Timothy Birdnow

There once was a kingdom, a mighty empire spanning the eastern center of the North American continent. Ruled by a grand city  (one larger in it`s day than London) just south of the confluence of the mighty Mississippi and Missouri rivers, this majestic city built palaces and temples on top of giant mounds, small man-made mountains soaring into heaven. On top of the largest-Monk`s Mound-the Great Sun reigned in splendor over his city, protected by the Birdman (the sky) and the Peet (the underworld). The splendor that was Cahokia and the Mississippian culture it dominated began around 950 and lasted until the great city was abandoned around 1350.

Archaeologists ponder why such a powerful and vibrant community collapsed. Early European explorers found poor remnants, shadows of the glory that was Cahokia; smaller mounds in diverse places, tantalizing imagery-such as certain native tribes calling their chief Great Sun, interesting similarities in architecture among eastern Indian tribes, shared religious beliefs, broken shards and remains. Something happened, something terrible.

But something happened to make the culture explode in the first place; apparently there was some turn of events that lead to the great flourishing and expansion of the Mississippians and their wonderous capital. Capriciously, the land gave and the land taketh away, giving the Great Sun a moment to shine, then darkening his light forever.  What was it?

In 1206 a Kurultai (meeting) was held to select a chief over all of the tribes of the windswept deserts north of the Middle Kingdom.  These ragtag horsemen had for centuries moved about the dusty Gobi, living in round tents made of felt called Gers, keeping sheep and other small livestock when they could, and fending off enemies. The Mongols, through war, had subjugated their Tatar cousins and had defeated the neighboring Turkish peoples to establish themselves as rulers over the Gobi. The man most responsible was named Temujin. His had been a quest born of love; his wife was taken by the Tatars and his quest to recover her lead him to become a mighty warrior. The Mongols-cousins to the Huns who rampaged throughout Europe during Roman times-named this fierce young man Genghis Khan, or Great King. 

He would conquer much of the Earth, building an empire larger than any history had ever seen.  He would conquer the great civilization of China. He would conquer India. He would conquer Persia, and Russia would fall to his "Golden Horde". 

Why did the Mongols suddenly explode out of the wasteland? Granted Genghis Khan was a first order military genius, but what made it possible for a bunch of nomadic horsemen to conquer the world?

According to the Book of Settlements, an ancient Viking text, a man by the name of Floki Vigerdason discovered and named the great island of Iceland some time around 860. The first settler was a norseman named Ingolfur, although it was said that Irish monks had found the islands as early as 795 and had used it as a remote monastery.

"FROM THE SCHEDÆ OF ARI FRODE. (1)
No. 54, Fol.

AT that time was Iceland covered with woods, between the mountains and the shore. Then were here Christian people, whom the Northmen called Papas, but they went afterwards away, because they would not be here amongst heathens; and left after them Irish books, and bells, and croziers, from which could be seen that they were Irishmen. But then began people to travel much here out from Norway, until King Harold forbade it, because it appeared to him that the land had begun to be thinned of inhabitants."

It appears that Iceland was a bit different from the condition we now find it; a land of grass, rock, and lichen.

In 930 Eric the Red fled prosecution for murdering a man, was blown off course, and landed in what he named Greenland (because it`s shores were then very lush and green). His son Leif the Lucky, hearing tales from a mariner named Bjorn Asbrandson who had been blown off course and saw a land covered with trees, set sail to discover a beautiful land covered with grapevines, a place he named Vineland (now Newfoundland) and planted a colony.

According to (2)

"Greenland's climate began to change as well; the summers grew shorter and progressively cooler, limiting the time cattle could be kept outdoors and increasing the need for winter fodder. During the worst years, when rains would have been heaviest, the hay crop would barely have been adequate to see the penned animals through the coldest days. Over the decades the drop in temperature seems to have had an effect on the design of the Greenlanders' houses. Originally conceived as single-roomed structures, like the great hall at Brattahlid, they were divided into smaller spaces for warmth, and then into warrens of interconnected chambers, with the cows kept close by so the owners might benefit from the animals' body heat."

The Greenland colony died around 1350.

So, what is the point? What was so special about the time between around 900 a.d. and 1400? For that matter, what was so bad about the subsequent era?

One of the more dishonest attempts by the Gang Green, that cadre of Global Warming, er, Climate Change claimants has been to attempt to erase the existence of the Medieval Warming Period. Climatologist Michael Mann, infamous for his "hockey stick" graph, was instrumental is influencing the IPCC, that odd body run by climate alarmists with their pet meteorologists and climatologists walking tightly at heel. Mann`s claim, and the claim of many other dishonest alarmists, was that there was no such thing as the MWP. Actually, that won`t fly; too many fossils around showing Europe grew warm during this period. The newest claim is that the MWP and Little Ice Age were local weather events affecting the immediate environs around Europe.

