And it's one of the first plants that shows signs of being intentional cultivated and altered by humans too. Which basically says not only did people probably grow the plant but even back then tried to get the best product they could. Who knows what qualities they wanted to encourage but the fact that they put that much effort into it that long ago says it was very important to them (basically they weren't that different then all of us, just in a different situation).
Another weird thing is that Inuits were smoking pipes for thousands of years as well, travelling not only the farthest reaches of the American Northlands, but all along the artic circle, into Greenland, Northern Russia, etc... So, Caucasians would run into the tribesmen of the North, and we do have some evidence of pipes in Viking and Celtic burials, hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus.
It was on Youtube and I did a search on American Indians I believe. It may also have been part of a documentary called Before 1491. I think it was the latter as it was a series I think. It went into the Aztecs and Myans and their civilizations as well.
Quick question do these pipes have tobacco residue? Or do you not know. Europeans smoked pipes before they found tobacco. According to records they used them occasionally for medicinal herbs. Not anywhere nearly as wide spread as tobacco smoking became.
I was just looking for the article that Jay had posted a few years ago about the discovery of tobacco in ancient Viking burial mounds, but I was finding many more articles about Vikings and Celts smoking pot. But, if you think about it, the Inuit tribes followed game all along the artic circle, so they were easily skirting into Greenland and Russian territories. The people who showed the Norweigans how to farm reindeer were also of Inuit ancestry. So, it stands to reason that tobacco could have flowed over into Northern Europe. But, it would have been in very solitary incidences.
There was also one of those "World Mystery" type shows on History Channel (I think) I had seen where someone had discovered a carving of an alligator or crocodile in the artic circle. It's hard to believe things you see on History channel these days, but it was very interesting.
One of the things I love is how when I was younger we were told that people used to stay where they lived and cultures where mostly isolated from each other. Now they're saying that most people didn't go far but that there was a lot more cross cultural contact on a semi regular basis then previously thought.
www.google.com
www.livescience.com
Agrarian cultures didn't wander too far. But, hunters gatherers had to wander about to chase the game. Hell, the Vikings were the warrior guards of Constantinople, when it was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Celts ranged from Africa to the farthest regions of the west and the East, making Irish and well as Russian settlers. The Vikings were also known to take slaves from settlements along the Rhine and Danube, and heard them into Ottoman regions.
And the slave trade was one of the reasons they loved raiding monasteries. A slave who could read and was already accustomed to discipline was very valuable. And according the National Geographic article I read a Rus was a foreigner in Viking terms, but like an expat type of foreigner and that's where the name Russia comes from.
I thought that Harris was looking for friends his own age on here.
Well shit Cos not everyone is an expert on 5000 year old Indians. I thought it was pretty cool.
