PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet SPECIAL: TUNGUSKA ANNIVERSARY & HISTORICAL
CATASTROPHES
Curious Sun Effects at Night
To the Editor of THE TIMES [3 July 1908]
Sir, - Struck with the unusual
brightness of the heavens, the band
of golfers staying here strolled towards
the links at 11 o'clock
last evening in order that they might
obtain an unterrupted view
of the phenomenon. Locking northwards
across the sea they found
that the sky had the appearance of a
dying sunset of exquisite
buity. This not only lasted but actually
grew both in extent and
intensity till 2.30 this morning, when
driving clouds from the
east obliterated the gorgeous colouring.
I myself was aroused from
sleep at 1.15 a.m., and so strong was
the light at this hour, that
I could read a book by it in my chamber
quite comfortably. At 1.45
a.m. the whole sky, N. and N.E., was a
delicate salmon pink, and
the birds began their matutinal song. No
doubt others will have
noticed this phenomenon, but as
Brancaster holds an almost unique
position in facing north to the sea, we
who are staying here had
the best possible view of it.
Yours faithfully,
Holcombe Ingleby, Dormy House Club,
Brancaster, 1 July (1908)
British Astronomical Association - At
the monthly meeting held on
Wednesday evening at Sion College,
Victoria embankment, Mr G. J.
Newbegin drew attention to the disturbed
state of the solar
atmosphere, showing a drawing and giving
a description of a very
large prominence that he had observed
and measured in the morning
of that day (1 July), and that showed
unusual changes of form.
Allusion was made by Mr E.W. Maunder and
Mr H.P. Hollis (both of
the Royal Observatory) of the
long-lasting aurora of the previous
evening. [from THE TIMES, 3 July 1908]
In the North West, quite high above the
horizon, the peasants saw
a body shining very brightly (too bright
for the naked eye) with a
bluish-white light ... The sky was
cloudless, except that low down
on the horizon in the direction in which
this glowing body was
observed, a small dark cloud was noticed
.... It was hot and dry
and when the shining body approached the
ground it seemed to be
pulverized, and in its place a huge
cloud of black smoke was
formed and a loud crash, not like
thunder, but as if from the fall
of large stones or from gunfire, was
heard.
All the buildings shook and, at the same
time, a forked tongue of
flame broke through the cloud. All the
inhabitants of the village
ran out into the street in panic. The
old women wept and everyone
thought the end of the world was
approaching [from the Irkutsk
newspaper SIBIR, 2 July 1908]
The noise was considerable but no stone
fell. All the details of
the fall of a meteorite here should be
ascribed to the over-active
imagination of impressionable people
[from the Irkutsk newspaper
SIBIR, 4 July 1908]
Before setting out, [Leonid Alexeivich]
Kulik wanted to spend
several days recording interviews with
Tungus eyewitnesses of the
explosion. Lyuchetkan said that he knew
of several such people and
agreed to bring Kulik to them. Some of
the Tungus Kulik approached
were reluctant to talk about the event.
Others became angry and
refused outright even to mention it. But
many were willing to
speak with him.. Kulik was fascinated by
the mystical aura that
sometimes seemed to cloud descriptions.
An enraged Ogdy had
visited them, the Tungus maintained, and
the fire god had put a
curse on the epicenter region. Anyone
who dared enter it surely
would be cursed likewise. There even
were accounts of herds of
reindeer being sacrificed to appease the
angry and vindictive
god." [Roy A Gallant: The Day the
Sky Split Apart, 1995]
(1) TUNGUSKA ANNIVERSARY
Duncan Steel <dis@a011.aone.net.au>
wrote:
(2) TUNGUSKA REMINDER IN TURKMENISTAN: METEORITE IMPACT ON 20
JUNE
Brian Marsden <bmarsden@cfa.harvard.edu>
(3) ATMOSPHERIC IMPACT TRIGGERS STAR CULT
Gordon Garradd <gjg@mpx.com.au>
(4) IMPACTS OF ASTEROIDS AND COMETS ARE INEVITABLE
The Cosmic Threat to Civilisation is real and
should no longer be
played down, writes Benny J Peiser
(5) MORE ON THE AD 536 EVENT
Leroy Ellenberger <c.leroy@rocketmail.com>
(6) AD 536 AND ITS AFTERMATH: THE YEARS WITHOUT SUMMER
Joel D. Gunn <jdgunn@email.unc.edu>
==================
(1) TUNGUSKA ANNIVERSARY
From Duncan Steel <dis@a011.aone.net.au>
wrote:
Today being the 90th anniversary of the Tunguska event, it might
be
appropriate to note some papers which have advanced our
understanding
of the physical nature of the object. In recent years one
particular
paper has been vehemently promoted by various people as being
'proof'
that the impactor was a stony asteroid rather than cometary in
nature,
some comments being enough to put even Pope Leo XIII (he who
introduced
the notion of papal infallibility) to shame, despite the fact
that more
sophisticated and realistic modelling had already been published
providing evidence to the contrary. Of course, we do not know
what
'cometary in nature' actually means because we are still hugely
ignorant of the nature of comets. If this were not the case, why
are
there several spacecraft missions planned in order to investigate
a
suite of cometary nuclei? We have been observing comet
Halley for over
two millennia, we sent a fleet of spacecraft to it in 1986, yet
still
we don't know the density of its nucleus to better than a factor
of two
or three. My opinion is that cometary nuclei are much more
heterogeneous than many researchers would allow, with not only
major
fractions of ices and heavy organics, but also substantial
fractions of
materials resulting in carbonaceous chondrites when they reach
the
Earth, and maybe other chondritic material too. Time will tell.
