PORTLAND – We all just stumbled through another semi-annual DAYLIGHT SAVINGS “Fall Back” time change. Some media authority tells us “it gives us more daylight for our winter commute?”
However, warping through time or time travel in the mind’s imagination can be insightful and fun while exploring Oregon’s amazing Outdoor recreation! In Oregon, one can leave work and quickly immerse ourselves in totally different time landscapes from coast to forest to sagebrush hills.
Outdoor adventures all around Oregon can be enhanced if we stop our routine and stretch our legs and Mind’s imaginations to view our ancient elders that used to have daily life just like we do; but they had no socks, clocks, computers or cars. What was that like?
As our minds adjust again to the Daylight Savings time warp, day dreaming may help our body adjust?
The cover photo is an ancient red pictograph or painting in Eastern Oregon’s Picture Gorge showing a woman artist asking the Great Spirit’s help to grow maize or early corn to feed her family -- during a vision quest or later symbolism painting or prayer.
Ancient Tribal Vision quests were somewhat like a JOURNEY THRU TIME; in that this woman looked back in her time and figured out a way to help her family in the future. Today , we have no way to know how that vision worked out for her and her family; but the mere documented act of a “vision” portrayed sets us back in our chairs to think “Wow!”
Sadly, modern science has no way currently to chemically date her chosen red Hematite paint. Had she used fire place charcoal black; we could get a ballpark date figure using Carbon 14!
Archaeological evidence is beginning to piece together a better picture of what the ancient’s life was like ; so we can sense or compare it to our own today. Which “LIFE” would be better for you?
It is known that Picture Gorge was the northern end of an ancient trading trail way down south clear down to the Mexico Aztec tribal communities. Oregon tribes had large sharp blocks of black obsidian from Glass Buttes along modern Interstate Highway 20 – crossing the high desert lands between modern Bend and Boise Idaho. Aztecs were famous for using obsidian to cut the hearts out of sacrificial victims.
In trade for prime blocks of Oregon Obsidian, early ancient Oregonians could acquire parrot feathers, corn, beans and copper from the Aztecs and other tribes down south. After Spain invaded the New World, horses were a hot commodity by 1700s in Oregon. The Original Oregonian had plenty of game animals to eat; but it took a while to realize one could ride horses for miles and save one’s soft feet.
Actually, after 1500s, this very ancient trade trail was so obvious still that the Spanish Conquistadors simply followed it up north to look for lost legends of a North American city-streets claimed to be paved with Gold! As luck would have it, what was called “Spanish Trail” did lead the Spaniards north to find a gold/mercury mine near Spanish Peak on modern Ochoco National Forest south of Modern Mitchell, Oregon along Highway 26 – that Portlanders can now use to explore these lost lands.
Mining records found in the ancient Spanish Mission in Santa Fe (New Mexico) show mining mercury and gold in Oregon started in 1678 and they would use the Oregon mercury to melt gold trapped in crushed rock in a process called an “Amalgam”. Fires were used to burn off the mercury and leaving molten gold; like the Spanish learned to do in Peru’s major gold fields earlier. Then they would have boards cut to make a sand bar or box and shove a rod into wet sands to make a typical New World Gold Ingot. Records showed several loads of Oregon gold ingots were loaded into wagons taken downhill to the Columbia River and boats would carry these gold bars out to waiting Spanish galleons off the mouth of the Columbia – for sea transport down the Oregon-California Coast to Acapulco on the Pacific Ocean side of Mexico. These crude gold bars were then hauled over land to the Atlantic and shipped home to Spain’s treasury. Santa Fe records document the Spain abandoned this gold mine and Oregon entirely after 1702 – when local tribes men killed off all the Spanish intruders who were enslaving local peoples.
Let us head back, in this JOURNEY THOUGH TIME, to the red pictograph in Picture Gorge painted long before the Spanish even knew there was a “New World”!
These ancient Shoshoni-speaking tribes were very equalitarian and even a motivated woman could do her own vision quest and portray her “Vision”, discovery or a prayer for way to grow corn in Central Oregon.
Even if this obvious woman in this cover photo was not allowed to paint pictographs; one would assume it was a nurturing woman that planted the first corn who wanted to find greater stability for her Oregon family. It was a very hard life physically on human families that were constantly chasing wild game across endless country during endless migrations. Somehow she knew about Arizona New Mexico tribes grew maize or corn to feed their tribes year-round down south; so why can I!
