White Man's Flies--Bees in America

[hpm08161947]

I certainly don't know much about this, but there are a few preClovis sites. Some going back 37000 years before Clovis - theoretically. One of these sites is the Topper Site in SC. Radiocarbon data from the Topper Site goes back 50000 years.... I watch a lot of NOVA

[byron]

Aren't Clovis tools and artifacts dated back 15,000 years?

The "Clovis first" model has been firmly put to bed in recent years. You may want to update your research by looking up "pre-clovis." You'll find stuff like this and this.

Really? I am not aware of that. Maybe I have some dates mixed up. Can you please tell us more about that?

Oh, I'd love to, trust me, but it would be so off topic the thread would be "punished" for it, if you know what I mean.

I don't know if you consider the alphabet introduced by Sequoyah (who never learned to read, or write English) a knock off of the Greek, Roman or English alphabets

Basically. I only said that Indians never developed their own alphabet independently of us, and they didn't.

This guy you call Sequoyah wasn't anymore Indian than he was German. He was a half-breed named George Gist. He joined the U.S. Army to fight against other Indians (the Creeks) and felt like a dumbie because he couldn't read military orders or letters from home like all the white soldiers could, so he made up an alphabet. He still did more in that regard than anyone else in that area of things (for Indians), but lets not pretend it would ever have happened if George wasn't surrounded by white culture and had the advantage of at least half of his genes being German. Germans can be quite the sticklers for perfection, even though it appears George's dad was a degenerate.

http://www.fortpayne.org/index.php?o...=92&Itemid=167

http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/sequoyah.html

But yeah, to stay on the topic of bees, I don't know why earlier waves of Old World explorers didn't bring their bees with them. I don't know if Asians were engaged in beekeeping back then, but if so, why didn't the first "natives" to arrive here bring theirs? I guess they were half starved and just desperately following trails of buffalo turds all the way and didn't realize they wouldn't be going home anytime soon.

[sqkcrk]

Oh, I'd love to, trust me, but it would be so off topic ...

Ain't you ne'er heerd a PM? Send me a mess.

[WLC]

O.K.
I give up.
What's the Solutri word for bee? Neanderthal's fly?

I'm still not convinced of the etiology of 'white man's fly'. I think that some writer made it up.

[waynesgarden]

I'm still not convinced of the etiology of 'white man's fly'. I think that some writer made it up.

You can start your research with Paul Dudley, once the Attorney General of Massachusetts. He is quoted as having written in a letter in 1721: "the Aborigines have no word in their Language for a Bee, as they have for all animals ... aboriginally of the Country, and therefore for many Years called a Bee by the name of English Man's Fly."

In "The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting," Eva Crane cites this quote and also in "Notes on Virginia," Thomas Jefferson discusses stingless honey bees from Brazil and, referring to the European bee: "The bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians therefore call them the white man's fly..."

In "Peter Kalm's Travels in North America, 1748 to 1751," Kalm writes of bees being referred to as "English flies." (Kalm also mentions that honeybees cannot live in cold areas such as Canada.)

Wayne

[byron]

Ain't you ne'er heerd a PM? Send me a mess.

Hmm, actually, now that I think about it, I can stay on topic with it. Since some folks have theorized that there were honey bees in North America before the recent wave of Europeans, it is still valid to suppose that some Old World explorers/settlers did, in fact bring bees here from the old world. I've never seen any evidence of that, but since it's possible, we could consider all of the other evidence of pre-Columbus arrivals here from across the Atlantic.
Here are a tiny handful:

La Jolla Skeletons

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...keleton-fight/
SAN DIEGO — Two ancient skeletons uncovered in 1976 on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, during construction at the home of a University of California chancellor, may be among the most valuable for genetic analysis in the continental United States. Dated between 9,000 and 9,600 years old, the
exceptionally preserved bones could potentially produce the oldest complete human genome from the continent.

But only if scientists aren’t barred from studying them.

Before samples can be extracted for genetic analysis, the scientists fear administrators will give the bones to politically powerful local Native Americans who could permanently block study.

Scientists say UC is overlooking two key points. First, there has been no official determination the bones are actually from ancestors of modern Native Americans. Though many tribes believe their history goes further back, scientists can only confidently trace the ancestry of Native Americans to about 7,000 years ago.

