The Wonderful World of Megaliths

The Megalithic cultures of Europe (and elsewhere) decided that they, in their spare time would move massive rocks into a wonderful array of shapes and orders. Here is a quick overview of the various structures that these prehistoric peoples put up.

Dolmen

One of the most popular was a dolmen. A dolmen is a tomb that consists of a number of large rocks supporting a top table rock. They are found all over Europe. There are a number of great examples of Dolmens on the West Coast of Ireland, like the one pictured to the left.

Taula

A Taula is another table top structure similar to the dolmen. In fact the word Taula is table in Catalan. The Taulas are peculiar to the Talaiotic Culture that existed on the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain.

Newgrange in Ireland

Another popular megalithic structure was a passage grave. These burial chambers were often positioned so that the entrance would receive direct sunlight on important dates, like the sunrise of the winter solstice or the sunset of the equinox.

Cairn

Cairns are stacks of rocks that are found all over Europe. Sometimes they were used as decorations around other megalithic structures. Other times though they had a functional purpose as well. In England and Ireland they were strategically placed near forts to make conquering it that much more difficult. In Scandinavia they were put along the coast so that people could see them from the sea as guide posts. In Iceland, like the one pictured, they were basically prehistoric road markers.

Grand Menhir Brisé

A menhir is a single standing stone. In the Northwest of France alone there are over 1200 menhirs, with  Brittany having some of the most fascinating menhirs on earth. At the village of Locmariaquer in Brittany once stood the Grand Menhir Brisé or Great Broken Menhir. It was put up sometime around 4700 BC to decorate the Table des Marchand (Merchant's Table) passage grave. When it was erected it stood over 67 feet high and weighed over 280 tonnes. If that wasn't impressive enough, the stone was quarried and carried to the spot from a few kilometers away. Somehow though the menhir came crashing to earth around 4000 BC and broke into four pieces. Some archeologists think that it was deliberately pulled down, while others think that its tumble was caused by an earthquake.

Swedish Stone Ship

There was also the construction of a stone ship. Basically a stone ship was a group of menhirs arranged in a way that it looks like the outline of a ship. These types of structures were mainly found in Scandinavian countries, Germany and the Baltic States. The ships varied from only a few meters to massive like the Jelling Stone ship in Denmark which is over 1100 feet long. The Jelling Stone Ship is interesting because it combines a number of eras of construction. The mound and ship were originally a bronze age burial, but King Harald Bluetooth extended it and built two giant burial mounds in it for his mom and dad. The pictures of this from an ariel shot are fairly interesting and you can check them out here. Pictured to the right is a stone ship that gives a much clearer representation of what we're talking about. This stone ship is the largest in Sweden and dates to around 200 AD.

There a whole host of other megalithic structures like the tumuli or kurgans (large burial mounds), cromlechs (a burial site that looks a lot like dolmens combined with a stone circle that is Welsh in origin), stone rows (rows of single stones in straight order) and of course, the stone circle. The most famous of stone circles is Stonehenge and we'll save that for its own post.

Sesklo - The First Neolithic Culture of Europe

The Sesklo Culture is famous for being one of the first Neolithic cultures in Europe. If you remember, a culture becomes a Neolithic one when it discovers how to do one of two things or both. It leaves the Mesolithic to join the the Neolithic when it masters farming or starts building pottery. The Sesklo seem to have done this as early as 6850 BC give or take a margin of error. They did this in what is modern day Greece in the regions of Thessaly and Macedonia. Confusingly, the culture seems to arisen out of two cultures, the Pre-Sesklo and Proto-Sesklo cultures. The distinction is so ridiculously nuanced that I can't seem to wrap my head around it, let alone explain it. But, that's where they come from.

They became Neolithic by learning how to farm wheat and barley. Because Nabisco's Wheat Thins and barley laden Rye Whiskey cannot sustain a man (trust me on this one), the Sesklo culture also kept herds of sheep, goats and a few cows and pigs. They completed the double Neolithic by fashioning bowls and cups to eat and drink out of. The Rye Whiskey though they liked to drink straight from the bottle like a boss.

The Sesklo would have been a minor footnote in history had they not influenced other cultures though. In this they seem to have been prolific. They influenced the Karanovo and the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş in the Balkans. The Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş would then go on to influence the Danubian cultures that stretched all over Southeastern and Central Europe. The Sesklo also seem to have been the origin for the Cardium pottery Culture that dotted the southern coastal region of much of Europe stretching from Croatia to Italy to France and to Spain. For this reason, the minor city of Sesklo, played a major role in spreading the Neolithic Revolution to much of Europe.

