sweasel.com

Flower pollen, for example, saffron, was a very common spice used for adding flavor to food.

I just made that up. 1 Troll point for me.

Seriously though, I see no reason why Neanderthals couldn’t have found nature beautiful enough to want to put beautiful things in the grave of someone they probably loved. I mean, they went to the effort to BURY them for heaven sake, that kinda says something, right?

I don’t buy any idea that they weren’t just the farm tractor model built on a more robust chassis than the sporty homo sapiens model.

I would especially enjoy it if they found out they built unexplained prehistory constructions like Stonehenge, for example.

“There are burrowing rodents that use the cave and they sometimes take flowers into their burrows,” says Pomeroy. Some of the workmen helping with the dig also carried flowers.”

I’m very curious about that last sentence…

S. Weasel:

A change of subject, but I just ran across something and you are the only person I know of who lives in a house, at least part of which may be old enough for this to be possibly applicable.

There are, apparently, deliberately made candle burn marks in the structure of buildings dating from medieval times, as described by this Norfolk Medieval survey. They are fairly common, yet the reason for them is open to question. I offer this link which describes them and their commonality and lists possible reasons for them being applied.

https://medieval-graffiti.blogspot.com/2017/10/taper-burn-marks-fighting-fire-with-fire.html

Don’t know if you will find this of interest, but I offer it. If you have them, you can ponder the listed possible reasons for them.

Subotai Bahadur

Neat article @Subotai!

I also learned you shouldn’t stockpile your gunpowder in the basement of your cathedral!

Having grown up where some of the oldest extent houses in North America remain (Salem witches!) I wonder if the Balch House in Beverly Ma or the Rebecca Nurse House in Danvers Ma have taper burns on the timbers.
I realize 1670’s is like Yesterday for houses in Merry Olde.

I attended the funeral of my wife’s father in Japan. The room where the funeral ceremony was held was literally filled with flowers; very beautiful. The funeral was open casket and at the finish of the ritual, we were all given gloves and scissors and as we stood by the casket attendants brought us the bouquets…. and we cut the flowers from their stems until we had filled the casket with the cut flowers. It was beautiful and emotional, and the image still haunts me in an oddly happy and peaceful sort of way.

Oh, Some Veg, that is a MUCH lovelier tradition than dumping a shovelful of dirt on the grave!

@Subotai – beat me to the question!

We’ve never found any burn marks, Subotai Bahadur, though I gather they are often in the attic and we’ve never been in the attic (no floor; you have to step from beam to beam. Also, it’s full of bees).

We do have many witch marks and probably carpenter’s marks. I’ve posted about it occasionally. Like here.

There are bees in the attic on the top of Badger House
There are bees in the attic on the top of Badger House
There are bees
There are bees
There are bees in the top of Badger House.

There are beams for a floor in the top of Badger House….

and so one…

In the Summer, honey runs down the walls on hot days.

Subotai Bahadur:

What a fascinating article! Thanks for linking it.