Tea at Trianon: Extinction of the Dorset Culture

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Extinction of the Dorset Culture

From Ancient Origins:

While the emergence of the Dorset people is unconfirmed, it is evident that the Dorset occupied much of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland from 500 BC to 1000 AD. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture continued to exist until 1300 AD, however the origins of the Dorset people are not completely understood.

Some scholars believe that the Dorset culture arose from another earlier group of people living further west in the Arctic. Others have suggested that the Woodland or Archaic cultures went north. A third popular explanation is that the Dorset people emerged from a Pre-Dorset culture living in the Eastern Arctic of present-day Canada, with almost no outside influence. This lack of influence from outsiders was a prevailing aspect of the Dorset culture.
Despite the lack of clear information on the origins of the Dorset people, they left behind substantial archaeological evidence with help from the cold, dry Arctic environment. Artifacts show that the Dorset were well-prepared and adapted to the cold northern climate and there is some proof that the Dorset were the first in the Arctic to live in igloo (snow house) camps, although they also had stone dwellings in the Late Dorset period, and used tents when they moved during the summers. As for their livelihood, the Dorset are said to have thrived on hunting sea mammals at openings through the ice and by fishing. (Read more.)