But that does not explain why the Mississippians flourished during the Medieval Warming Period, and why they died out at the end of it. It does not explain why the Mongols exploded out of their desert wilderness to conquer most of the known world; and why their empire subsequently splintered. It doesn`t explain the Norse forays into Greenland and America.

According to Tom Bethell;

"In 1995, Dr. David Deming, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Geosciences, published a review of the data showing North America’s one-degree temperature increase in Science journal. Deming later wrote, With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing e-mail that said, ‘We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period’ [a well-documented and widely recognized period during the Middle Ages warmer than any period in the 20th century] (Tom Bethell, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, courtesy of The Global Warming Hoax 3)."

The U.N.`s batty IPCC 2001 report had this to say;

"current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Medieval Warm Period’ appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries."

A new study "Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context" drives just one more stake through the heart of this nonsensical attack on the Medieval Warming Period and subsequent Little Ice Age.

According to the abstract;

"The rapid expansion of the Inca from the Cuzco area of highland Peru produced the largest empire in the New World between ca. AD 1400-1532. Although this meteoric rise may in part be due to the adoption of innovative societal strategies, supported by a large labour  force and standing army, we argue that this would not have been possible without increased crop productivity, which was linked to more favourable climatic conditions. A multi-proxy, high-resolution 1200-year lake sediment record was analysed at Marcacocha, 12 km north of Ollantaytambo, in the heartland of the Inca Empire. This record reveals a period of sustained aridity that began from AD 880,  followed by increased warming from AD 1100 that lasted beyond the arrival of the Spanish in AD 1532. These increasingly warmer conditions allowed the Inca and their predecessors the opportunity to exploit higher altitudes from AD 1150, by constructing agricultural terraces that employed glacial-fed irrigation, in combination with deliberate agroforestry techniques. There may be some important lessons to be learnt today from these strategies for sustainable rural development in the Andes in the light of future climate uncertainty."

(Hat tip-Watts Up with That 4)

According to Anthony Watts, who discussed the matter with the lead author and paleo-biologist Alex Chepstow-Lusty:

"The core samples from the sediment of the little lake, Marcacocha, in the Patakancha valley above Ollantaytambo, show that there was a major cold drought in the southern Andes beginning in 880 AD lasting for a devastating century-plus through into 1000AD.  This cold snap finished off both the Wari and the Tiahuanaco cultures which had between them dominated the southern Andes for more than a millenium.

It was at this same time that the Classic Maya disappeared in Yucatan. It was also a time, on the other side of the Pacific when major migrations from East Asia took place into Polynesia, an indication of a major Niño event; a Niño sees western Pacific currents switch to flow"

The obvious connection is made:

"For instance, the pollen in the cores says that there was maize being grown under the Incas around the lake at 3,300ms a.s.l. Until recently the upper level for maize around the Urubamba valley was 3,000-3,100ms. In the past few years the maize level has moved up and today there is maize being grown again above Marcacocha.

Alex’s records show that hundreds of terraces were being built around the lake between 1100 and 1150 AD -lots of mud followed by the heavy pollen of maize."

So, South America was warmer, meaning more agriculture which allowed for an enormous empire to prosper.

Oh, and let`s not forget the Maori first discovered New Zealand around 950 and the "great fleet" of settlers came sometime during the 11th century. Why was that? What was it driving thousand of people to risk their lives in canoes to resettle at this particular time?

People and empires were on the move during the years of the MWP, and they stopped moving-or moved out-afterward.  SOMETHING was certainly happening at this time, and something destroyed many of these great empires. 

When the Maunder Minimum struck in 1645, the Earth appears to have cooled globally, and the moment in the sun for many great peoples and kingdoms ended in the darkness of a cold, hungry world. Only the Europeans, who by then were in the midst of THEIR expansion into the world at large, had the tools to take advantage of the situation, and thus Europe colonized the world. Indeed, they likely HAD to colonize the world, or else slide into that abyss reserved for those many civilizations that have passed from our collective memory.

And thankful we should be that the land once known as Christendom did not fade as these many others. Their day in the sun is past, and the coming of the cold wrecked their once proud kingdoms. A warm world is hardly a bad thing.

(1)http://www.northvegr.org/lore/norse/034.php

(2)http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

(3)http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2006/11/11/scientists-politicians-embrace-deceit-over-global-warming/

(4)http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/08/the-medieval-warm-period-linked-to-the-success-of-machu-picchu-inca/

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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