> HornedReaper@rocketmail.com wrote:
> : In article <6k1h64$a7q$1@news.trends.ca>,
> : yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:

> The primary source is the KRS itself. It predicts all of what will happen
> in the future because it is written in code!
>

> Just kidding...
>

> But seriously, Schlaf, what kind of a primary source might you want? I've
> given plenty of sources already...
>
> Yuri.

In a post on another thread I dropped a slighting reference to the Kensington
Stone, because I had the vague impression there had been a confession of
forgery in its manufacture. I can't find that. Overall, observers steeped in a
North American cultural background will tend to discount Viking artifacts
found in Minnesota and Wisconsin simply due to the concentration of Nordic
settlers in this region in the 19th century, though this is simply a factor of
prejudice. The line of thought goes that Swedes etc. in these farming
communities may have preserved a cryptic knowledge of runic writing, which
would have been publicly deprecated within their own community due to its
Pagan associations.

Yet by their reputed stubborness, conceivably some lineage might have passed
down through the generations such ancient knowledge. Almost inevitably the
runic heritage would have been associated with ritual and tradition of
polytheist origin, however diguised by pietistic gloss. We know that similar
cryptic holdovers of pagan culture have occured in many societies after they
joined the intolerant Christian bandwagon.

Thus we have the scenario of a bored farmer chipping runes into stones in an
effort to advance the prestige of his Norse forebears. Note that this would
not directly involve 19th century scholarship in its understanding of runic
inscriptions; the farmer knew beans about epigraphy, having learned this
writing handed down through generations. So ancient forms could have been
preserved by this clandestine path, of which contemporary 19th century
scholars were completely ignorant. Runes, in short, were used in divination,
and this was a secret practice, which necessarily included their understanding
as an alphabetic means of writing.
 

This view, as I said, is prejudiced against acceptance of Viking inscriptions
in this region being truly ancient. Barry Fell brought out other evidence in
support of Viking inscriptions in North America, notably carved hitching
stones of a type the Vikings used to moor their boats. Any farmer who would
shape such stones just to abandon them in the wilderness, would have to be
really bored. It adds a significant datum to our consideration of the
authenticity of the Kensington and similar rune stones.

Barry Fell was of the opinion that early Norse explorers extensively stalked
through the North American interior, and showed runic inscriptions from
various venues to support this thesis. Archaeology generally has ignored his
claims, as Yuri has pointed out in this NG. Archaeologists want a higher
standard of proof, specifically stratigraphy in situ to establish dating. They
will not accept findings which were not made by archaeologists, in short.

Sadly, archaeology has a dismal track record, which it is constantly
struggling to make up for. There is a considerable tendency to conservatism in
contemporary archaeology, trying to compensate for the destructive methodology
of Schliemann and its other pioneers. Each advance in methodology makes it
more clear that human knowledge would have been better off without the early
treasure hunters, gold diggers, and grave robbers who founded this science. It
has become quite plain that early theories of prehistory were merely
supportive of popular prejudices of race, region, culture and class. Now the
main preoccupation of professionals in this field seems to be defense of their
corpus of accepted knowledge. They are kept busy finding reasons to reject a
plethora of findings which challenge their traditional interpretations, since
they would lose face were their fundamental assumptions proven wrong.

An objective asessment puts contemporary archaeology in a poor position as a
dicipline dedicated to finding truth. There is simply too much ideological
baggage the professionals have to carry with them. They still bear the giant
invisible burden of ethnocentrism and above all class bias, and are in total
denial of their subjectivity. Yuri is absolutely right in his basic criticism
of academic scholarship. I think Yuri could profit from a study of rhetoric,
for often his choice of language is so emphatic that it backfires, antagonizes people, and fails to convince. Yet his contributions are of value to this NG
in that he is the number one gadfly, the one to bring up the uncomfortable
discoveries that we might prefer to forget for the sake of our equanimity.

In time to come the novel epistemology of worldwide networking will become
evident. We will see that we are involved in an unprecedented technique for
determining the truth. Academia will get over its pain, after finding ways in
which our real time inputs to a discussion can be backed up by exhaustive
indexing techniques which will enable referencing our statements to searchable
background information. We almost know how to answer Pilate's question. Real
soon now we can decide what is truth.

Pending such development, let's get down to arguing over fragmentary aspects
of reality, partially glimpsed and enjoyably ambiguous.

In fun,
Johnny Thunderbird
http://www.oocities.org/~jthunderbird
Communication is only possible between equals --- Aleister Crowley
Re: Yuri - I was wrong about Kensington runestone inscription alt.archaeology 980524