.....scientific evidence shows skeletons around this age are not always related to those who now live near burial sites. For example, last year Willerslev sequenced the genome of a 5,000-year-old man in Greenland and found he was descended from Siberian ancestors, not today’s Greenland tribes.

UCSD scientists determined the La Jolla skeletons are not culturally affiliated to any tribe.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Kennewick Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

In February 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a cultural link between any of the Native American tribes and the Kennewick Man (9,000-12,000 year old Caucasian sleleton) was not genetically justified, allowing scientific study of the remains to continue.

----------------------------------------------------
Spirit Cave Mummy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Cave_mummy

The Spirit Cave mummy is the oldest human mummy found in North America. It was discovered in 1940 in Spirit Cave, thirteen miles east of Fallon, Nevada by the husband-and-wife archaeological team of Sydney and Georgia Wheeler. The mummy has long red hair.

------------------------------------------

Lovelock Mummy

http://first-americans.blogspot.com/...-lovelock.html

Over 9,000 years old, and Caucasoid. Located in same area where ancient Paiute Indian legends say the Paiutes “exterminated” a light skinned, red haired tribe who spoke a different language in ancient times. A complete news interview with a California News station (KCRA-3) from the mid-90’s is included.

This interview mentions the fact that these people were “here thousands and thousands of years before the Indians” and the archaeologist interviewed says “these are Caucasoid traits.”

----------------------------------
Iron Age America

http://ironageamerica.blogspot.com/

Shawnee Indians told a representative of the governor of Colonial Virgina that they could not give Virginians permission to settle in Kentucky because the region was "haunted by the ghosts of the Az Gens, a people "from the Eastern Sea (Atlantic Ocean).

In March 1997, the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of the Fallon Reservation and Colony made a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) claim of cultural affiliation with the artifacts.
Further study determined that the mummy exhibits Caucasoid characteristics resembling the Ainu, although a definitive affiliation has not been established.

----------------------------------------------------

http://www.gloriafarley.com/

The Anubis Caves, Heavener Runestone, etc...
Celtic and Viking runes, Phoenician petroglyphs, Phoenician/Greek/Roman coins, etc...all found in America.

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But did they bring their bees with them? Who knows?

[Mtn. Bee]

Read something in either ABJ or Bee Culture about a year ago on the find of a honey bee fossil in NA, which ruled out the theory of no native honey bees in NA.
Was glad to read that as I had been telling folks that they were not here until brought over the big water.

[waynesgarden]

Kennewick Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

.....the Kennewick Man (9,000-12,000 year old Caucasian sleleton)

While many of your links aren't working, you seem to enjoy citing Wikipedia as an authority (just as you did in your thread on top bar hives.)

While Wikipedia, the New Republic and other "sources" you cite call the Kennewick Man "Caucasian," forensic anthopologists from Middle Tennessee State University, studying the remains recently, noted that while he had some facial features common in a Caucasion, it was closer in appearance to the Ainu an ethnic Asian group currently still in existance in Japan. The DNA results from the tests done in 2000 show no know link with Kennewick and any other known group, including Caucasions.

Stanford's hypothesis of Europeans sailing the Atlantic pre-Clovis, as far back as more than 15,000 years ago, is only that, his hypothisis based on a similarity of stone carved tools, a hypothesis not generally accepted by archaeologists. I would assume this to be because of a notable lack of plausable evidence.

Real science may eventually bring to light new facts, just as the pre-Clovis discoveries are, but until then, the vested interest that some have in promoting unproven pre-historic European schemes will have to be seen as capitalizing on the merest of speculation.

Wayne

[WLC]

Wayne:

The problem with those citations is that they don't help with the etiology of 'white man's fly' or 'English fly'.

We know that the colonials were in contact with many different tribes. So, which tribes used the term 'white man's fly' and which ones 'English fly'?

So, what did the tribes in territories held by Spain refer to Honeybees as?

'Spanish flys'?

It's clear from the responses of some of the posters familiar with a number of native american languages that at least some of the tribes had a word for 'bee'.

Dudley, Jefferson, and Kalm could be mistaken. I wouldn't call the citations scientific evidence.

