Phoenician inscriptions: The Petroglyphs from Stoney Lake, Ontario, Canada. The 900-odd Peterborough Petroglyphs, etched on a marble slab near Stony Lake about 80 kilometres north of Peterborough, have caused a quarter-century of controversy. In the 1960s, Joan and Romas Vastokas of Trent University mapped glyphs, dating them to about 1300 and attributing them to native Algonkians. However, the Vastokases noted that some of the spirit canoes, depicted with masts and side rudders, were very similar to Bronze Age ship glyphs in Sweden. In 1974, Barry Fell of Harvard University asserted that some of the glyphs, especially those of spirit canoes, had been made by Bronze Age Scandinavians about 800-1200 BC. Fell also claimed the dots beside some glyphs were actually writing, a script called Tiffinagh that was widely used in Bronze Age times from North Africa to Scandinavia. Beside a cluster of confused ship glyphs, Fell translated ships fighting. Beside a human figure holding a hammer, he translated Mjolnir -- the hammer of Thor -- and beside a wolf-like figure Fenris, a wolf of Scandinavian mythology. At that time, Native identity was beginning to intrude on public .. consciousness. It was, and is, politically correct in Canada to assert that Native culture had not been influenced by Europeans before John Cabot discovered Canada in 1497! . Fells opinions were drowned out by indignant statements. Fells opinions are an affront to Canadian anthropologists and Native people, ranted the Peterborough Examiner in a typical response. National politics encouraged this reaction. Strong Native identity was seen by the federal government as a bulwark against Quebec separatism. Mohawks and Cree threatened that if Quebec separated from Canada, they would separate from Quebec. The federal and Ontario governments found it convenient to support First Nation perspectives. Fells opinion may have been an affront, but was it correct? In 1991, I visited the Peterborough glyphs again, with David H. Kelley of the University of Alberta and Gerard Leduc of Concordia University. I assured Kelley and Leduc that the smooth curved hulls of the ships seemed like curraghs to me. Everyone thinks of Vikings and wood-planked long ships when Scandinavians are mentioned as explorers, but Bronze Age Scandinavians used curraghs -- wood-frame boats covered with a skin or leather hull. Curraghs could be up to 20 metres long were seaworthy, but carrying cargo could be fatal if the hull was punctured. The glyphs showed curraghs with masts and side rudders in the right places. Hash marks on the hulls, presumably paddles, indicated crews of 10-20 people -- about right for the larger seagoing curraghs, or Farfarers as Farley Mowat calls them. With this assurance that the ship glyphs were curraghs, the badly weathered dots seemed more likely to be Tiffinagh. Kelley confirmed in the Review of Archeology that the dots did appear to spell ships fighting, Mjolnir and Fenris. Kelley is undoubtedly Canadas greatest expert in inscriptions and enjoys an international reputation for his contribution to breaking Mayan. In short, he was putting his considerable reputation on the line by confirming that at least some of the 900 Peterborough glyphs had been made ! by Europeans about 800-1000 BC. Kelley, Leduc and I converged on Peterborough in 1991 because we had just been investigating a ruined, or more likely never completed, dam. This structure and other artifacts cluster around Mansonville, Quebec on the shore of Lake Memphremagog near the Vermont border. At that time, surveyors stakes associated with the dam had not yet been carbon dated. When Leduc had the surveyors stakes carbon dated, he announced in 1997 that two different labs came up with 1450-1550 AD. Leduc also spoke of the gargoyle that had been discovered downstream from the dam in 1985. At my request, two art experts examined it in 1998. They agreed it was apparently Celtic-Scandinavian work of about 1440-1500. A&E Network asked Leduc and me to do an television documentary about the dam and gargoyle in November 1998. Theres an iron-reinforced, large dugout boat in a museum near Mansonville. It was recovered from Lake Memphremagog. The museums curator refuses to have it carbon-dated for fear it will turn out to be pre-contact, and cause political problems. Most establishment Canadian experts and media have also done their best to ignore the Quebec discoveries for the same political reasons. But the PQ is very interested, also for obvious reasons. In spite of British and Canadian propaganda with the 1997 Matthew Project and the associated Unity Flotilla to welcome Cabots alleged replica of his alleged ship, there is no first-hand evidence that John Cabot crossed the Atlantic to discover Canada. His voyage was necessary, however, to establish British claims to New France. Part of this mythic history is denying that the Peterborough glyphs are partly or wholly European. This denial supports Native myths that they were undisturbed by white men until John Cabots unfortunate discovery. In reality, Canada has a rich pre-Cabot European history. Bronze Age Scandinavians pen! etrated inland as far as Peterborough about 1000 BC, probably to acquire copper. There was a European community around Lake Memphremagog before Cabot -- only a community needs a dam for a mill and has leisure to carve gargoyles -- and there is reason to suspect it was a community of religious heretics. There is evidence this community was massacred about 1500-1550. But who knows how many other Europeans discovered and even settled in Canada? Mowats The Farfarers argues that there were European settlements in the Gulf of St. Lawrence from 600-1300 AD. Perhaps the country can be held together with government-approved .. Native and English-Canadian myths, but I doubt it. Michael Bradley has published 18 books, including Grail Knights of North America: On The Trail of The Grail Legacy In Canada And The United States, published in 1998.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:13:53 +0000