Re: Merchandise harbor Greenland - killing a Myth

From: Eric Stevens (eric.stevens_at_sum.co.nz)
Date: 03/05/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:36:40 +1300

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 18:51:40 +0000, Doug Weller
<dweller@ramtops.removethisdemon.co.uk> wrote:

>On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:59:02 -0500, in sci.archaeology, Steve Marcus wrote:
>
>><snip Doug's post to which Inger responded by writing:>
>>
>>"I.E_Johansson" <inger_e.johansson@telia.com> wrote in message
>>news:RqiWd.18930$d5.145574@newsb.telia.net...
>>> Doug,
>>> I don't care what you think - I read her book and that's one of the three
>>> worst I ever seen when it comes to how quotes is taken out of it's
>>> contexts
>>> or even worse misinterpreted, circle-proofs used, assumptions from Sagas
>>> instead of using concrete contemporary documentation which almost always
>>> exists, conclusions drawn from assumptions of assumptions or even worse
>>> from
>>> leaning to scholars who haven't done their homework. I did read her book -
>>> I
>>> wish I hadn't.
>>>
>>> Never liked her works but the last two were the final drop down in usage
>>> of
>>> methods for history as well as circle-proofs and misinterpretation. Sorry
>>> having to say this, but that's the difference between several of the
>>> scholars you refer to and anyone of us who really knows the Scandinavian
>>> History from Prime sources and knows the difference in validity of Sagas
>>> and
>>> Prime sources. No matter that she is fluently as a writer,
>>> her work isn't of same 'calibre' due to the fact that she mixes pineapples
>>> and peaches as if they were one and the same forming non-valid assumptions
>>> or in some cases presenting assumptions
>>> which were shown by the Professors and other of the Weibull-family long
>>> ago
>>> to be Myths.
>>>
>>> ref. works:
>>> Weibull Lauritz, Kritiska undersökningar i Nordens historia omkring år
>>> 1000
>>> Lund: Lybecker 1911
>>> Weibull Lauritz, Historisk-kritisk metod och nordisk medeltidsforskning,
>>> Lund, 1913
>>>
>>> Weibull, Curt, Historiska problem och utvecklingslinjer, Revid., utökad
>>> uppl.
>>> Stockholm : Aldus/Bonnier, 1962 ; ISSN 0516-5628 ; 59
>>> Weibull Curt, Källkritik och historia : Norden under äldre medeltiden /
>>> Stockholm: Aldus/Bonnier 1964 ; ISSN 0516-5628 ; 108
>>>
>>>
>>> Inger E
>>
>>So when may we expect you to give specific examples of how Seaver uses
>>quotes taken out of their contexts, or even worse misinterpreted, of how
>>Seaver used "circle-proofs", of assumptions from Sagas that Seaver used
>>instead of using concrete contemporary documentation which almost always
>>exists, used conclusions drawn from assumptions of assumptions or even worse
>>from leaning to scholars who haven't done their homework.?
>>
>>Give specific examples, or withdraw your fabrications. In other words, put
>>up or shut up.
>>
>She won't because she can't. And note that she didn't actually respond to
>my questions about whether or not and why she disagrees with Seaver over
>what happened at the end of the Greenland Norse settlement. I wonder why?
>:-)

My criticism of Seaver's book is the, except in the case of the
claimed identity of the forger, she makes little argument but buries
the reader in what I thought to be poorly organised information. It
was not at all clear to me that she could see her way through all she
wrote, to specific conclusions. She made almost no useful refrence to
the various laboratory examinations of the map and I suspect that this
style of thinking is foreign to her. In particular, when one considers
the subject, it is astonishing that the best illustration of the
detail of the map is that printed on the cover.

I would summarise my conclusions as being that while there was lots of
useful information in the book there was very little useful analysis
or argument. My overall feeling was one of disappointment.

Eric Stevens

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