Round the history blogs 14 - ancient pottery, Canadian photos with a dash of romance and just a bit more

Over on The History Blog, Oldest pottery in the world found in China records that pottery fragments discovered in Xianrendong Cave in south China’s Jiangxi Province have been radiocarbon dated to 19,000-20,000 years ago making them the oldest pottery ever discovered. Livius reports that over the past 10 years, ancient pottery finds in East Asia have upended the notion that ceramics were invented around the time humans transitioned from hunting and gathering to agriculture, 10,000 or so years ago. This discovery is fully 2,000 to 3,000 years older than previous examples.

In another story, Celebrate Canada Day with colonial-era picture, Livius records that the UK National Archives have uploaded hundreds of pictures of colonial-era Canada just in time for Canada Day. The photos are worth a browse.

In ‘Bogle Corbet’ by John Galt, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip begins:  "You may not have heard of Bogle Corbet, or of its author the Scottish writer John Galt but he was an incredibly prolific author, celebrated in both Scotland and Canada as an important Romantic-era author who based his narratives on “theoretical history” drawn from his observations and empirical facts."

I had indeed not heard of John Galt. The only John Galt I knew was the character In Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Janine was not impressed by the book, "It is a product of its time and taste, and rather forgettable." From the sound of it, it appears to be something of a thinly disguised immigration book. These, along with stories of life in the various colonies, were popular with readers in the home countries and the dominions.

I have been conscious of them for a long time, largely because they still lay around family homes and I read anything and everything that was around. Ralph Connor's Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police; a tale of the Macleod trail is an example. I found this a great yarn, even if even then I found it moralistic and somewhat quaint. This is just a sample:

The rays of the sun setting far down the Pass shone through the walls and filled the tent with a soft radiance. Into this radiance she came, her face pale as of one who has come through conflict, and serene as of one who has conquered, pale and strong and alight, not with the radiance of the setting sun, but with light of a soul that has made the ancient sacrifice of self-effacing love.

"You want me?" she said, her voice low and sweet, but for all her brave serenity tremulous.

"Yes," said Cameron, holding out his arms. "I want you; I want YOU, Mandy."

"Oh," cried the girl, while her hands fluttered to her heart, "don't ask me to go through it again. I am so weak." She stood like a frightened bird poised for flight.

"Come," he said, "I want you."

"You want me? You said you wanted to take care of me," she breathed.

"I was a fool, Mandy; a conceited fool! Now I know what I want--I want--just YOU. Come." Again he lifted his arms.

"Oh, it cannot be," she breathed as if to herself. "Are you sure--sure? I could not bear it if you were not sure."

"Come, dear love," he cried, "with all my heart and soul and body I want you--I want only YOU."

And so Cameron having been saved through the Canadian experience finds final redemption.

The Idle Historian's Churchill Style: Not so Much the Accoutrements as the Attitude is a fun piece reviewing Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill by Barry Singer (foreword by Michael Korda).

IH's own regard for Churchill is clear: "To me, Churchill is simply a very human character. As Michael Korda writes (detailing his domestic eccentricities), "it is hard to dislike such a man." Larger-than-life, and yet a bundle of faults, inconsistencies, and divided motives." Whatever Winston Churchill was, he wasn't dull! Mind you, he probably wouldn't have electable either in modern Australia.

Carol Baxter's blog continues to be very useful for all those interested in family research. Have a look at Beware the ignorant genealogist. That's experience talking.

The Dictionary of Sydney blog moved to a new location. Thanks to this blog, I have now found Signposts, the blog of the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. There is some good material here for those interested in New Zealand's history. I go further: this is a fantastic blog for a fascinating organisation! Expect more.

I am out of time for today. Talk to you later.      

New England's boundaries as recommended by the Nicholas Royal Commission

Recent months have been quite complicated. One side-effect is that I have found it hard to research and write.

Sometime in the next six or so weeks I will be moving. In preparation for this, I have been clearing out papers. One useful side effect is that I found some papers that I thought that I had lost.

The continuing attempts to gain self-government for New England or the North form one of the unifying elements in New England history.

One vexed question has been the best boundaries for the proposed state. This has been a matter of constant debate on this blog and on the New England New State Movement Facebook page.

In the following map I found the boundaries as recommended by the Nicholas Commission and subsequently adopted by the new state movement. These are the boundaries on which the 1967 plebiscite was fought.

I thought that I should put them on line because it is actually very hard to find proper maps.  

Why do New England's rivers often flow south-north?