In fact, I would call them 'biased' simply because they didn't bother to specify which group of native americans used the term 'white man's fly' or 'English fly'.

It's one of those facts that didn't get checked.

[WLC]

Byron,

I'm convinced that one day it will be accepted that a group of people crossed the Atlantic to bring Clovis technology to the Americas. But, that day has yet to arrive.

[sqkcrk]

which ruled out the theory of no native honey bees in NA.

No one of any standing ever really said that there were no native BEES here in NA before Europeans arrived. There are lots and lots of native bees, such as Bumblebees, aka bumbus bumbus and Hilyctid bees, aka hilyctidae, and also the stingless bee, aka mallipona, but our Honeybees, apis mellifera, were not here until brought from England and Continental Europe.

I'll bet "Englishman's fly" and/or "whiteman's fly" are poor translations of what someone thought Native Americans said, if they ever said anything relating to honeybees.

I just got a Swiss knife sharpener. It has 5 different languages on the back describing how to use it. Obviously the English description was not written by an English speaker and poorly translated too. Alot is "Lost In Translation".

"Whitemans fly" is a shorthand version of a poor translation of a conversation between two Virginia Native Americans of the MattaPoNi Tribes which went something like this. "Man, did I ever get stung today. The bees were hanging on a branch. I've never seen that sort of thing before." "Yeah, those were probably some of those bees that those men down at Jamestown brought w/ them from England." "Do you mean those white men? Those are the white mans' bees? Great."

[Barry]

Let's not forget this find in the discussion:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1025184944.htm

[WLC]

Uh, Barry...

That's from Myanmar 100 million years ago.

That would make them 'dinosaur flys'.

[byron]

While many of your links aren't working, you seem to enjoy citing Wikipedia as an authority....

Real science may eventually bring to light new facts, just as the pre-Clovis discoveries are, but until then, the vested interest that some have in promoting unproven pre-historic European schemes will have to be seen as capitalizing on the merest of speculation.

Actually, I have a collection of hundreds of books I've collected and read over the decades. I don't have my notes typed up on a computer, or really organized in any respectable manner. I'm not entering a debate, I was responding to what I assumed to be a sincere interest in the topic from you. Various websites of authors, as well as Wiki, PBS/Nova, Discover Channel, even YouTube videos are more than sufficient to introduce a tip of the iceberg of evidence and material to a neophyte. I assume anyone truly interested can and will do their own further research.

I can't blame you for your attitude, though. For one thing, it's proper to suspect everything, as well as peoples' motives.
We all have our own methods of determining what passes through our mental filters and is accepted as truth. Some things suit our interests. Some things were told us by our favorite grandma years ago. Some require actual evidence.

If my ex-girlfriend tells you what a bad guy I was, you can suspect her veracity. If you, over a long period of time, meet dozens of people, unknown to each other, who have personally known me and say the same thing, you can start to believe it.

It's simple for you to pick one example out of a handful, and Google up something to oppose it, criticize my link (while not providing one of your own? hmm) but your debate isn't with me, I'm just open minded enough to have weighed and considered the alternative versions to what we all learned in grade school. I think in court you have a "preponderance of the evidence." Every single thing could be plausibly excused away, but to deny an overwhelming pattern of even circumstantial evidence would require a suspension of our critical thinking process to a degree that few of us are willing to go engage in.

Politics should stay out of science, but people are people. I tend to take points away from any side in a debate that won't allow the other side to be heard. When Indians hire lobbyists to persuade .gov to not let scientists study the DNA of skeletons, and instead want to give the evidence a secret burial, it makes me wonder. When I see this happen repeatedly over the years, I really wonder.

When I see anthropologists refused grants because they want to investigate something that would disprove the theories of several academicians on the board that is refusing the grant, I wonder....

See how that works? We won't allow anyone who cares about their professional reputation (or tenure) to study something....instead we leave it to the amateurs, and when the evidence starts to pile up, we can sit back and scoff at their lack of credentials. Very effective. Even Watson and Crick, the discoverers of DNA, have their careers ruined when they say politically incorrect things about the heritability of intelligence and the reasons for poor performance in the black community. If the most intelligent people on the planet, preeminent in the field they are commenting on, can have their careers ended, speaking engagements cancelled, etc., what hope does a regular anthropologist or professor have of bucking currently fashionable thought?

