Category: History/Archaeology

Fifty, 500, or 5,000 years old? Ancient cultural landscape in the hills of Central Turkey

Circular ring of rocks

‘Fox-holes’ perhaps? Did snipers crouch in these to fire down on an enemy below? What were these little rings of rocks strategically placed high up along the edges of central Turkish gorges?  (see the featured image) How old are they? Fifty years? Five hundred? Five thousand maybe? We geologists all lived in a wonderful house… Continue reading Fifty, 500, or 5,000 years old? Ancient cultural landscape in the hills of Central Turkey

The Log Cabin at the Heart of St Petersburg, Russia

The most famous ‘little log cabin in the woods’ is probably the one in which Abraham Lincoln grew up in Kentucky. It was built in 1808, but unfortunately, no longer exists.  However, in St Petersburg, Russia, there is to this day, a log cabin built in 1703. It was the home for a few years of Tsar Peter… Continue reading The Log Cabin at the Heart of St Petersburg, Russia

The Day I Walked Around the Roman Empire

When Emperor Constantine woke up on May 28, 1453, it would have been to the depressing thought that it was likely his last day on Earth. Justinian was emperor of the Roman Empire (we tend to call them Byzantine, but they thought of themselves as Romans), although at this stage it wasn’t much. The Ottoman army… Continue reading The Day I Walked Around the Roman Empire

Turkey/Armenia: Ani – capital on the wrong side of a border

I’ve seen two cities that look like they were comprehensively destroyed. I don’t mean just ruins,  but places where someone seems to have made a comprehensive, and successful attempt to wipe the place out. Warsaw may come to mind – it was practically obliterated in the Second World War, but then it was rebuilt. In Ani,… Continue reading Turkey/Armenia: Ani – capital on the wrong side of a border

(Both) Battles of Breitenfeld – a day’s walk near Leipzig

It is a macabre thought that in these days of GIS and databases, someone could probably come up with a map of Europe – colour-coded by the amount of human lives lost in battles over the past score of centuries or so. I wonder what it might tell us. Leipzig is one of those German… Continue reading (Both) Battles of Breitenfeld – a day’s walk near Leipzig

Thinking Outside the Triangle – Polynesian Origins

New Zealand school kids, at least when I was one, were taught to draw the Polynesian triangle. It has Hawaii at the top corner, Easter Island at another, and New Zealand at the third. Within this triangle, so we were told, are Polynesian cultures. Outside of it you have, for example, Micronesian and Melanesian. Within… Continue reading Thinking Outside the Triangle – Polynesian Origins