There are three papers to which I would draw attention here.
(1) V.V. Svetsov, 'Total ablation of the debris from the 1908
Tunguska
explosion', Nature, 383, 697-699 (1996)
...provides an explanation for why no substantial fragments of
the
object reached the ground to provide meteorite samples which
would have
enabled us to determine its nature a long time ago. Svetsov shows
that
the radiation field within the fireball would have vaporized all
the
small fragments into which the object would be expected to have
dispersed as it disintegrated. All meteor scientists will
know that
fragmentation as an important phenomenon at all meteoroid sizes.
The
author of the following paper is one of the world's leading
experts
on meteoric phenomena, and he emphasizes this fact.
(2) V.A. Bronshten, 'Fragmentation and crushing of large meteoric
bodies
in an atmosphere', Solar System Research, 29, 450-458 (1995).
Abstract: Three theories of large meteoroid fragmentation
in an
atmosphere are compared: Grigoryan, Hills-Goda and
Chyba-Thomas-Zahnle.
It is shown that the Grigoryan and Hills-Goda theories are
virtually
identical, although the first is better justified. The
Chyba-Thomas-
Zahnle theory appreciably ranks below the first two theories,
since it
does not take into account fragmentation by the splitting
mechanism.
Therefore, the destruction heights for bodies of various natures
are
sometimes overestimated by 10-12 km. Arbitrary assumptions
accepted in
all three theories are discussed: a neglect of evaporation and an
oriented flight of an idealized-shape body. It is shown
that an
inclusion of evaporation slightly increases crushing heights
(from
fractions of a kilometer to several kilometers). Arguments
are
presented in favor of a rapid chaotic rotation of
irregular-shaped
bodies coming into the atmosphere. The inclusion of such
rotation
retards the disruption of the body as compared to the oriented
flight.
(3) J.E. Lyne, M. Tauber & R. Fought, 'An analytical model of
the
atmospheric entry of large meteors and its application to the
Tunguska
Event', Journal of Geophysical Research, 101, 23207-23212 (1996).
Abstract: The atmospheric entry of a meteor [sic 1] is quite
complex,
with the body losing kinetic energy both from atmospheric drag
and from
mass loss due to aerodynamic heating. Moreover, high
pressures on the
windward side of the body result in enormous compressive stresses
which
may exceed the yield strength of the material and cause rapid
fragmentation of the meteor. While ablative mass loss is
not important
for extremely large objects, it must be accurately estimated
to correctly predict [sic 2] the trajectories of objects that are
several
tens of meters in diameter. The current paper describes
[sic 3] a
computer model which performs calculations [sic 3] of shock layer
conditions, accounting for the time varying temperature
distribution,
radiative cooling of the shocked gases, and blockage of surface
heating
by ablation products. Application of the model to the
well-known
Tunguska Event indicates that the responsible bolide was probably
a
carbonaceous chondrite, although a stony asteroid or a cometary
body
cannot be conclusively ruled out.
[sic 1] A meteor is an atmospheric phenomenon, so that it cannot
"enter"
the atmosphere.
[sic 2] Split infinitive.
[sic 3] Personification twice in one sentence.
Such minor gripes aside, in this paper the authors have clearly
advanced
our understanding of the Tunguska event, although it will be
interesting
to see what the Russian experts have to say about the paper/model
in the
fullness of time.
Note also that Svetsov, and Lyne et al., and various other
authors
including Grigoryan, have papers in the recent special Tunguska
issue
of Planetary and Space Science (volume 46, April 1998). In
particular
see Figure 1 of the paper by Grigoryan, in which he indicates
that an
icy body could penetrate to an altitude of 10 km or less.
(Although
myself I favour a comet-derived carbonaceous chondrite.)
Having read through all of the above, it is perhaps best to
recall the
words of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington: "It is also a good
rule not to
put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are
put
forward until they are confirmed by theory." I think
that he had his
tongue in his cheek, as when he spoke of a "perfectly
spherical elephant,
whose weight may be neglected."