In my last post, Did New England have glaciers?, I referred to  evidence provided by Road suggesting that Pleistocene New England may have been colder than we realised. This led me to follow up in my Armidale Express column, Belshaw's World - no wonder it’s cold here.

Now Rod has a new post, The backward Clarence River, looking at the puzzle set by the direction of New England's river flows. Rod is focusing on the Clarence, but the same pattern holds inland.

Simply put, many New England rivers that you would think should flow east-west or west-east actually flow north or sometimes south. They get to the sea or Darling River, but not in the way you might expect. This results in a pattern that somehow seems at odds with the current landscape.

The answer has to lie in the pattern of past geological change, although our understanding of this is still very imperfect.   

Did New England have glaciers?

Back in October, one of the points in Aboriginal New England in the Pleistocene Period I spoke of the impact on any then Aboriginal settlement of the long cold period that began around 25,000 years ago. There I said in part:

The Tablelands would have been a very different story. Here average temperatures fell by perhaps 8 degrees C. The New England Tablelands marked the start of a region of cold steppe and scattered sub-alpine woodland sweeping down through the southern Snowy Mountains into Tasmania.

In the southern Snowy Mountains, the fall in temperature was sufficient to allow glaciers to form despite the lower precipitation. In New England, the higher portions of the Tablelands in the centre and south where average heights are around 1,300 metres must have been very cold, dry and windswept. Along New England’s Snowy Mountains where the highest peak (Round Mountain) is almost 1,600 metres, there were probably blizzards and semi-permanent snow despite the much lower precipitation.

Now in an interesting post, How cold was it? Glaciers in New England?, Rod has suggested based on a comment from Bob H that New England may actually display cold climate glacial features. If so, it was colder than we realised, something that might help explain the apparent absence to this point of Aboriginal settlement.  

Round the history blogs 13 - diet, independence & Brideshead Revisited

It is almost six months since I did my last history blog round-up! That's too long. For the moment, just a taste.

Over on History Today, The Best of History Today in 2011 provides free access to some of the best articles published over 2011. It's worth a browse.

They synopsis to The English Diet: Roast Beef and.... Salad? reads:

The English diet has been mythologised as one of roasted meats and few vegetables but, as Anita Guerrini concludes from a survey of early modern writings on the subject, the nation’s approach to food has been rather more complicated than that.

My first reaction was simply that theology had something to answer for. Then I thought, what's changed? Just substitute health for religion!

In Canada as in Australia, there is debate about the question when Canada became truly independent. In Constitutional meat in the blogs, Christopher Moore reports that:

Andrew Smith... is shocked and saddened by the lack of attention given in Canada to the 80th anniversary of the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 as it "marked the effective end of Canada's subordination to Britain." 

... But Janet Ajzenstat, almost simultaneously, puts forth 1848 as the significant moment that "sever[ed] the colonies' formal connection with the mother country."  By that reading, the 1931 Statute would dwindle to a formality -- the Empire's belated recognition of what had transpired a century earlier.

I wonder how many Australians have even heard of the Statute of Westminster? I suspect that it - the question of independence - doesn't matter a great deal. It just evolved!

Over on the Resident Judge of Port Philip, Janine remembers Christmas' past in An Australian Christmas c.1963. I have written a little on this topic myself, for most Australians have similar types of memories. From an historians viewpoint, these types of memories are actually valuable raw material. I talked a little about this in Personal memories & the writing of history.

Over on my personal blog I have begun the process of digitising and publishing personal and family photos.This is partly self-indulgence, but history is never far from my writing. For those that are interested, I have created a new label, musings on photos past.

Belle's Casus Belle Époque is arguably not a history blog, but then again it is, at least in the way that I broadly define them. If you haven't yet come across Belle's blog, do have a browse. To my mind, this is a remarkably good blog.

Belle's most recent posts (here one, here two) review Brideshead Revisited.  I watched the original series while I was back studying in Armidale in 1982 and became addicted, although it started to lose me towards the end.

From my own perspective as a sometimes historian, I am interested in the relationships between novels, novelists and history. I have never really liked Evelyn Waugh, but to my mind his life does reflect changing aspects of English life.

Livius' The History Blog continues to provide interesting material. From a purely local viewpoint, the most recent post Australian museum buys 1 holey dollar for $130,000 provides a useful summary of an early element in Australia's economic history.

I have barely scratched the surface today, yet I am already out of time! Maybe another dose tomorrow. 

