Re: HIST: Irises and grave sites

Hi all,

I find this line of conversation very interesting.  For a number of reasons
I think, but perhaps mostly because I really like the old 44 chromosome
"germanica" types.  Neil struck on a basic point that I have been pointing
out for many years.  It seems when ever I travel with a group of people to
a place where there is some ancient human relict (petroglyphs, ruins,
pottery, patches of long-ago cultivated but surviving plants, or what
ever), I run into the amazement of people that other people long ago could
have done or acomplished these things.

The following, which Neil wrote in this thread, is something that reflects
my reaction.  People now seem to forget this basic fact when they are
trying to figure out things like "what does that relict mean", "how did
they do that", "how did they get here", or "how did that get here".

"Those folk thousands of years ago had the same powers of observation and
imagination we
do. They certainly were involved in selective animal breeding. Who knows
what they may have attempted with fruits, vegetables and flowers?"

I might add many other things to the list of things they were doing that we
do - drawing, calculating, inventing, travelling, communicating, warring,
etc. etc.

It seems that people now seem to forget that people then were just as
ingenious (probably more so - more problems left to solve) as people now.
I always get a laugh at statements like "aliens must have helped them".  It
really isn't that difficult to figure out how to lay out a nice even
circle, lift an object, or for that matter, how to transplant and even
breed a plant or animal.

I just thought that point was worth a bit of emphasis.

Another interesting note that was touched on a bit.  I'm not going to list
all of them (I probably don't know nearly all of them anyway), but there
are quite a number of other plants, many of which probably had Asian, or at
least more easterly origins, that are now cultivated and often growing wild
all around the Mediterranean and throughout the Middle East.  A few obvious
ones would include Olives, Pomegranites, Apricots, Peaches, Almonds,
Citrus, Artichokes, etc.  Are these Mediterranean or more eastern in
origin?  They are so tied to man that sometimes it's not even possible to
be sure anymore.  Most are plants with some sort of use, and most have been
selected for desirable properties for easily thousands of years; so, for
me, it is not difficult to imagine Iris (bearded ones in particular) having
been cultivated, enjoyed, used, and spread far and wide where ever they
would grow.  The idea that a few cultivars that did well got spread all
around is very easy to accept.  Just look at the US, here we have a few
"old" cultivars of Iris of our own, that are now spread from coast to
coast, and it only took one or two generations to do it.

This is a bit of a stretch, and not likely true, but on the other hand it's
fun to speculate.  I wouldn't be that terribly surprised if some of those
patches of Iris germanica / alba growing in Latin America might just
predate Columbus (he clearly wasn't the first to reach the west side of the
Atlantic, he was just the most famous).  People have apparently always
moved around a lot, and those from around the Mediterranean and from the
Middle East were sea-faring long before Columbus came along.  If you strike
out into the Atlantic and follow the winds and currents from southern
Europe or northern Africa, where would you end up - most likely Latin
America (of course it wasn't Latin nor America yet then).  What would you
carry with you - the same "essential" things you take with you on all your
travels, probably including Iris (for your graves? or for your gardens?).

Dave

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