Duncan Steel
=======================
(2) TUNGUSKA REMINDER IN TURKMENISTAN: METEORITE IMPACT ON 20
JUNE
From Brian Marsden <bmarsden@cfa.harvard.edu>
I don't know whether you heard about this ....
From: SMTP%"boch@astronomy.msk.su"
29-JUN-1998 10:55:33.28
To: bmarsden@cfa.harvard.edu,
dgreen@cfa.harvard.edu
CC: Subj: a meteorite fallen at Turkmenistan
To: Central Bureau
for
From: Seitnazar Muhamednazarov,
Astronomical
Telegrams,
Professor, Director
International
Astronomical
to the Scientific-Technical
Union
Center "Climate" of the
National Hydrometeorological
Committee of Turkmenistan
On the territory of the Republic Turkmenistan at the latitude -
42 grad
15' N, longitude 59 grad. 10' East, near the town of Koneurgench
(100
km from Toshauz city) a great meteorite fall took place on June,
20
1998 at 17:25 local time. A bright orange bolid was observed
moving
from the south-west to north-east; an explosion took place at a
height
of 10-15 km, the black smoke hiding the Sun, and thunder was
heard 100
km far from the place of the event. The track left was triple.
A meteoritic crater 5-6 m wide and 4 m deep was found; fragments
scattered around may have a total weight of 40 kg. At the bottom
of the
crater a cone-shaped meteorite was found. Its estimated
parameters are:
length: 80 cm;
width: 70-60cm;
mass: 300-500 kg.
The meteorite is of iron-rock type (the rock component is
crushed). The
compound is inhomogeneous.
The two other possible fragments of the meteorite are being
searched
for now.
Seitnazar Muhamednazarov,
Professor,
Director to the Scientific-Technical Center "Climate"
of the National Hydrometeorological Committee of Turkmenistan
=========================
(3) ATMOSPHERIC IMPACT TRIGGERS STAR CULT
From Gordon Garradd <gjg@mpx.com.au>
TURKMENS WANT TO NAME METEORITE AFTER LEADER
Reuters
28-JUN-98
ASHGABAT, June 28 (Reuters) - Scientists in Turkmenistan have
asked
President Saparmurat Niyazov, focus of a flourishing personality
cult
in the former Soviet state, to give his name to a large
meteorite,
an official newspaper said on Sunday.
The Neitralny Turkmenistan daily, quoting the official Turkmen
Press
news agency, said a large conic meteorite weighing some 300 kg
(670
lbs) had landed in northern Turkmenistan on June 20.
"Noting the fact that the meteorite fell onto Turkmen land
on the eve
of the sixth anniversary of Saparmurat Niyazov's election as
president,
scientists have asked the head of state to name the celestial
body
Turkmenbashi," it said.
Turkmenbashi (Head of the Turkmen) is the official title of
Niyazov,
the Central Asian republic's leader since Soviet times who was
elected
president on June 21, 1992. The official media said that more
than 90
percent of voters had chosen Niyazov. There were no other
candidates
running for president.
Towns, villages, military units, factories and a sea gulf in the
desert
state of four million people have already been named after
Turkmenbashi,
whose portraits or statues can be seen on nearly every street
corner
throughout the country.
The request to confer Niyazov's name on a meteorite appears to be
the
first of its kind (sic).
Copyright 1998, Reuters/CNN
================
(4) IMPACTS OF ASTEROIDS AND COMETS ARE INEVITABLE
The Cosmic Threat to Civilisation is real and should no longer be
played down, writes Benny J Peiser
From: EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, June 1998
90 years ago, on 30 June 1908, an erratic rock from space
measuring c. 60 meters and travelling at nearly 40,000 miles an
hour entered the earth’s atmosphere. At about 7:15am local
time,
the extraterrestrial visitor exploded some five miles over the
Central Siberian Plateau near the Tunguska river. The cosmic
disaster that followed was awesome. Impacting in the atmosphere,
the explosion yielded the energy of some 40 megatons of TNT.
Within seconds, 2000 square kilometres of forest were flattened,
1000 square kilometres of trees stood in flames.
90 years after the Tunguska-event, on March 12th 1998, the world
awoke to the news that an asteroid, measuring c. 1500 meters in
diameter and called 1997 XF11, was found to be in an orbit that
would bring it uncomfortably close to Earth in about 30 years
time. For 24 hours, millions of people around the world were
glued
to their radios and TV sets to listen to a news item which,
everyone had realised, effected the entire human race.
During the long history of our planet, the Earth has been hit by
giant asteroids and comets many thousands of times. Only four
years ago, in July 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into
Jupiter. Civilisation wouldn’t have survived had the 20 odd
pieces
of this comet collided with Earth rather than Jupiter. Current
estimates suggest that every 500,000 years or so Near-Earth
Objects (NEOs) the size of 1997 XF11 impacts one of the Earth’s
oceans or the surface of one of the continents. But NEOs in the
kilometre range collide with our world every 100,000 years,
whilst
Tunguska-sized objects hit our planet every one hundred years or
so.