Scientists are bought off, intimidated and swayed by peer pressure just like the rest of us, unfortunately.

[byron]

I had been telling folks that they were not here until brought over the big water.

You can keep telling folks that. A single fossil from 14 million years ago is interesting, but I guess it depends on what you mean by "from here." I believe the oldest known fossil of a honeybee was found in Europe, but scientists believe that it originated in either Asia or Africa, depending on whom you listen to. Besides, what context is the conversation in? If someone is telling you that honey bees were here when humans came to North America, they'd be wrong. We all know that monkeys aren't from Wyoming, and yet we find fossils there from millions of years ago. And even finding fossils doesn't tell us how something got there, just that at least one of them was there at some point in time.

Tricky word, indigenous. Where is anything from? If you believe in evolution, aren't we all from Africa or Asia? Actually, if you want to go back farther, we are descended from Big Bang star dust, so we are all aliens from outer space, and none of us has a moral claim or "right" to anything that can't be clawed away from someone else and properly defended.

[Ted Kretschmann]

While there is no record that the Vikings brought bees with them. Because of the culture and their favorite drink--Mead, you can make a linear connection. The spanish friars of the Old Southwest USA brought honeybees with them to their missions. That was a good 80 years before Jamestown. There were the Henry Sinclair Incursions also up and down the east coast in the Name of Exploration. How long have honey bees been in North America-no one can really say. I would ask the fellow who's great granddaddy 30 generations back was using eocene horses to tote log hives of giant honeybees, maybe he will know. Mankind has always had a sweet tooth. Whether early man used melaponida or Apis, that craving has and is being filled. TED

[waynesgarden]

The simple fact of the matter is that it was stated that "all of the oldest skeletal remains found in North America are Caucasian and predate the earliest known Indians by thousands of years." That is not just a simple little thing, It is a hugely important matter to science and history. However, all accepted evidence points otherwise, even that of the Kennewick Man, which was not quickly buried but resides in the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and has been studied by teams of forensic anthropologists that disagree with the Caucasoid misidentification. (I believe that it was identified as Caucasoid by a local archaelogist working for the local coronor.)

What I can not understand from all this is the burning desire of some, even with the total lack of any concrete evidence staring them in the face, will grasp at the weakest hypothesis of a few to fulfill their need to convince themselves that Caucasians were the "first peoples." I can understand the American Nazis pushing these unproven and unaccepted hypothesis as fact on their website, but what of the other, seemingly normal, people that share the same burning desire, that believe without proof, that want it to be true so badly that they state their hope here that someday the proof can be found?

That's the part that I don't get, the need to rewrite history, not based on evidence, but on personal desires for a different outcome than what scientific evidence points to.

When the evidence points to a different scenario than the one archelogists currenty deem most likely, I'll be the first to accept it. I will be the last to accept an alternative scenario because some anonymous member of a bee newsgroup states a totally unproven hypothesis as fact.

Now the Vikings bringing Mead and/or their bees to make it, there's a scenario I can raise a glass to.

Wayne

[hpm08161947]

Now the Vikings bringing Mead and/or their bees to make it, there's a scenario I can raise a glass to.

Wayne

Now that part makes sense to me too. I can not imagine a Viking being without his mead (at least not the ones I know ), so surely they brought their bees with them.

[WLC]

Wayne:

Caucasians are a rather large group of peoples that inhabited europe, the mediterranean, and the mideast into india. I wouldn't call them 'white' offhand.

I wouldn't fret too much about it either. It's sort of like the Neanderthal being displaced by Homo sapiens argument vs the interbreeding hypothesis.

It's not going to get solved here either.

But, I think that we can all agree that saying that native americans had no other word for the honeybee besides 'white man's fly' doesn't really hold alot of water. It's more anecdote than fact.

[waynesgarden]

I've been thinking, along those same lines, that the idea the there were no honeybees before the Europeans seems pretty much anecdotal also. We have ship's manifests from the 1620's that indicate colonies were imported to the US but is there physical, archaeological evidence describing the state of beekeeping or honey gathering in those early days and which. somehow, demonstrates that beekeeping (or honey gathering) began in that precise period and did not exist previously?

Wayne