Ancient Oregonian art is timeless! The slide show documents other Picture Gorge Time capsules like a red painting of a red salmon, an odd “Bull” and a picture of several typical-period pit homes & people in a “Village”!
Current archaeology insights have found an interesting twist to this story of ancient grains and even the start of cities!
Archaeologist to discuss beer's vital role in the development of civilization at the University of Alabama in Huntsville
Dr. Patrick E. McGovern has pioneered the field of molecular archaeology and is using his findings to recreate ancient recipes to quench modern thirsts.
“It's been a long, hard day on the job, but refreshment awaits when quitting time comes. Workers gather to enjoy a beer and recover from their labors.
Five o'clock at the bar down the road from the local auto plant?
Nope. It's circa 2550 B.C. The place is Egypt. And the workers are building a pyramid.
Those marvels of the ancient world that still stir our imaginations today might not have risen to their majestic heights if not for beer.
"They were paid in bread and beer," said Dr. Patrick E. McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.
Want to find out more about the vital role of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages in the development of human civilization?
ONE NATURALLY WONDERS IF THE Corn maiden mentioned above made bread or beer eventually?
The ancient Egyptians weren't the only ones to capitalize on the motivational power of beer, McGovern pointed out in a phone interview with The Times.
"It's the same thing when you look at the pyramid building in Central America," he said. "There they would get a corn beer, whereas in Egypt you'd get a barley beer."
McGovern understands the motivation.
"Imagine an archaeologist working out in the field. You've gotten up very early, and you've put in a long, hard day out in the sun. If you don't have beer in the evening, you're going to have a revolt on your hands," he said, laughing.
"Anybody who's building something under the hot sun like the pyramids, they're definitely going to want a cold beer afterward. It was like 5 liters, the daily allotment."
So we can thank beer, in large part, for the pyramids. McGovern said it's not a stretch to thank it for human civilization itself.
"(Early humans) were hunters and gatherers until they were able to settle down in year-round settlements," he said. "The question is, why did they start settling down?
One of the motivations could have been to take care of the fields of grain to be able to make enough beer. This is the theory of beer and civilization, that we wouldn't have the civilization that we do unless people were really interested in settling down and taking care of grains, domesticating grains."
Of course, those grains were also used, and still are, to make bread. "Which came first," McGovern asked, defining the issue, "beer or bread?" He backs beer.
"I think you can make a much stronger argument that it was beer that was the motivating factor for why we have cities developing. Beer, like bread, does have this mind-altering effect, and it kills off microorganisms, too, so it has medicinal effects. It brings people together socially. It breaks down inhibitions between people."
He cited evidence from archaeological sites in the Americas that corn was used to make beer before it was used to make bread. Early Americans, he said, went to great lengths to selectively breed the domestic corn plant with its high kernel and sugar count from a wild ancestor that had about three small kernels with little sugar in them.
McGovern has written extensively about the role of alcoholic beverages in human history. Among his several books on the subject are "Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture" and "Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages."
This insightful article also tele-ports into the possible future!
So what's the role of beer in our future? McGovern noted a discovery that raises the possibility that alcohol could fuel human advancement beyond our solar system.
"They've been able to tell from telescopic observation that there's a huge cloud - billions and billions of liters - of alcohol, including ethanol, right at the center of the Milky Way. It does show how basic alcohol is to life in this galaxy and on planet Earth."
Portland now is becoming well known for its local evolving beer brewing small businesses. As you tip back your modern beer bottle, thank the corn or maize maiden who used to live near Picture Gorge?
Our ancient elder’s actions can have a positive effect today.
For those Portlanders wanting to escape their routine, ODOT & TRAVEL OREGON has created a series of “Scenic Byways” in a full color brochure. Along these paved highways, one can travel all across Oregon’s bio-diversity and wonder about their Ancient’s life story – day by day!
OTHER QUOTES TO CONSIDER:
Where there is love there is life.
Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?
Steven Wright
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Dylan Thomas
Some think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.
In many cases, the more you try to compete, the less competitive you actually are.
Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users, 07-22-06
“Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a perpetual succession of miracles rising into view.”~Joseph Addison (1672 – 1719. English Poet, Writer, Statesman)
The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.
Mary Catherine Bateson
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© Copyright 2011. Dave Sandersfeld.
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