Cosmic disasters have punctuated life on Earth repeatedly. Only
during the last twenty years, we have become aware of our
precarious place in space. We now know that impact catastrophe
have caused the extinction of more than 90% of all species which
ever lived on Earth. Many thousands of times, such
extraterrestrial calamities have devastated and overwhelmed the
Earth’s environmental. There is growing scientific evidence
that
more recent impact events may have lead to widespread
environmental disasters causing the collapse of mankind’s
first
civilisations some 4000 years ago.
If asteroid 1997 XF 11 were to collide with Earth, it would lead
to the breakdown of societies around the globe. The environmental
effects of such a catastrophe would be horrendous. It would not
mean the end of mankind, but it would wipe out civilisation as we
know it. We would regress to the level of the dark Ages. If it
hit
dry land, the subsequent earthquakes all around the world would
in
turn set off volcanoes. These would pour their own contribution
into this cloud of ash, smoke, dust and smog. As enormous amounts
of dust were sent into the stratosphere, the sun would be blocked
out for months. The failure of a single year’s harvest,
world-wide, would mean that millions, perhaps billions, would
starve to death.
Fortunately, on March 13th, US American astronomers gave the
all-clear: Awoken by the announcement, two scientists discovered
astronomical films taken of the same object in 1990 which
indicated that asteroid XF11 would miss us by some 600,000 miles
in the year 2028. Thanks to the fortuitous find, the biggest
cosmic crisis in mankind’s short history could be thwarted.
During this period of global uncertainty, the British Government
displayed a creepy silence. While the nation had to rely on the
official media response by the White House in Washington,
Government departments and emergency agencies in the UK were
caught off-guard. From one day to another, emergency planners and
crisis managers were faced with a potential planetary threat they
had hardly heard of let alone dealt with. The reason for the
rather embarrassing paralysis of the British Government is simple
to explain: the United Kingdom does not, at present, have any
relevant expertise or policy with regard to the threat due to
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). Nor does it fund NEO research,
although
Britain has extensive resources which are eminently suitable to
contribute to international NEO research.
During the scare, all the Government was able to do was to bury
their head in the sand. In fact, it took almost two weeks before
the Government issued a statement in response to questions raised
by the Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik. In a rather trivial
answer
on March 23rd in the House of Commons, John Battle, the Science
&
Technology Minister, claimed that the UK emergency services and
the emergency planning community in the UK were fully prepare for
a (global) impact catastrophe posed by asteroids similar to XF11
and “would respond if the need arose.” Ignoring the
main research
findings of a number of eminent UK scientists, John Battle
concluded by announcing his belief that “the probability of
a
major impact is extremely low.”
Regrettably, this statement is rather meaningless if not
misleading. It seems more than doubtful whether UK emergency
agencies are prepared for the event of a global impact
catastrophe, let alone whether they have ever thought about
contingency plans for such an event. More importantly, though, is
the fact that impact disasters with global environmental effects
occur rather frequently. Some of Britain’s leading
astronomers
believe that Super-Tunguskas, i.e. multi-megaton showers of
cometary debris, occur every 3000 to 5000 years. From a human
perspective, this may sound a rather long time. The problem is,
we
don’t know when the last major impact disaster occurred. And
no
one knows when the next is going to hit us.
As a traditional world leader in science and technology, Britain
has a duty to itself and the rest of the world to support efforts
to prevent such catastrophes. All it needs is for the Government
to start taking the threat seriously. We were fortunate to escape
a collision with asteroid 1997 XF11. But many thousand similar
objects are out there and awaiting discovery. Next time we might
not be so lucky.
The question thus remains: whether there is intelligent life on
Earth? Since science tells us that impacts of asteroids and
comets
are inevitable and just a question of time, what are we doing
with
our new-found awareness? The dinosaurs became extinct because
they
did not have a system of planetary defence. “We will deserve
to
become extinct,” Sir Arthur c Clarke emphasises, “if we
don’t have
one.”
Benny J Peiser is a social anthropologist at Liverpool John
Moores University and a member of Spaceguard UK.
Copyright 1998, Emergency Management
==================
(5) MORE ON THE AD 536 EVENT
From Leroy Ellenberger <c.leroy@rocketmail.com>
To interested readers:
This message from J.D. Gunn at Univ. North Carolina reports on a
recent
conference dedicated to the A.D. 536 marker event as a global
phenomenon along with references and a summary of an e-mail list
discussion. The cause for this climate plunge seems to be
undetermined
as between volcanic and cosmic.
