

I can understand why courts would consider oral histories in the context of tribal land claims, despite concerns about reliability. In the absence of hard and verifiable facts, a court is forced to consider whatever evidence that is available. If the consequence is to give the benefit of the doubt to tribal claims, that is hardly an inequitable result given past history of thumbs on the other hand of the scale.  But the fact that a court accepts claims from oral history in such a context is not itself evidence of the actual reliability and accuracy of such histories.

[crazy canuck]

In the US experience, Dobbs and Bruen are exemplars of the very serious pitfalls involved when justices decide to take on the roles of amateur historians . . .

I can understand why courts would consider oral histories in the context of tribal land claims, despite concerns about reliability. In the absence of hard and verifiable facts, a court is forced to consider whatever evidence that is available. If the consequence is to give the benefit of the doubt to tribal claims, that is hardly an inequitable result given past history of thumbs on the other hand of the scale.  But the fact that a court accepts claims from oral history in such a context is not itself evidence of the actual reliability and accuracy of such histories.

Yes, and it's a good thing nobody is making the claim, pun intended, that the fact that courts accept oral histories is in itself proof of reliability. Rather the claim being made is that the courts in BC have carefully examined the question of the reliability of oral histories in the cases before them, including considering all of the expert evidence related to the consistency of the oral histories with the archeological work done in those areas.

I can't speak to the American situation. It may well be that your judiciary engages in as you say being amateur historians.  But that is not what has occurred in the modern BC cases.  Rather actual historians and archeologists have appeared to give expert evidence.

If you have an argument as to why the court was wrong to accept all of that expert evidence, I'd be interested to hear your view on that.

[The Minsky Moment]

I can't speak to the American situation. It may well be that your judiciary engages in as you say being amateur historians. 

Our Supreme Court engages in amateur history. It does receive the benefit of expert views via amici briefs, which it then ignores in favor of law review articles from Federalist Society members.  It would be comic if not for the horrendous results.

If you have an argument as to why the court was wrong to accept all of that expert evidence, I'd be interested to hear your view on that.

To the contrary, I argued above they were right to do it.

[Tonitrus]

Since when is science decided in court?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, those theories (including Troy being somewhere in Britain) had a resurgence in the 90s, but they go back to at least the 19th century.

Although I wonder if that links to the Medieival origin myth of the Britons as being from Brutus of Troy? I think the same chronicles have the origin of Scots as Scota, the daughter of Moses who brought the Stone of Destiny from Egypt (I think Irish chronicles similarly claim an ancient Israelite/Egyption origin).

I think that sort of thing was pretty common in Medieval chronicles though because they're histories and there is truth in them but also not. I don't think it's necessarily just about status, I think it reflects how the Medieval world saw and understood the world - from a historical perspective I think that in itself is interesting and probably true for oral histories too.

Also I think it's relatively recent that there's not been a fixed form for this stuff - so with Medieval writing, but I also understand with oral traditions, often part of it is complying with a form.

But yeah I definitely like there was an eccentric Victorian clergyman convinced Troy was Cornwall (it is always Cornwall for some reason)