Le Moustier, Levallois, If only we had a Lafleur!

Guy Lafleur knew a bit about Neanderthals. Why?

Le Moustier, Levallois et Lafleur! It sounds like the scoring line for Les Habs or for my personal favorites of the defunct and/or relocated, the Quebec Nordiques. But, we're not really here to talk about Le Démon Blond or the old stomping grounds of Dale Hunter long before he moved to Washington and destroyed my hopes of Lord Stanley resting in Washington during '93. Those double overtime games were my favorite sporting events that I've ever attended on a completely unrelated note. And since we're not here to talk about such things, we're going to solely focus on Le Moustier and Levallois, specifically the Levallois technique. Let's be honest and speak frankly the sole thing that Guy Lafleur and these other two topics have in common are their French names. In my head I'm butchering the pronunciations and imagining discussing them over a baguette and wheel of camembert. And now I'm remembering Dale Hunter's cheap shot on Pierre Turgeon and how it ripped the Stanley Cup from my beloved Caps.

Le Moustier is the site from whence the name Mousterian comes from. For those of you who have listened to the podcasts you can find more information about the Mousterian culture in Episode 2, the Paleolithic. (Click on the episode tab and check out episode 2, or subscribe on iTunes.) The Mousterian Culture though was basically the tool making culture that nearly every European Neanderthal who ever lived came out of. A few of the last Neanderthals tried to make adjustments, but they were sadly too late. The Neanderthals would go extinct shortly after the supplanting of the Mousterian Culture. Maybe advancement hit the cliche of promoting someone to the point of incompetency when it came to Neanderthal existence.

Guy Lafleur knew about the
Neanderthals because he had
to deal with Clark Gillies. The
goon is from a town called
Moose Jaw. Moose Jaw! It
even sounds Neanderthalish

But the Mousterian Culture wouldn't have been what it was without the use of the Levallois technique. The Levallois technique was a major advancement to stone tool technology. Rather than simply chip away at a piece of flint until the desired shape was achieved, a sloppy and rather imprecise technique known simply as reduction, the Levallois technique would create a tortoise shell appearance on the whole of the flint. Then it would focus on some of the middle and make deeper indentions so that a small and exact amount of flint could be removed to create a precision tool. This allowed the Neanderthals to be much better skilled hunters than their predecessors.

So on that note we'll leave Le Moustier and Levallois and list a number of Montreal Canadiens Legends that have French sounding names in a shameless attempt to garner Google traffic. Maurice Richard (exaggerate it to sound like Ree-char), Jean Beliveau, Jacques Plante, Guy Lapointe et Patrick Roy (wah). Pour toujours, les Canadiens! Adieu!


Oh, and before anyone points out that the Caps would have a long way to go in the playoffs and that the Islanders (who beat the Caps in 7 after Hunter's stupid move in game 6) didn't win it all, let me say this. You can't disrupt my fantasy world.

On this day in history, the death of Jacques Marquette

Jacques Marquette was born in Laon, France. He would grow up to become a Jesuit that traveled to Quebec in Canada. He went on to travel the Northern Mississippi, founding cities like Sioux Ste. Marie (modern day Michigan & Canada), the city that would become Ashland, Wisconsin, Portage, Wisconsin and tromped around important Great Lake cities that would eventually become Chicago and Green Bay. He traveled down the Mississippi River until he started to encounter a bunch of Natives that carried Spanish trinkets. Fearing an encounter with Spanish conquistadors he traveled back up the river after having reached the Arkansas River. He passed away at the site would eventually become Ludington, Michigan. Marquette has been remembered in much of the Midwest, with cities or parks in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa bearing his name. The University of Marquette in Wisconsin is named after him. He died when he was only 38. Had he not died so young, there may have been many other states that had cities named after him. Can't you imagine a Marquette, Missouri, Marquette Falls, Minnesota or Marquette Bluffs, Louisiana? Sadly though, his early death cut down an aspirational exploratory career.