Introducing Lismore's Greek community

My thanks to Mark Bellamy from  Clarence Valley Today for introducing me to this site, A Gourmet's Guide to Lismore & District (or how the Greeks colluded with Col Esterol to concoct the Richmond diet). A related site is Aliens of the Tweed & Brunswick - An account of the fun and games of the Indogreeketceteras in the cafes and banana plantations around Murwillumbah and Mullumbimby.

I am looking forward to a proper browse. At some stage I must pull together the limited material I have so far written and the links on New England's Greek community. 

Personal memories & the writing of history

Over on the New England Australia blog, I wrote a short piece Remembering the Tamworth Boys Home and then followed it up with Wednesday Forum - memories of holiday's past. In this post I want to follow up with brief comments on linked historical and historiographical aspects.

Tamworth Boys Home

The Tamworth Boys Home was established under the 1939 Child Welfare Act. This was a Drummond Act. As I read the details of the story, I wondered how Drummond would have felt. I have written a number of pieces on child welfare, including Drummond's life as a ward of the state and then his experiences as  minister in this area. I will pull all this together at some point to provide a consolidated perspective.

I also wondered, and this is a hypothesis, about the relationship between the Tamworth Boys Home and social change. The regime there seems to have been much harsher than in previous juvenile institutions.

The war seems to have relaxed social conventions. When I was looking at the history of TAS (The Armidale School), the war years seem to have been something of a bear garden because all the boys expected to join the Army. I don't think that that was unique to TAS. Later, social order was re-established as society sought to achieve normality after the turmoil of war. I wonder whether this was linked to the apparent harshness at Tamworth. 

In a way all this is only a small sub-text in the history I am writing, but it is still interesting

Memories of holiday's past

One of the wonderful things I have found about blogging is the way that it attracts stories and personal reminisces. This provides personalised material that can be used to bring aspects of past life alive.

I have been conscious of this for some time, but I am now wondering how best to consolidate and use the material. My aim in the Wednesday Forum is to try to attract more!

More broadly, I find that personal memories become more important as my understanding of New England's history grows. By its nature, history is in part about broader patterns. But in this, history is still about people.

Too much Armidale, not enough other in New England history

Yesterday's post on New England Australia, Discovering a New England treasure trove, recorded my excitement at finding some of my boxes of New England books. I spent much of yesterday evening and a fair bit of this morning sorting them.

One of my general complaints about New England history as a field is the absence of material especially in recent decades as historiographical fancies took writers elsewhere. Yet New England is well served compared to many Australian areas outside the metros.

As I went through the hundreds of books, I came up with a new complaint, there is just too much Armidale and, to a lesser extent, Northern Tablelands in writing as compared to other areas.

New England historiography since the Second World War has been largely driven by the University of New England until very recently. The body of work, and this includes family and local histories, has been strongly affected by UNE people and their changing interests.

UNE was established to be the Sydney University of the North, to preserve and present the history and culture of the area. In many ways, it's done a bloody good job. From the Northern Rivers to the Upper Hunter, UNE people have written histories or trained and supported  those writing histories.

From the beginning, penetration in Newcastle and the Lower Hunter was weak, accurately reflecting the psychological disconnect between those areas and the rest of the North. As a consequence, historiography in Newcastle and the Lower Hunter was driven by other factors, with limited specific local or regional writing. Only recently has the University of Newcastle begun to take up the slack.

Elsewhere, the contraction of the sense of New England, of the North, after the 1967 plebiscite loss affected UNE historical research and writing. It was always going to be the case that Armidale and the Tablelands would have a greater focus because that was where the academics lived. However, as UNE's regional view narrowed, so did historical research and writing.

The practical effect was the creation of a research and publication bias that was not compensated for by anyone else. Now when I come to write and go to my shelves, I have a double barreled problem. Not only are there large geographic gaps, but the publications are geography biased.

Armidale is my family home and I love the Tablelands, but we do need more balance.

New England's history reader interests November 2011

I have been neglecting this blog. It's not that I've lost interest. It's just that that there have been other pressures that have interfered with all my historical research and writing.

The graphic shows visits (yellow) plus page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the last twelve months. You can see how traffic increased, but the flattened as my posting dropped off.

In terms of reader interests, the most popular posts in November 2011 were:

• Hunter Valley Aboriginal Groups 321 page views
• Geography of New England - Introduction 244 page views
• NSW Aboriginal Languages Map 132 page views
• How fast do horses travel? 63 page views
• Themes vs topics in history 51 page views
• New England Australia - Clarence River catchment map 40 page views
• Anaiwan or Nganyaywana entry page 20 page views
• Geography of New England - Impact of Great Dividing Range 26 page views
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 11 - the Aborigines 25 page views
• New England's Aboriginal Languages 21 page views

Use of the internet in social history: an example

My main post today, Sharing nostalgia in an internet world, is on my personal blog. You might like to scan that post first before reading this one, although I have written this as a stand alone piece.

