Re: Latest on Newport Tower dig


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:qd7pm2p034qte0v7m7nf4g37kcqhbefj1t@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:33:22 +0100, "Peter Alaca" <p.alaca@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx
<news:lksnm21a7o2du0fkdnef2bpa78lsb13b9d@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On 27 Nov 2006 20:25:25 -0800, "Tom McDonald" <kiltmac@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:59:10 +0100, "Peter Alaca"
<p.alaca@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

This is nonsense Eric. If the tower is older then the
17th century, there must be older remains to be found
in an excavation, but they didn't. Therefore a garden
area away from the tower is irrelevant.

Of course it's not nonsense and your conclusion that the area is a
garden is premature.

See below.

If a team is going to carry out an archaeological examination of a
site one would expect that they would look where there were
indications of something to find.

Which is what they did. Folks have been yapping for years, decades,
that the tower needs to be investigated to rule theory a or theory b
or theory c in or out.

That work is now done, and there is nothing about the tower to
suggest that it pre-dates the Colonial period.

Let's get this straight. An area outside the tower has been explored
with ground penetrating radar and tests of electrical conductivity
have been made. On the basis of the results the team have excavated
and found - the remains of 19th century paths. After consulting old
maps they have reached the conclusion that it is these old paths which
have been detected by their measurements.

Now, what conclusions can you draw from that as to the builders of the
Newport Tower?

Further, the area does not seem
to have been of interest to any humans before the Colonial period.
This is, to me, the most interesting part of the find. Well done,
that company.

What was it? - 5 square meters of excavation? I may have that wrong
but I know they were not allowed to dig up much. Philip Dietiker could
(or maybe not) explain how reliable are the conclusions you could draw
from what was found in those excavations as to the general presence of
mankind in the area.

Five square meters is more then enough to find
traces of the building and the builders.
And they did find traces. Colonial.

That's not a surprise. What would be more surprising would be the
failure to find anything colonial.

Now it may well be true that there are other folk yapping for
unspecified periods of time that other areas near the tower should be
investigated. This is fine and dandy, and I am, as always, very much
in favor of digging. That, and preparing properly with, among other
things, every goddamn relevant map one can get one's hands on.

And it seems the maps were not studied in sufficient detail before the
excavations started. If they had been someone would have woken up to
the fact that they were proposing to search old pathways.

But can we not, just for a moment, bask in the glow of one big
question answered?

Great - if you can tell me what it is.

According to the newspaper report, the NT is not pre-colonial

Ahem! Is this your usual standard?

I am quite specifically not arguing for the tower as being of Norse
construction and I for one would like the argument settled for good.

You mean you think the damned tower might not be from the Colonial
period? What is your <1% chance?

The odds are increasing that it is from the colonial period. But what
is that rectangular area which shows up in aerial photographs?

That is not relevant. The object of investigation was the tower.

That's why they dug out in the park.

However leaving alone a longstanding conspicuous 'explore me' cannot
lead to finality.

I'd love to have the right, and the power, and the capacity to move
everyone, on a rota, to some nearby place for a while, and dig to
bedrock on a city-by-city, township-by-township basis. What
questions we could answer then!

But I am not suggesting a general exploration of Newport. I'm
expressing my concern and regret that an area which has been a focus
of curiosity for more than 60 years has not yet been examined.

The object of investigation was the tower.

Please explain how digging out in the park is an investigation of the
tower while digging a mysterious rectangular area equally nearby the
tower is not an investigation of the tower.

In fact, I understood the object of the exercise was the determination
of the builders of the tower.

But how far afield from the tower itself do you personally think must
be dug up before we can say with 99+% certainty that the tower is
what the evidence adduced shows it to be?

That's not a valid question. The point is that there is a distinctive
rectangular area for which there is no explanation on the old maps
which has been crying out for explanatiion for 60 years. Are you
suggesting it should be ignored?

The object of investigation was the tower.

Which they didn't actually investigate.

Not only that,
they didn't investigate what really was interesting from air-photos nor from
their own ground-radar readings.......

Inger E



Eric Stevens


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