The Artist Formerly Known as Abbevillian

The word Abbevillian was formerly associated with a tool culture that existed in Europe deep in the Paleolithic. It was the tool set of the first "men" in Europe. The term Abbevillian was coined by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet, a 19th century French anthropologist. It has fallen out of usage because it was put forth back in the days when people had a Eurocentric view of the origins of man, which we discussed on episode 2 of the podcast. Today, the tool culture associated with the first "men" of Europe is labeled Oldowan, after the Olduvai Gorge, nicknamed "The Cradle of Mankind". It has this monicker because Homo habilis lived there around 1.9 million years ago. The tools found there match those found in Abbeville, France from where the name Abbevillian comes from.

The Oldowan tools found in France have created some argument over who used them. Basically though the argument is over labels and not really much more than a staring contest between archeological theories.

First, there is the thought that the first Europeans were late Homo Erectus specimens, which would mean basically that the tools weren't used by "men" at all, at least not modern men.

The second point of view states that, the first men in Europe were their own species like Homo heidelbergensis or Homo antecessor.  These two homos were intermediate species between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapien  Neanderthalensis (us, being Homo sapien sapiens are sub-species of Homo sapiens and thus, closely related to Neanderthals).

The third theory regarding who was the first "man" in Europe states that all these skeletal remains we had hitherto classified as late Homo erectus, are actually early modern humans in archaic form. The Archaics include Homo heidelbergensis and sometimes Homo antecessor, so the difference between the second and third theory is basically rhetorical in nature.

But, however they were classified somebody that resembled us was hanging out near modern day Abbevillian about 600,000 years ago, with Oldowan tools, like this handaxe. He probably looked a bit like Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet who found him.

Happy Mother's Day From the Krapina Cannibals

What a tasty Neanderthal treat!

It's Mother's Day and so naturally the blog would have back to back posts about Cannibals. Like the Cannibalism at Předmostí, there is debate over whether or not there was actual Cannibalism with some claiming that the bone fragments found there can be explained by other sources. Unlike the Předmostí site which I didn't do a whole bunch of researching on, I spent a little bit more time on looking at the Krapina site.

The site, which is located in the Northern Croatian county of Krapina-Zagorge, which in the language means "Upland", something rather special to me. But that is neither here nor there. Archeologist and paleontologist (whose Ross' character on Friends was loosely based on) Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger unearthed over 800 specimens from the Neanderthal branch of human beings. Like the site at Předmostí, many of these bones were fragmentary in nature, having been crushed or even bones showing indentations that look a lot like teeth marks. Alongside of the Neanderthal remains were tools and bones of wild animals like bears, moose and beavers. Kramberger put forth the speculation that these bones proved some cannibalistic tendencies among Neanderthals. Couple this with the other major site supporting Neanderthal's desire for Neanderthal stew at Moula-Guercy in France and we've got ourselves a workable hypothesis that Neanderthals were both hunter-gatherers and cannibals. This in turn makes me envision a sort of chicken cordon bleu type meal with Neanderthal stuffed Beaver being served up as the Friday early-bird special.

Thanks mom, for
always making my
school lunches. BTW
have you seen Dad?

But, the evidence of cannibalism at Předmostí and Krapina is disputable. There are alternative theories and strong rebuttals to the Hannibal Lector thesis. First, it is possible that the scraping on the bones at both sites was caused by mortuary defleshing, a truly horrific sounding word for the practice of removing the flesh and muscles from the bones when the dead were prepared for burial. It is hard to recreate Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon religion, but both practiced ritual burial so this is a distinct possibility. Other proposals have been put forward by the German Jörg Orschiedt stating there are a number of reasons for the fragmentary nature of the bones at Krapina. He suggested that the cut marks on many of the bodies are inconsistent with either mortuary defleshing or food preparation. He also thinks that some of the cut marks occurred in the much more recent past than at the time of the Neanderthals. In addition to this he puts forth evidence that the parts that are missing occur too often to be a statistical anomaly. He suggests that rather than these bodies having been buried in any type of ritual pattern they were simply just discarded from time to time. Also some of the teeth marks look more like animal bites than human activity. While this doesn't completely upend the Cannibal theory of Kramberger, it takes a sizable chunk out of its evidence in small, bite size portions.

On this day in History...