Leroy Ellenberger
---------------
(6) AD 536 AND ITS AFTERMATH: THE YEARS WITHOUT SUMMER
From Joel D. Gunn <jdgunn@email.unc.edu>
Lea Abbott has called my attention to the discussion on the Late
Antiquity list serve concerning the A.D. 536 phenomenon. I have
read
through the entries and find them very helpful. I will respond to
some
of them following. My interest in this issue arises from a large
number
of archaeological cultural phase changes that occurred in the 6th
c.
A.D. and from an interest in long term global change. In 1996 I
organized a symposium on the topic at the Southeastern
Archaeological
Conference.
A book composed of the papers from this symposium is currently
under =
review by the University Press of Florida. The book covers
everything
from Cassiodorus and King Arthur to Erutria, China, the Maya
Lowlands
and several papers on Southeastern United States. It appears to
be a
world wide horizon marker and lends considerable insight to the
events
of the mid first millennium A.D. The symposium was reported by
one
observer to be the first such presentation at the Southeastern
Archaeological Conference to touch on the topic of King
Arthur. The
book focuses primarily on the cross-referencing of history and
archaeology on the eastern coasts of the Atlantic Basin with
archaeology on the western coasts. The Maya, however, have just
emerged
as a historical culture because of the recent translation of Maya
writing.
A resume of the book:
A.D. 536 AND ITS AFTERMATH-THE YEARS WITHOUT SUMMER
Joel D. Gunn, Department of Anthropology, The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
Global Climate Change in the First Millennium A.D.
The authors of this book attempt to discover the global scale
cultural
ramifications of the year A.D. 536cal by focusing on its
detection in
subregional records whether they be historic, archaeological or
paleoenvironmental. "Records" is interpreted
broadly as information
offered by the historical sciences, which include geology,
archaeology,
and history. A prologue introduces some of the theoretical and
practical global climate issues that are the present day backdrop
of
the study, most importantly the current concern with rapid global
change and uncertainty regarding its outcome. The next two
chapters
further address these complex but important issues and set the
paleoclimatic stage for understanding cultural changes emanating
from
global scale environmental changes in history and
prehistory. Two
multi-chapter sections follow. In turn they search out the
historical
and archaeological ramifications of the years without summer and
the
centuries that precede and follow them. The book is divided into
three
parts. Within parts, chapters are paired in concept sets
that address
similar environments or similar regional questions relating to
changes
in five topics: place, society, season, power, and empire.
Part I sets
the stage for understanding the A.D. 536cal global cooling and
the
generally cooler, often unstable, global climate of
the first millennium A.D. The objective of these chapters is to
understand global climate, global temperature, global change, and
atmospheric and oceanic circulation in a framework compatible
with the
human scale of interaction and social studies.
Part II presents the convincing, even overwhelming, historical
evidence
from literate societies that A.D. 536cal was a watershed moment
in the
history of the world. A search for a plausible boundary between
Classical and Modern times has been a subject of debate for much
of the
twentieth century. Young argues that A.D. 536cal was the
breakline
between classical and modern times. The other five chapters in
Part II
profoundly support this contention.
Part III engages the question of how archaeologists with less
resolved
time scales can make useful contributions to understanding
precisely
timed environmental events. Case studies from six subregions of
southeastern United States are presented. The answer is
found more in
the aftermath, the 300 years following, than in the A.D. 536
event
itself. However, rapid culture changes and population movements
are
implicated in more than one region. Especially important are
comparisons with historically observed parallel changes, or
parallel
events (Gunn 1994) in other parts of the world.
The book's parts are divided into themes, or concept sets. Each
concept set explores in a pair of chapters a geographic and
environmental issue. The concept sets emerged from the regional
time
transects scanned by the authors through the centuries of the
first
millennium A.D. Studies of subregional variation, both in climate
and
cultural impacts, is greatly facilitated by pairing the
contributions.
Six chapters of three pairs present studies of the Atlantic slope
(Anderson, Lilly and Webb, Mathis, Walker, Wetmore et al.,
Woodall).
To gain the perspective of other parts of the world, chapters
from
Italy and Burgundy (Young) and Insular Europe (Jones) provide a
view of
subregional variation there. Another pair addresses the
Maya lowlands
of Mesoamerica (Chase and Chase, Robichaux). Two additional
chapters
open issues in Africa (Schmidt) and Asia (Houston).
Each pair of chapters in a concept set emphasizes the best data a
=
region offers students of global change, both historical and/or =
archaeological. In Eurasia, Africa and Mesoamerica, historical
records
reveal the scope of A.D. 536 cal consequences among empires,
dynasties,
and economic and military balances of power. In central
Italy, the
personal ambitions of Justinian, Emperor of the Eastern Roman
Empire
clashed with the consequences of the A.D. 536 event. In other
areas
such as southern Britain, history and archaeology are combined
with
mythology and poetry to fathom the consequences at the time of
King
Arthur. This is also true of the Mesoamerican studies of the
regional
states of Tikal and Caracol.
