Things Additionally Noted
Judy Siegel-Itzkovitch,"11,000-year-old grain shakes up beliefs on beginnings of agriculture," Jerusalem Post, 18 June, describes a discovery at Gilgal, near Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, that dramatically revises our understanding of the origins of agriculture. Grain cultivation is not a unilinear development pioneered in one location, but a sporadic development in dispersed locations. Some grains are even abandoned in some places, only to be successfully domesticated elsewhere. Thanks to Dale Light of Light Seeking Light for the tip.
Yesterday, Furor at A Gentle Fuss celebrated the 191st anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, with two recommendations: Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo (1970), starring Christopher Plummer as Wellington, Rod Steiger as Bonaparte, Orson Welles as Louis XVIII, and the entire Soviet cavalry; and Musiques Napolioniennies, a feast of Napoleonic and other French martial music. The sound qualities are very good. There's"La Marseillaise", of course, but Furor especially recommends"La Victoire est à Nous!" and"Marche de la Garde Consulaire." There are four pages of selections.
Jason Bellows,"Guidestones into the Age of Reason," Damn Interesting, 18 June, features a 118 ton monument that sits out in the countryside, just up I-85 near the South Carolina border. No one admits to having erected the thing. It's startling, not only because of its size, but because of the values it celebrates. You just don't expect to see that sort of thing out there in Baptist- and Republican-infested rural Georgia. The values of its particular New Age of Reason have their own illusions and limitations, however.
At The Y Files, Cathy Young replies to Alan Jones,"Connecting the Dots," Inside Higher Ed, 16 June. Thanks to Penn's Alan Charles Kors for the tip.
Finally, I'm told that the American Historical Association's executive committee is convening an emergency meeting to consider a resolution that would authorize Cliopatria to consider topics other than Ward Churchill and Duke's lacrosse team.