On May 11, 1498 the Friar Girolamo Savonarola was excommunicated by the Pope Alexander VI for disobedience. Savonarola was born in 1452, in Ferrara. In 1475 a religiously convicted Savonarola left the wold he had contempt for and joined the Dominican Order. While in Bologna, he became well versed in Scriptures, Logic, the Classics and Aristotelian, Thomistic theology and philosophy. When he wasn't dedicating his time to studying he was showing his reformist tendencies, rabble-rousing the Bologna Dominicans about their loosening rules. He wanted strict asceticism and criticized his superiors for not staying on this path. It could have been the annoyance of his superiors that led him to a placement away from Bologna to go back to Ferrara to do some administrative work. When that assignment was up he opted to go to Florence, rather than return to Bologna. It was in Florence where his fiery reformist proposals would eventually lead to his excommunication, torture and hanging.

He arrived in Florence in 1490 and became an instant hit when he preached. He railed against tyrants and their allies, the rich who exploited the poor. Using apocryphal language and backing his social and political views with I John and the Book of Revelation, his blend of populist preaching and sharp rhetoric earned him a name among the poor and enmity among the elite. Around 1493 he really began to turn up the heat and started to profess to have received visions and prophecies about a new Cyrus bringing the sword of the Lord. A year later it seemed as if the prophecy was coming true. King Charles VIII of France crossed the Alps and through the Italian peninsula into a tail spin.

Charles VIII marched onto Florence and briefly occupied the city after booting out the powerful Medici family who was ruling it at the time. Savonarola however had intense negotiations with the king that led France to continue their march south. A whole sack of cash promised by Savonarola might have helped Charles VIII in this decision. Savonarola preached a new Florence, one that was powerful and the center of a new empire of reforming the Church. He predicted spiritual and temporal riches, glory and might. So, now, a de facto an ally of Charles VIII it was no surprise when Pope Alexander VI sent Savonarola a letter demanding that Florence join the papacy in the war against the heretic Charles VIII that Savonarola decided not to oblige. The Pope excommunicated Savonarola.

With the threat of an interdict hanging over the heads of the Florentines, Savonarola was forced to back off the public stage. A rival suggested that Savonarola prove his prophecies, visions and spiritual mettle by walking through fire. When this didn't happen, public opinion turned against Savonarola. After this whole debacle Savonarola was arrested. While imprisoned he was tortured and he recanted his visions and prophecies. A few days later he was hanged.

The legacy of Savonarola however, is far reaching. His works were admired by Martin Luther, especially his thoughts on love and grace. Luther declared that he was a precursor and kindred thinker on Luther's revolutionary ideal of justification by faith alone. His works and sermons were translated into French and became a building block in the coming Huguenot reform. His political thinking and prophecy/vision thoughts were whitewashed a bit by the Dominicans and they revered him for his reformist zeal. Then much later, his puritanical bent was whitewashed and his political leanings were revived by the Il Risorgimento, leading to the Italian Unification in the 19th century. Savorna's teaching were used in at least two Italian political party formations in the 20th century albeit, tempered to fit their needs, but mostly focusing on his ideas of social justice. Today, the Catholic Church is considering him beatification. Not a bad little legacy you've got there.

On this day in European history...

Medieval depiction of the battle.

On this day in we'll focus on the Battle of Fontenoy. Not the later battle fought during the War of the Austrian Succession, but the earlier battle fought by the grandsons of Charlemagne. The battle during the War of the Austrian Succession was fought on May 11, 1745 and would be the obvious selection for this day in history. The earlier battle was actually fought on June 25, 841 and wouldn't necessarily qualify for the exact "On this day history" criteria, but this battle was far more interesting to research and so I'll relate it here rather than on June 25th which was already slated for a different historical occurence. I don't have to be exact. This is my blog and I'll do as I please, thank you very much!

Lothair I

Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious had ruled the inherited empire of his father seemingly well enough, but as he was getting on in age he decided to dole out his territories to his sons in keeping up with Frankish law rather than the eldest one getting the whole shebang. But, in keeping with many Medieval cultures (and ancient ones' too) Louis gave his sons co-ruler status while he was still alive.

Louis the German

Lothair, Louis' eldest son was given the title of Emperor of the Romans and King of Italy by his pops. His full brother Louis the German was given the title of King of Bavaria. Their half brother, Charles the bald was given Western Francia to rule over. Lothair and Louis the German decided that their half-brother had no claim to rule and decided to go to war with their father and Charles the Bald over the latter's promotion to rule. They fought three separate civil wars to show their dismay at Charles getting some territory. But, in the end Charles the Bald would have a chance to rule as Louis the Pious would beat down his two sons in battle. But, eventually Louis the Pious would pass away and after he did, all hell broke loose. Lothair decided he had had enough of his brothers and decided to try and take over the whole kingdom of Charlemagne and claimed it for himself. Louis the German and Charles the Bald balked at this assertion of dominance and war broke out amongst the brothers.