The Lilly and Webb chapter is paired with Wetmore et al. as they
address multiple instances of cultures in highly dissected
terrain.
They are just across an artificial state border from each
other. This
methodology amounts to subdividing a sample to see if results can
be
replicated. I should emphasize that the experiments are
replicated; I
did not anticipate that the results would be replicated.
Contradictory
opinions were tolerated, even encouraged. The only
requirement was
that the authors come to thoughtful conclusions.
While the authors were encouraged to avoid esoteric terminology
as much
as possible, two archaeological concepts assist the reader in
understanding how archaeologists think and interpret results. The
first
is that of landscape and the second is horizon style. The
interpretative context of cultures, both prehistoric and historic
is
taken to be a landscape, which is a reconstruction of conditions
at
some time in the past. Thus, human experience with climate was
enacted
in landscapes of inferred characteristics gained from site
excavation,
historical sources, and paleoenvironmental data. The
reconstructed
"landscape" is understood in a broad sense to reflect
not only terrain
but also geophysical, hydrological and cognitive aspects.
The horizon style is a familiar concept to archaeologists.
Horizon =
styles usually involve an artifact type that is quickly
widespread
across regions and soon disappears leaving marks of similar time
between those possessing it. Though not in the usual sense, the
A.D.
536 cal event provides a type of horizon style of worldwide
scope.
The globe circling case studies of this volume illustrate
cultural and
personal reactions to the events surrounding A.D. 536cal and
subsequent
centuries. The authors address issues of both contemporary and
scholarly interest. In the contemporary domain, the growing
attention
that rapid, global-scale climate change and its impacts on
societies
are justly demanding attention. The question raised among
archaeologists is what they might contribute to understanding
such
changes.
Students of the earth system cannot be certain at this time that
global
warming will not precipitate climatic transformations as vast of
magnitude and broad of expanse as those experienced in the
sixth
century A.D. Archaeologists clearly have the potential to
investigate
social phenomena at substantial time depths and in ways
inaccessible to
others. Who else studies social phenomena associated with the end
of
the ice age over 10 millennia ago? The fates of Paleolithic
cave
painters in Europe and Paleoindian elephant hunters in the
Americas has
been an enduring fascination for over 200 years. Publication on
the
topic began in 1797 with John Frere. One of the driving issues of
the
volume, the question that glues together history and archaeology
and
makes a horizon style/snap-to-grid methodology important is the
question of archaeological data and global events.
Archaeologists have utilized near-event scale phenomena since the
1930s
when the concept of horizon styles was offered as a dating
technique
(Trigger 1989:192). Horizon styles are constituted of
rapidly
spreading, short lived cultural traits. When the spread of
these
traits can be traced across more than one region, they provide a
means
of cross-dating other cultural phenomena in the affected regions.
References and Related Reading
Baillie, M. G. L. (1994) Dendrochronology Raises Questions about
the
Nature of the AD 536 Dust-veil Event. The Holocene
4:212-217.
Baillie, M. G. L. (1995) Patrick, Comets, and Christianity.
Emania
13:69-78.
Berry, Walter E. (1987) Southern Burgundy in Late Antiquity and
the
Middle Ages. In Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in
Historical
Perspective, edited by C. Crumley and M. Marquardt, pp. 447-609,
=
Academic Press, Orlando.
Birdsell, Joseph B. (1973) A Basic Demographic Unit.
Current
Anthropology 4:337-356.
Broecker, Wallace S. (1995) Chaotic Climate. Scientific American
273:62-69.
Bryson, Reid A. (1988) Civilization and Rapid Climate Change.
Environmental Conservation 15:7-15.
Bryson, Reid A. (1994) Orbital History, Volcanism, and Major
Climate
Changes: On Integrating Climate Change and Culture Change.
Human
Ecology 22:115-158.
Bryson, Reid A. and Thomas J. Murray (1977) Climates Of Hunger:
Mankind
And The World's Changing Weather. The University of Wisconsin
Press.
Bryson, R. A. and B. M. Goodman (1980) Volcanic Activity and
Climatic
Changes. Science 207:1041-1044.
Denton, George and Wibjorn Karl (1973) Holocene Climatic
Variations-Their Pattern and Possible Cause. Quaternary
Research
3:155-205.
Fialko, Vilma, William J. Folan, Joel D. Gunn, and Ma. del
Rosario
Domenguez Carrasco (1998) Investigations in the Intersite Areas
Between Yaxha-Nakum-Tikal. Paper presented at the 63rd
Annual Meeting
of the Society for American Archaeology, Seattle.
Folan, William J., Joel Gunn, Jack D. Eaton, and Robert W. Patch
(1983)
Paleoclimatological Patterning in Southern Mesoamerica. Journal
of
Field Archaeology 10:453-468.
