Re: Clams before Columbus

"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:cqe5u1193k0tmq8uihlu0o7qs2tpcsnnv0@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 23:24:37 +0100, "Peter Alaca"
<P.Alaca@xxxxxx>
wrote:

Alan Crozier wrote: TyuEf.155124$dP1.513211@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

"Inger E.Johansson" <inger e.johansson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:esuEf.43740$d5.199849@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Peter Alaca" <P.Alaca@xxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
news:43e266f6$0$78939$dbd4d001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Alan Crozier wrote:
SHsEf.155119$dP1.513428@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

In my review of Nielsen/Scott on the Kensington Rune
Stone I
criticized the absence of references for certain claims.
One of
the claims concerned clams. I asked "Where are the clams
from
Klagen [Skagen?] in north Jutland that must have come
with ships
from New England in the 13th and 14th centuries?"

Richard Nielsen has now kindly provided an Internet
source with
a reference to something published in Nature 1992:
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf085/sf085a01.htm

(I note that my suspicion was right about the correct
form of
the place-name: it is indeed Skagen/the Skaw at the
northern tip
of Jutland. See
http://www.vulkaner.no/t/skagen/skagen1-n.html)

Alan

I provided that information already on 17 January
in the thread "Hudson Bay carthographed before 1570"

" The species is Mya arenaria. It came from the
eastcoast of North America to Europe, where
it was extinct.
The only reason to date the introduction before
the 16th century, is one Danish specimen
carbon-dated to the second half of the 13th c.
published in Petersen K.S. et al (1992)
"Clams before Columbus?" Nature 359:679. "

Note that there is only _one_ dated specimen and that
it is mentioned as "fact" in publications everywhere.
Needless to say that I am not convinced.

Needless to tell you that while Petersen only mentioned
one for
Denmark you can find more than five others if you go thru
the
species that are documented to have grown in monestries
gardens in
for example Vreta Kloster......

Why did they grow North American clams (Swedish musslor) in
the
gardens of Vreta Kloster?

Alan

Yes, that must have been a pretty advanced
monastery garden, with a deep tidal seawater pond.
Although, not much room needed for five Mya's.
Maybe a chamber pot on the bedside table of mother
superior. Strange pets.

Monastery? Mother Superior? A very strange monastery. :-)


Vreta was a convent, so there would have been a mother superior.
And Peter doesn't have to apoligize for using the word
monastery: it can denote a monastic house for either sex,
although it ususally refers to one for monks.

Alan

--
Alan Crozier
Lund
Sweden


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