Charles the Bald

The war between the brothers was brutal and the Battle of Fontenoy was decisive in nature. Lothair brought in his nephew, Pepin II, King of Aquitaine and Gerard II, Count of Paris. Louis the German and Charles the Bald were able to muster about the same number of troops as their older brother Lothair through their barons. The battle started off well for Lothair as Pepin's troops pushed back the forces of Charles the Bald. But, the troops of Lothair started to lose ground to the men of Louis the German. As Lothair's men got beaten back further and further the troops of Bernard of Septimania decided that the victors would be Louis the German and Charles the Bald. He entered the fray and turned the victory into a rout. Lothair would retreat from battle, but on his way back to his capital of Aachen in modern Germany, Lothair would pillage and plunder and grab a whole bunch of treasure. If he wasn't going to rule all of Charlemagne's kingdom he was going to take as much of its wealth as he could. He lost the battle and the chance to rule like Charlemagne. Charles the Bald and Louis the German retained the rights to their kingdoms, but Charles the Bald would find that he had a rather impoverished kingdom to look after. And that's what happened on this day in history, sort of...

Take your daily supplements - today have a taste of Neolithic Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Neolithic podcasts are coming! The first episode should come out on Thursday May 10, but may be a day late. I'm going to try really hard though to not let it be late. However, the Neolithic was so large I had to split it into two podcasts. Even still, I had to edit out a bunch of things that I would have liked to have included. So, I'm doing some blogging on the bits that have been edited out. A couple of those edits come from within the territory of modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On the podcasts we talk a bit about Southeastern Europe and the Balkans not having a lengthy Mesolithic because farming came so quickly to the area, the same can be said about Bosnia & Herzegovina. But, the history of this nation began all the way back in the Paleolithic. A site known as the Badanj Cave was painted by Paleolithic man as early as 16,000 BC and is the oldest Paleolithic monument site in the region. Here you can see a picture of one of the engravings found in the cave. It is a picture of a horse being attacked by arrows. To me it looks a bit abstract...

While this is an interesting find, it shows a culture that was fairly isolated. The Neolithic however, paints a different picture of cultures intermingling and becoming fresh and new. One example of this is the Butmir Culture that thrived in the 3rd millennium BC. What made this culture so unique is their characteristic pottery. If you have listened to the podcasts or read most of the blog posts about prehistoric cultures you'll find that al of them are "known by their characteristic pottery". Over the past few weeks I have looked at probably two thousand pieces of pottery in pictures. There are some obvious distinctions based on shape. But, some of the detail that archeologists are able to label as characteristic takes an expertise that I am sorely lacking. I try to rely then on the most accepted theories and present alternatives when the dissenting voice is loud enough. But I now find myself looking at my dishes and saying things like, "this is an IKEA culture dish" or "this is a ProtoIKEA culture dish", or "what is this MesoIKEA dish doing where all of the PaleoWalMart dishes are hanging out". I say these things and then chuckle to myself. I'm really starting to become alarmed.

Distinctive Butmir Pottery. Its
swirls are different than all the other
swirls from this time. That's how we
know it's Butmir!

But, in addition to becoming a bit weird when looking at dinnerware I am becoming increasingly fascinated with the interchange of cultures. That is one of the reasons why the Butmir Culture interests me so much. The Butmir Culture is named after the town of Butmir, which is near Sarajevo. The site was discovered when the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was expanding the agricultural university of Sarajevo in the late 19th century. The site so intrigued scholars all over Europe that they held an archeological festival (which in my mind resembles Comic Con) at Sarajevo in 1894. This archeological get together produced a wide variety of theories about the new discovery of the Butmir Culture. The distinctive pottery was similar enough to later Minoan pottery on the island of Crete that it led some to suggest that the Butmir was a precursor to the famous Minoans of Crete. This theory isn't widely held today. Instead people think that the Butmir Culture was a bit of a cosmopolitan hot spot for their age. They took on the cultures of the Aegean, the Balkans, Pannonia, and Mediterranean to create their distinctive lifestyle. This would mean that Bosnia & Herzegovina from an early time was taking in ideas from far flung regions that in today's terms we would describe as Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Mainland Greece, the Greek isles, including Crete and Italy to create a style that was all their own. This is why history fascinates me so much!