Gill, R. B. (1994) The Great Maya Droughts. Unpublished
Dissertation,
The University of Texas at Austin.
Gribbin, John, and Mary Gribbin (1997) Fire on Earth. St..
Martin's
Griffin, New York
Gunn, Joel (1994) Global Climate and Regional Biocultural
Diversity.
In Historical Ecology, edited by Carole L. Crumley, pp
67-97. School
of American Research, Santa Fe.
Gunn, Joel D. (1997) A Framework for the Middle-Late Holocene
Transition: Astronomical and Geophysical Conditions.
Southeastern
Archaeologist 16:134-151.
Gunn, Joel D., and R. E. W. Adams (1981) Climatic Change,
Culture, and
Civilization in North America. World Archaeology 13:85-100.
Gunn, J., W. Folan, and H. Robichaux (1994) Un Analisis
Informativo
sobre La Descarga del Sistema del Rio Candelaria en Campeche,
Mexico:
Reflexiones acerca de Los Paleoclimas que Afectaron a Los
Antiguos =
Sistemas Mayas en Los Sitios de Calakmul y El Mirador. In
Campeche Maya
Colonial, edited by W. Folan, pp. 174-197, Universidad
Autonoma de
Campeche, Campeche Mexico.
Gunn, J., W. Folan, and H. Robichaux (1995) A Landscape Analysis
of the
Candelaria Watershed in Mexico: Insights into
Paleoclimates Affecting
Upland Horticulture in the Southern Yucatan Peninsula Semi-
Karst.
Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 10:3-42.
Gunn, Joel, C. Crumley, E. Jones, and B. Young (1995) Landscape
Analysis of Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
Submitted for
review.
Kauffman, Stuart (1995) At Home in the Universe: The Search for
Laws of
Self-Organization and Complexity. Oxford University Press,
New York.
Lamb, H. H. (1977) Climate: Present, Past and Future: Climatic
History
and the Future. Vol 2, Methuen and Co. Ltd., London.
Ladurie, E. L. (1971) Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A
History of
Climate Since the Year 1000. Translated by B. Bray,
Doubleday, New
York.
Lovelock, James (1989) Geophysiology. Transactions of the
Royal
Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 80:169-175.
Murdock, George P., and Douglas R. White (1968) Standard
Cross-Cultural
Sample. Ethnology 8:329-369.
Rao, Joe (1996) The Leonids' Last Hurrah? Sky &
Telescope 11:74.
Rasmussen, Kaare L., Henrik B. Clausen, and Gregory W. Kallemeyn
(1995)
No Iridium Anomaly after the 1908 Tunguska Impact: Evidence from
a
Greenland Ice Core. Meteoritics 30:634-638.
Stommel, Henry, and Elizabeth Stommel (1979) The Year Without a
Summer.
Scientific American 240:176-186.
Stothers, R. B. (1984) Mystery cloud of AD 536. Nature
307(5949):344-345.
Trigger, Bruce G. (1989) A History of Archaeological
Thought.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Wendland, W. M., and Reid A. Bryson (1974) Dating Climatic
Episodes of
the Holocene. Quaternary Research 4:9-24.
Responses to some of the Late Antiquity list serve comments:
Morton Axboe 1jun98. In Baillie's Emania article in the
references
above has some information of the impact on Christianity.
Also
Elizabeth Jones' article in the book has discussions of possible
impacts on Christians. One of the things that kindled my
interest in
the question is why Gregory of Tours spent the first years of his
tenure rebuilding burned churches. Does anyone know about this?
Dennis C. Clark 3jun98. A book by Gribbon and Gribbon
called Fire on
Earth was published in 1997 that discusses a lot of what is known
about
meteor impacts though not much on A.D. 536. Very good
materials for
analogy such as the Tunguska event for example. The
gentleman from
Ireland is Baillie cited above.
Matthias Bode 3jun98. Someone has been reporting a
investigations of a
possible impact in the British Isles. This is not confirmed
so just
something to watch. There has been some discussion in the
geophysical
literature recently of meteor impacts on one side of the world
causing
earthquakes on the other because the earth's spherical shape acts
like
a lense to focus the energy on the opposite side. The
accounts of
earthquakes in Constantinople seem unusual to me but I would be
interested to hear from someone who has a depth of knowledge on
earthquakes in the area at that time.
Lorenzo Smerillo 4jun98. Elizabeth Jone's chapter in my
book suggests =
that the date of King Arthur's death was moved to a later time in
legend because of the gravity of the events surrounding A.D. 536
in the
culture. Also, the creation date of the Book of Kells seems to
have
been moved back to that time in legend. Perhaps you are
looking at a
similar cultural process with Gregory the Great.
Matthias Bode 4jun98. According to the author of the Chines
chapter in
my book they do report an unusual astronomical event in A.D.
535.
