Bundaberg, AU during tropical season

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Fair comment, StuM.

Here's a rhetoric question, to which I of course expect no answer, for the world: just how often have you read about or seen reference to the veil of dust that shrouded the northern hemisphere in the year 561 and following?

My family oral history, from northern Europe, has the story. Farming and harvests declined in 561 and for two or three years thereafter. Just not enough sunlight for photosynthesis, so no plant growth. The family recorded that light was only seen for three or four hours each day. Villages in what today we call Norway and Sweden were abandoned. Birth rates plummeted, not because of the long night, but because birth survival declined and there was no food (because of no plant growth, hence no harvest and nothing for cows, sheep etc to eat ... if you follow the story).

My family oral history reckons it was a meteor shower putting big mobs of dust in the atmosphere.

No one else talks about it. I admit, after years of searches in libraries and now on the internet, I have seen one author talk about the 'veil of dust' in 561 and it was that one source that gave an accurate date whereas the Michtig family history only records the story by reference to the name of the ancestors. My family history suggests the 3 dark years was a key event for the family to lose faith in religion, the promise that tomorrow would be a better day, and government. Just like the years of plague, war, pestilence and so on.

So whom do you believe? What do you believe?

Sciencing, the process of producing peer-reviewed science, is clearly a human process heavily influenced by funding, people's individual motives, social beliefs, and so on. So it is imperfect. As are all human activities, it seems.

My family, because of its oral history, reckons that peer-reviewed science is superior to religious dogma or the outpourings of hired scribblers (such as the Australia's Institute of Public Affairs) pursuing the agenda set by their funders (e.g. the coal miner Gina Rinehart) or religious nutters pushing their line (see the history of Galileo and the RC sect of Christianity) in the face of observed reality.

Your mileage may vary.

That sounds like the Miasma that hit England about the same time,
They didnt know it at the time, But it was the result of a volcano explosian That blanketed all of northern Europe,
It killed many people from the dust and starvation, and lasted a couple of years,

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Mr B

That sounds like the Miasma that hit England about the same time,
They didnt know it at the time, But it was the result of a volcano explosian That blanketed all of northern Europe,
It killed many people from the dust and starvation, and lasted a couple of years,

Nah ... the volcanic ash dust storms, from volcanic eruptions on Iceland/island, are more than 1,000 years later than the 561 veil of dust.

And those volcanic eruptions happened at a time when my Michtig ancestors were living in villages that kept birth and death registries. I've read through those registries and found no significant change - or at least not the level of significance that I am talking about in 561 when a string of villages along the northern coast of Norway were abandoned and so on.

From where do you have written histories of England in 561? None in existence that I've seen. But perhaps you can read something other than Latin or even the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles?

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by StuM

How sure are you about 561 from your oral history?

Sorry, I must have written imperfectly. My family oral history from that time does not have year numbers, only the names of ancestors and where they lived (the practice of using year numbers of the Christian era did not come along in those regions for a few hundred years). The date 561 came from one of the few academic works that I found that discusses what I think is the same event. And yes, both that academic work and my family history, coincide with the idea of a massive meteor shower. Not one of the volcanic eruptions from Iceland.

The academic work, whose name I don't have in memory, relates the incident to a collapse in faith in the sun and the Old Norse faith system. And suggested that there were political changes as a result - and I'm sure there would have been. I've not known humans to sit quietly in their huts and starve to death silently. Plus after the event, the tilled fields and empty villages must have been targets for population expansion.

Although I read Chinese, I've not had the opportunity to read through the Chinese records of the same era to see if they record the same phenomenon. I know from my studies in China and Chinese that several of the big political and ideological changes in China are associated with tough climatic conditions (and almost all the others were associated with challenges from foreigners, either from the northern steppes, the west (central Asia), or the east (i.e. the dwarf pirates or the Big Noses on the eastern coast).

[StuM]

If it was the widely reported 536AD "veil of dust":



https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....9/2007GL032450


Evidence from Asia:


https://books.google.com.pg/books?id...eather&f=false

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Nah ... the volcanic ash dust storms, from volcanic eruptions on Iceland/island, are more than 1,000 years later than the 561 veil of dust.

And those volcanic eruptions happened at a time when my Michtig ancestors were living in villages that kept birth and death registries. I've read through those registries and found no significant change - or at least not the level of significance that I am talking about in 561 when a string of villages along the northern coast of Norway were abandoned and so on.