On this day in history, a tax break on account of Visigothic bullying

On May 8, 413 AD the Roman Emperor Honorius decided to give a tax break to most of the provinces of Italy. It wasn't because he was feeling especially generous or that the Roman coffers were so overstuffed he could afford to grant some largesse. It was because the peninsula had been absolutely ravaged by the Visigoths. Three years prior to the tax break, the Visigoths had marched up to the eternal city and sacked it causing a whole bunch of physical, economic and psychological damage to the empire from which it never really recovered. So, while this day marks the anniversary of a fiscal policy enacted some 1599 years ago, the fiscal policy was in response to a seriously traumatic experience. We'll probably touch on the Visigothic sack of Rome at a later date so we'll just give a bit of blog love to the Visigoths today. Pictured here is the Visgothic wave of invasion from Eastern Europe to become lords of Spain. As you can see they entered into Roman territory around 376 and wreaked havoc down into the Balkans, sacking Athens along the way. But on the way to walking triumphantly on the streets of the brain capital of the ancient Mediterranean the Visigoths managed to completely upend the Eastern Empire in 378 at the battle of Adrianople (modern day Turkey). Then the sauntered on up the coast and down into Italy, sacking Rome in 410. They would go on to establish a kingdom in 418 that would stretch from the South Atlantic coast of Portugal up through most of modern day Spain and into France. After claiming such a big stretch of European soil, the Visigoths would go on a slow, but inevitable retreat until finally Ardo, the last of the Visogothic kings was defeated and killed by the Arab conquest of Spain in the 720's. So there you have it. You earn a tax break when you get invaded. I think I could deal with some unruly Visigoths if it got me off the hook for my income tax.

The death of Napoleon I

On this day in the History of Europe we'll mark the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor of France that through all of Europe and the Americas into disarray. Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica to Genoese noble parents. He ended up as a distinguished soldier on the French Mainland and became emperor of France. As Emperor he would unleash a whole host of wars on the continent that would see all of Europe running around fighting for a few decades. But, we'll focus solely on his death because otherwise this post would be unwieldy and impossible to follow.

After his wars and exile and escape from the island of Elba, Napoleon was sent to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island was used to exile a number of prisoners after Napoleon by the English, including Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, a king of the Zulu and some prisoners from the Boer War. While in charge of things, Napoleon commanded great respect throughout Europe. This continued even in his exile on Saint Helena. He had some English support in Lord Holland and Lord Cochrane. The Napoleonic wars had set into motion disruptive revolutions in the New World. These two English lords had the idea of moving Napoleon to Brazil or Chile to establish a South American empire there. There was even a plot from Texas by former members of Napoleon's Grande Armée to have him come to the lone star state and establish an empire there. But, it was not meant to be. Napoleon died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821. Some have claimed he died of poisoning, but there is scant evidence of this.

Napoleon's death mask.

He was buried on the island against his wishes. In 1840 his remains were brought home to France were he was entombed at Les Invalides in Paris, where he has been ever since. During his life he spread the ideals of the French Revolution all over Europe. Though he is remembered as the short general and the Napoleon Complex was named after him, he was actually about 5'6", an average height for the time. His family would be involved in the French political sphere for decades after his death. But, his legacy was more than what his progeny produced. His impact continues to play in France and Europe through the Napoleonic Code. The Napoleonic Code has influenced many modern societies' civil law codes, advocating for a meritocracy and the freedom of religion. While he will always be remembered for his wars, this code has had the deepest impact on European and really, the world's societies.

The Duplicitous Dubrovnikians

Today, I was in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. First, allow me to plug this delightful seaside town. Cabarete is among my favorite places that I have ever been. Even then it is a bit of a backwater, it is incredibly cosmopolitan. I stayed at the Kite Beach Inn, which was unbelievably affordable, well kept and fantastically run. The place is owned by someone from Chicago, but currently run by an Italian couple and they were delightful. We stayed there for two nights for under $65 in an air conditioned room. It is among the best places I've stayed in Cabarete. The only drawback is to the hotel is that it is a bit removed from the center of the town where our favorite places are. However, because of its boonies status, we found this incredible breakfast nook next to the Dare2fly Kite School. The breakfast nook was run by a Yugoslavian refugee that fled to the Dominican Republic after she and her family fled Belgrade after a bombing in 2000. 