Although it could be related to the dust veil of A.D. 536-537, it
is
not clear at all what is concerned. Baillie discusses
atmospheric
phenomena in legend that resemble the Tungusca event such as
bright
light at night in his Emania article. He also discusses the
confusion
related to the Greenland ice cores.
Timothy L. Bratton 8jun98. Stothers 1984 Nature article
documents an
extended event that reduced incoming solar radiation to 10
percent of
normal. Someone is looking into what are called "slow
smokers" for a
second symposium I am organizing for the SEAC meeting this fall
in
Columbia South Carolina. However, unless this can be
documented, it
would have to be a truly grand event of volcanism or many
volcanoes.
Chichon is a possible candidate according to a book by Richardson
Gill
that will probably be published by University of New Mexico Press
this
year.
Still, I think that an atmospheric encounter with dust filtering
down
from low orbit as following the 65 million year ago event is a
good
candidate; we have to await evidence.
K. Dimitris 8jun98. Hmm, too bad about the date uncertainty of
Philostorgious. See discussion of earthquakes above.
Pamela G. Sayre 8jun98. I would like to know the date that
the
Euphrates froze. The Nile is reported in Lamb (1977) to
have frozen in
829. This is a good indicator of a global cold excursion at that
time.
Perhaps this freezing of the Euphrates could serve a similar
purpose.
Phil Burns 9jun98. Good resume of Baillie's work mentioned
above.
Forest fires: I have been wondering for some time if the droughts
that
would follow a cooling event would result in widespread forest
fires,
and where the biomass was great enough, fire storms that would
inject
soot into the upper atmosphere. According to the nuclear
winter
research soot injected into the upper atmosphere from fire storms
would
be the major cause of global cooling from nuclear war. Fire
storms
following volcanoes or meteors could amplify the immediate
effects of
the event lengthening the usual few months that dust remains in
the
atmosphere. There was a near fire storm in British Columbia
following
the 1982 El Chichon eruptions from drought in the forests which
made me
wonder about this. I have yet to encounter anyone who has done
work on
this problem.
Morten Axboe 10jun98, I would like to know about the freezing of
the
Black Sea too.
Timothy L. Bratton 10Jun98. High latitude volcanoes can't
have much
effect on the global climate because the dust migrates
poleward.
Equatorial volcanoes have much greater effects. El Chichon
in 1982
dropped global temperatures like a rock in a month because it
circled
the earth with a dust cloud at the equator where most of the
solar
radiation comes in (see Rampino and Self in Sci. Amer). If
there a
record of Vesuvius emitting ash slowly over a long period of
time, this
might be an interesting question.
The description of dry fog for 18 months in widespread locations
is =
very strange. Also, A.D. 536, as is discussed by Hugh Robichaux
in my
book is the beginning of the Maya Early-Late Classic Hiatus; he
makes a
very good argument for vast changes in the Maya lowlands being
related
to the event. In Africa, in Erutria, Peter Schmidt finds the
sudden and
inexplicable collapse of formidable Erutrian Empire. This
phenomenon
was not limited to the northern high latitudes. In my next
round of
studies I am going to explore effects south of the equator.
The information in plague and fleas in interesting and needs to
be
considered.
A comet did pass inside the Earth's orbit in the early eighth
century,
a condition that increases debris in the vicinity of the Earth,
and
there might be observable climate impacts, but I haven't seen
anything
on the early sixth century. Baillie has some material in
his Emania
article on multiple meteor phenomena over a couple of decades
around
A.D. 536 that needs to be looked into in more detail. This
will be
treated in the coming symposium but I do not know what the
outcome will
be yet.
Solar radiation needs to be considered as a background factor.
The century of greatest volcanism in the Holocene was the third
century, i.e., the end of the Roman Golden Age according to
Bryson and
Goodman 1980. There isn't much evidence for extensive volcanism
in the
sixth century.
Pamela G. Sayre 11jun98. Oh, here is the Euphrates
freezing. 608
doesn't ring any bells but it is an interesting piece of
information to
work with.
Do the earthquake records not go back beyond 543? Or was there
more
earthquake activity following A.D. 543?
Timothy L. Bratton 11jun98. Wouldn't a near miss address
most of these
concerns and still leave debris floating down from the upper
atmosphere?
Pamela G. Sayre 14jun98. 18 hrs? If this is true it will rewrite
most =
of the literature on this question since Stothers 1984
article. I
don't have the article handy to check and see if you and he are
talking
about the same thing. 18 hours is well within the time range of a
volcanic phenomenon. When Tambora erupted in 1815 the area was
dark for
hundreds of miles around at least through the next day.
J.J. van Ginkel 15jun98. So, are we saying that 18 months
are still
not involved, the change from years to hours being the topic of
discussion?
Joel D. Gunn
Department of Anthropology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
jdgunn@email.unc.edu
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