From where do you have written histories of England in 561? None in existence that I've seen. But perhaps you can read something other than Latin or even the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles?

I was reading some history on major events that had taken place over the centuries, Its all in English as its the language I speak,
Im not knocking your history in any way, I do like knowledge,
It was on why various citys had been abandoned and then continued,
the year 561 just jumped out on me, As it was significant, For some reason,

Back then, Any dust cloud that blocked the sun for a couple of years was called the Miasma, Because they didnt know any better,
They didnt know what caused it, But it did kill people,

So why did the people in Norway abandon their villages in 561,


Now, You can watch a volcano explode any where in the world, Live,

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by StuM

If it was the widely reported 536AD

Ooh! That's really valuable stuff, StuM! Big thanks. You're superb.

Perhaps the one academic work I'd found had an imprecise number for the year. Or either he or I was a tad dyslexic and recorded 536 as 563?!?

Thanks for the reference to the Chinese records too. I'll chase down the Nan Shi Chronicle (clearly the 南史 something - I'm not familiar with it). I'm more of a northern China person (Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, and the NE) so I've not paid much attention to the S.

I'll aim to chase down both those publications.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Mr B

So why did the people in Norway abandon their villages in 561

Simple. Cold, dark, no food. They left or died. Or both.

If there's no sun, there is no photosynthesis.

No algae, so no fish.

No grass or tree growth, so no mast (acorns etc) for forest pigs, no fodder for sheep or cows, no root vegetables, no berries, ...

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Ooh! That's really valuable stuff, StuM! Big thanks. You're superb.

The Larsen et al paper is easy to obtain. See Larsen et al ....pdf (which I'll delete from CF in a day or three). I've yet to follow up how the community of scholars responded to it.

A digital version of the Costa book (From Adam to apophis) is yet beyond my reach. I'll keep looking.

Thanks again.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Simple. Cold, dark, no food. They left or died. Or both.

If there's no sun, there is no photosynthesis.

No algae, so no fish.

No grass or tree growth, so no mast (acorns etc) for forest pigs, no fodder for sheep or cows, no root vegetables, no berries, ...

It still didnt answer the question, Why,
The sun wasnt shining, I have never hear of a meteor strike around that time,
Next best is volcanic dust,
They wouldnt know what caused the dust to block out the sun,
The dust might have been too high to notice it,

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Mr B

They wouldnt know what caused the dust to block out the sun

Exactly, Mr B.

Gildas Sapiens (St. Gildas aka Gildas the Wise) wrote in Latin a sermon 'De excido et conqestu Britanniae' (Ruin and conquest of Britain) some time in the 5th or 6th century.

You can read Giles' translation (with comments) in English of 'Ruin and conquest' at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1949/pg1949.html

You can read about 'Ruin and conquest' at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Exc...stu_Britanniae and about Gildas the Wise at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gildas

Sad thing is that we don't know when Gildas wrote that sermon. Best guesses are as early as 479 or as late as 542. Gildas writes that he was writing 44 years after the Saxons arrived, but that doesn't help us date his sermon exactly.

Bottom line is that Gildas doesn't mention the veil of dust. Or much of anything else except to push his own political barrow, criticising kings he didn't like and priests he didn't like.

And although he probably was a son of a king somewhere in Scotland, and travelled by ship (or boat?!) from Britain to Brittany (from Big Britain to Little Britain, as it were), I don't think we ought think of him as a sailor or a cruiser.

[Dame.n.Jess]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

I'm following the steel trawler rebuild of some young people who keep the vessel in Bundaberg. The YouTube channel is called "Building Brupeg" and, besides being very interesting to watch, suggests they've spent enough time there in the yard to give you the information you seek. https://www.buildingbrupeg.com/ or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq9...qfhPKkKFvFkY4A


Damien Ashton is very approachable, I suspect you'll find.

Thanks very much. Yes I can say Brupeg has been fine so far in the Port Marina Hardstand. We have had a good 80knot blow come through but minimal damage was hard just a few loose parts etc from a number of boats. As for cyclones, it takes a bit for them to come this far south so most years there is very minimal risk.

This video below is from the 80knot blow in the marina yard
https://youtu.be/a9fqGRvAOIY