The breakfast was excellent. It was the first good bagel I've had since I was in Brooklyn in 2011. As we were leaving the place though I mentioned that I might be going on a honeymoon to Split, Croatia because of its history. She however suggested that we go to Dubrovnik, as it was in her estimation, one of the most gorgeous cities in the world. Interested, I checked the place out and saw that it had a fascinating history. So without further ado, here is the brief history of Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik is currently a Croatian city on the Adriatic coast. There are a couple of theories as to when it was founded. The older theory suggests that it was founded sometime in the 7^th century AD by some refugees. However, another theory suggests that the city is much older and was founded sometime prior to the BC/AD switchover by Greek sailors who would have likely made it a port between two other Greek settlements in the area, Budva and Korčula. This alternate theory is boosted by the presence of a Byzantine basilica from the 8^th century that was large enough to suggest that Dubrovnik was quite populous in its time. It would have been unlikely to grow so rapidly in an hundred years to warrant such a large church.

If the latter theory is to be believed the ancient Greek settlement would have fallen into the hands of the Roman Empire during the conquest of Dalmatia and then became part of the Ostrogothic kingdom upon the fall of the Western Empire. From there it seems to have been protected by the Byzantine Empire in the east and grew to a respectable maritime power in the region. But, another more famous maritime power decided that this little city could not be allowed to grow into a more serious threat. Venice began as early as 948 AD, though with no success. Venice wouldn’t give up on this though and eventually took over the city and its lands in 1205 during the fourth crusade.

Venice ruled over Dubrovnik for about 150 years. When the city finally broke free they became the Republic of Ragusa. Being a smallish kingdom they searched for a big brother to keep them safe. This led them into the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The Republic of Ragusa remained free, but paid some cash to the Ottomans for protection. This fended off the Venetians. It also paid off some dividends. Ragusa got special trade permissions in the Ottoman Empire and did all of the Ottoman’s business along the Adriatic Sea. The Republic became quite wealthy and was a viable alternative and fierce rival of Venice.

It was after it broke free from Venice when it tried its hands at the double game, playing both sides against the middle. Dubrovnik looked initially to the Hungarians for some muscle to back them up. Then, to make sure that Venice wouldn’t try any of its old tricks, the Republic of Ragusa cozied up to the Ottoman Empire, declaring their allegiance to the Sultan. This arrangement worked well for a while, but as the Ottomans pushed to far into Europe it made the Hapsburgs quite cantankerous. The Austrians got their crew together, including Venice and began to push back. For a little while the duplicitous Dubrovnikians found themselves paying homage both the Emperor of Austria and the Sultan of the Ottomans. After the Austrians and their allies defeated the Ottomans and the Ottomans had to give up a large chunk of their eastern European holdings Venice began to make a power play at Ragusa. Venice began to grab up all the land surrounding the republic, which would have given them a chance to attack Ragusa from both land and sea. But, Dubrovnik played another master stroke, giving some of their land to the defeated Ottomans to build a buffer between themselves and Venice. As much as the Austrians loved to quarrel with the Ottomans they weren’t about to start a new war so that Venice could snuff out their old rivals.

The double-dealings of the Ragusans could not save them forever though. After the end of the Austrian – Ottoman conflict simmered down a bit, the rest of Europe decided to duke it out over the 1700s. Ragusa however decided to stay neutral. They used their neutrality to trade between enemies and this somehow worked really well. Until of course Napoleon came along and screwed everything up for everyone. Napoleon pushed down into the Balkans and began to gobble up all of the cities and forts along the way. The Russians who were in the area came up to Dubrovnik and asked to use their very defensible city against the onslaught of Napoleon’s forces. Ragusa balked and the Russians besieged the city. But, it would be the French who eventually occupied the city. Dubrovnik would become a big fish in a small pond as a part of the Illyrian Provinces of the French Empire. But, Napoleon would have his Waterloo, which for Napoleon actually was Waterloo and the Republic of Ragusa would be folded into the Austrian-Hungarian Empire as the Kingdom of Dalmatia. The Hapsburgs decided however that Dubrovnik had been a seat of power for long enough. The capital of the newly created puppet kingdom would be Zadar. Dubrovnik would fall out of fashion and a number of the city’s noble families would move away. Dubrovnik would last in the Austrian Empire until 1918 when it was transferred into the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. This little political experiment wouldn’t last and the city would become a part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia would go from kingdom to socialist republic to bloody civil war and in the end, Dubrovnik would wind up being in the modern state of Croatia.