Objective

I incorporate history into my posts all the time. This partially reflects my bias as an historian. However, I also believe that the addition of some history adds to interest and context. To do this, I use the internet extensively.

I thought that it might be interesting and perhaps useful if I took a case study to show the process at work.

The Case Study

   On Monday, I wrote a short nostalgia piece, Australian cowboy & indian outfit 1951. The comments generated led me to write a second piece, Sharing nostalgia in an internet world.

By its nature, nostalgia is individual. However, the internet allows for shared nostalgia. This process is not just important to individuals, but affects the writing of social history.

The first post I wrote was personal, although even then I could not resist adding a little history. The comments that followed from kvd and anon were also personal, their shared responses to my memory. In doing so, they added detail. In my responding post I said in part:     

"I wrote it (the first post) because a photo from Cousin Jamie's collection triggered a memory. This led kvd to comment:

Jim don't know if you ever had one but my most treasured possession at that time was a Davey Crockett hat complete with tail. My brother's Labrador stole it then ate it and growled at me when I tried to take it off her. Vivid early childhood memory. Stupid dog. But anyway cowboys and Indians was very big back thereabouts as you say.

Anon responded with a correction and his own memory:

Davy Crockett much later; 1955. Also, who can forget the much desired (didn't have one!) Hoppalong Cassidy tent. We had a much loved and extremely patient ginger cat, who spent some years doubling as a mountain lion/couger/puma. Sat arvo matinees had much to answer for.

kvd responded in turn:

Anon is correct as to dates. "Me hat got et" in either 56 or 57 based on the house we were living in. I had a pair of H C chaps a little after that i think. Proper leather. Cost a fortune these days."

So I began with a single memory of my own, but now have two other linked views.

Issues of Selection and Question in Evidence

As historians, both the evidence we select and the questions we ask of that evidence involve choices. I faced the same issue in writing my follow up post.

The comments by kvd and anon opened up a richness of choices not immediately apparent just from the words. My subsequent post could have gone in multiple directions. Alternatively, I could have written multiple posts.

Questioning the evidence

When I came to look at the evidence, we had a date range. The photo I used was from 1951. Davy Crockett was 1955. kvd's chaps were apparently a little later.

We also had three popular culture figures: cowboys and indians in general, Davey Crockett and Hopalong Cassidy. We had evidence of specific aspects of human life or cultural activity: pets, the arvo matinees, making or buying stuff under the influence of popular culture.

The first thing that I did was to check wikipedia on Davy Crockett. This confirmed that the movie, the thing we saw at the cinemas, came out in 1955. It confirmed the cult status of the man. However, it also reminded me that he died at the Alamo. Here I faced some choices.

The Alamo was itself a big thing that came from the US into Australia. I read books about it, while John Wayne's 1960 movie was popular in this country. The 1955 Davy Crockett TV series helped popularise it, so I could say something about all this to put it into context. Instead, I put it aside to investigate Hopalong Cassidy. Here I came across some new things.

I suppose that I should say here that while I was aware in a personal sense of Hopalong Cassidy, he didn't have the same impact on me, Sure, he was popular, but he never grabbed me in the way that Crockett or the Alamo did. There may be date reasons for this, I will talk about this in a moment, but I also didn't find him as interesting.

As I zeroed in on HC, I realised that I had not known of his longevity. The first book was published in 1904, while HC DVDs are still being released today. I realised just how important merchandising was, something indicated by the comments from kvd and anon. I also realised the connection between TV and the peak in HC's popularity.

Earlier I mentioned the importance of time.

At one point, the post modernist version of history denied the importance of time or, indeed, even the importance of "facts". Both were silly.

In 1951 when Mum made our cowboy and indian suits, she did so from what was available. By the time that the popularity of HC peaked in Australia, there was money available for tents and chaps.

HC's popularity in the US was linked to the rise of TV. Did this apply in Australia? Here I checked the history of Australian TV.

Broadcasting began on 16 September 1956. It came sometime later to regional areas. In my case, my parents did not buy a TV until after I left home. They did not want it to interfere with my studies! So the TV impact of HC was outside my ken. Yet it might well fit with kvd's dates.

Conclusion

All I have tried to do in this post is to indicate a little about the importance of evidence, of time and of selection. I have also tried to indicate a little about the way that you can use the internet to gather evidence and to test. I hope that it is useful.