The Mighty Tasty Aurochs

Throughout the podcast series I plan on supplementing the episodes with some blog posts about some of the more interesting features of European history that I leave out of the episodes. I'm going to have to leave some things out for time concerns, so I'll try to make it up with these supplemental blogs.

An aurochs skeleton that dates to around 7500 BC. It
was found in Denmark along with another near full
skeleton. Notice the horns and how they point out. Those
were the horns that early modern humans had to deal with
in order to get a descent burger. Thank heavens for Five Guys.

On Episode 2 Paleolithic Europe, we mentioned the mighty tasty Aurochs. These guys are so fascinating that they deserve a blog post.  Aurochs were the ancestors to most of today's many species of domesticated cattle. They were truly massive animals, growing as tall as 5'11. Though, the northern Aurochs grew to be a bit larger than their southern cousins. They also weighed over 1500 lbs on average. But a number of specimens found put the weight of the beast at well over a ton and a British ton at that (2204 lbs, not the measly American ton of 2000 lbs).

If we were transported back in time to see an Aurochs we'd easily recognize it as a species of cow, but it had some major differences to today's varieties. First, the horns were enormous and why not? It had the muscle mass to support them. Might as well go big. The legs of the aurochs were skinnier than modern cows and longer too. This gave them a very broad look up front, sort of like a cartoon version of a bull.

How aurochs behaved is a bit of a mystery and causes some disagreement between scientists. Some think that aurochs basically behaved like modern cows and other creatures like Buffalo and Bison. Others think they might have been different and more solitary creatures. This line of thinking comes from observing the tail end of aurochs existence on earth. But, this could have been because of limited numbers and the loss of the wild open plains and forests they once roamed so freely in. Before domestication, the aurochs roamed all over Europe (excluding Ireland and Iceland) throughout Asia and into North Africa.

The taming of Aurochs would happen independently in various regions around the world. This can explain some of the wide varieties of cattle we have throughout Europe and Asia. The domestication began somewhere around 10,000 years ago in the Indian Subcontinent and around the same time in parts of the Near East. The taming of the Aurochs happened a little later around 6000 BC in the Caucasian Mountains and Mesopotamia.  Then the domestication would travel into other parts of Europe and slowly most of the wild aurochs were no longer wild.

The few surviving Aurochs found their movement restricted by civilization and climate change so they holed up in Lithuania, Moldavia, Transylvania, East Prussia, and Poland. Hunting of the last wild aurochs became an activity that would become limited. First, only nobles could hunt them and finally only the royal houses. The 1% only could enjoy the tasty hamburgers. But as the population still dwindled we see an early attempt at ecological activism. Kings hired people as gamekeepers to help the remaining aurochs survive. But it was too late. The population dwindled further and further until the last aurochs died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest in Poland. I joked on the podcast about the Swedes taking offense to this and invading Poland in response. The Swedes did invade Poland shortly the death of the last aurochs, but this was because of a combination of some uppity Polish Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants distrust of the Lithuanian-Polish rule and Swedish opportunism. However, in the looting that came out of the war the skull of the last aurochs found its way into the hands of the Swedes and remains in a Swedish museum to this day.

I keep referring to the aurochs as tasty and there is a reason for this. Obviously the kings and nobles wanted to keep all the meat to themselves and then tried to preserve it when it was running out. But the aurochs has been depicted throughout history.

 Here is a picture of some petroglyphs of the aurochs in a cave in Bourdeilles, France that date back some 18,000 years ago.

Here is a picture of the famous cave painting in Lascaux, France that date around 17,000 years ago. The aurochs were still prevalent enough when Julius Caesar was tromping around Gaul that he mentions them in his book The Gallic War.







Another reason I think that they must have been so tasty is that people have been trying to bring them back into existence since the 1920's. A couple of German brothers starting breeding aurochs descendants in the hope of being able to make an aurochswurst sandwich to enjoy with a bit of sauerkraut. It didn't quite work, but the resulting Heck Cattle does have some of aurochs' features.

Polish scientists are hoping to reconstruct aurochs from extracting DNA from the ancient remains of some of the aurochs they have in their possession. I don't believe there are any plans in Sweden to give them back the Jaktorów head. Another group of scientists have started the TaurOs project, a Danish effort to bring back the aurochs into existence. With any luck, we'll be able to sit down to an aurochs cheeseburger with our grandkids.