Devils Tower in June – 22 years after the voluntary June closure started – What do people think now?

Ryan Swanson wrote:Metal was non-existent. 

Ryan Swanson wrote:

In North America, it was much less common.  

Sometimes it's easier to just admit you're wrong...

Ryan Swanson wrote: I was wrong ubu.  The native tribe where I grew up has zero history of metal usage before white people brought it to them, and I used it as a blanket statement for all native tribes.

Wait, no, that's not how this works.  You're supposed to dig your heels in deeper, then I get all holier-than-thou for a few posts until overplaying my hand and coming off as an asshole, flipping the tables and setting everything up for a new confrontation.  Can you please delete your post and try again?

Loyd Wofford III wrote:

Wow you are coming off super racist.  

But to correct you the tower is public property and open year round to all Americans,

It's even open to non-americans!

s.price wrote:

Can you back that statement up or is it only opinion? Either way it's wrong.

Yes, cultures that have no written language are clearly advanced and racist historians won’t change the definition of civilization to accommodate them.

It is in no way racist to say that all peoples of the new world were primitive by European standards when "discovered" by Euro explorers. That is just plain fact, and to argue to the contrary is ridiculous. This isn't a qualitative judgement about their worth.

Some cultures are just better at making life easy enough to have better survival rates and be able to defend themselves against other successful cultures. The cultures in the US at the time couldn't stand up to the tidal wave that was European immigration. We may be seeing the same thing in reverse in Europe right now from Africa. The fertility rates in Africa are about seven times what Europe is (that may be incorrect, but directionally right).

s.price wrote:

1. The Cherokee had highly structured villages, an electoral process and advanced farming techniques when first encountered by the new Americans.  

The first census showed a higher literacy rate than those who washed ashore as well.

Advanced farming techniques compared to who? Nomadic subsistence hunters?  

s.price wrote: Crop rotation, irrigation, soil amendments.
All considered European ideas.

Do you have a source for this?

Not trying to be snarky but I'm interested in learning more (and to verify this).

s.price wrote: Ancestry. Knowledge passed through spoken word.

Cherokee. Wind clan.

You realize that isn't verifiable and can't be taken as fact, right?

The three sisters are proof.  

Corns, beans, squash

Carolina wrote: The three sisters are proof.  

Corns, beans, squash

Why is it so damn hard to provide a historical source?  So much anecdotal evidence flying around here.

s.price wrote:

My ancestry is indeed verifiable. I have no reason to doubt this as fact. Why would a society pass on such beneficial knowledge if it didn't ring true?  Hard to take a request for fact from someone who hides behind the avatar of an ass seriously. Family history is good enough for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Worth a read.  Just because someone in your family told you it, doesn't it make it so.  

I'm not doubting your ancestry but the oral history.

s.price wrote:

My ancestry is indeed verifiable. I have no reason to doubt this as fact. Why would a society pass on such beneficial knowledge if it didn't ring true?  Hard to take a request for fact from someone who hides behind the avatar of an ass seriously. Family history is good enough for me.

This is what most people would call "anecdotal" evidence. 

There is actual evidence of all of these advanced farming practices in ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to the beginning of recorded history, about 3000 BC, most likely longer, but since it pre-dates recorded history, we'll never know. It certainly pre-dates any farming at all in this hemisphere.

Buck Rio wrote: There is actual evidence of all of these advanced farming practices in ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to the beginning of recorded history, about 3000 BC, 

Incorrect.  Those crops were not present in the old world. 

Carolina wrote:

Incorrect.  Those crops were not present in the old world. 

Do you even read the posts, or just react to them in some knee jerk fashion......where did I say anything about what crops they were raising????

jg fox wrote:

Why is it so damn hard to provide a historical source?  So much anecdotal evidence flying around here.

Cause they learned from movies and cartoons.

jg fox wrote:

Do you have a source for this?

Not trying to be snarky but I'm interested in learning more (and to verify this).

Advanced Master Gardener and seed crop grower here.

jg, s.price is correct. Many natives of what became the US did practice a considerable amount of land management, including selectively burning areas to manage forest/grasslands, crop breeding, and irrigation practices.

I'm not doing anyone's research for them, but, look up the history of corn. Entirely developed in the Americas, including varieties grown in New England. Repeatedly, tribes saved the asses of starving settlers. Read the accounts of Lewis and Clark. Pretty hilarious how incompetent the brave explorers were. An axe they gifted the (IIRC) Nez Perce, at the start of the trip west, outpaced the L&C team and went ahead of them.

In Idaho, the Nez Perce grew veggies to sell to the earliest trappers and miners. They also controlled river crossings and charged tolls. Amicable.....until it wasn't.

Hunt up some stories, corn, and native practices to grow peaches in the desert, would be a start. It isn't who was more "advanced", exactly, all cultures that eat have long histories with their native place, but, those practices leave you hungry if you can't adapt quickly to a new place.

Best, OLH (a steward of an Oneida corn strain from NY state)

jg fox wrote:

Why is it so damn hard to provide a historical source?  So much anecdotal evidence flying around here.

Source, 

sends of a more serious nature,
Actually impressive, all onsight - flashed everything!
(or damn near, hands stayed on the same holds , during  the 1 false start, @1:19)
This cat "czd" Came, saw & crushed  -  what he wanted to.
 v7-8  the sit start seems fresh using a carved hold, the location and age suggests it was chiseled by PT Barnum, or that ilk
Some insist it is prehistoric; there is extensive mounding
& wall structure along the base. so a shelter rock or burial location ?

Well , flame me for adding this to this Bear Lodge Thread, ( & I expect to be lit up by a certain troll too)

1st
I am totally sympathetic, and feel that the genocide that the white man committed against the original population is a great under apologized for,, un resolved, atrocity.. ..
As much as it would be nice if we could, the reversal of those crimes makes no difference,
nothing we do now, good or bad, respectful or not, voluntarily or by restrictive fiat, (it) will not change history.
 Our collective agreeing to not climb will not be an emollient to  the victims..,
 The march of civilization is marred with constant lurches, seemingly mostly backwards.,  as we  may be are experiencing,.

Please Im atree hugin' Brik wearin' granolahead from diapers.  . .
So I kept this rock a secret, or so I thought.. It was the last place I wanted to go.
And the use of chalk, choked me up.
The Skullz Rock is a short walk from a public beach,
 These  tilted  stones offer amazing bouldering/climbing at  every grade,  into the highest v grades.
I consider it sacred ground. It feels that way. The soltice matching near perfect alignment , the old growth where every thing was clear cut.
That significant mounding  around & the remains of an ancient stacked stone wall forming a crypt like recess..surrounding  the base,
the skulls' mouth is clearly the result of chiseling but, by what sort of tool, is up for debate...


Im not going to go into the cruelty that is the Astrian/Hungarian trait  of shrinking & expanding at an alarming rate...
The way I look at it,  
it is all good but Im glad I had a heads up, to get mine when the getting was good, and access easy.
that and that an extended youth, had to come with some price.

 So I have these climbing zones all to myself and have for a decade at least.. I can no longer pull down as the best of the lines demand, so Iwas showing "czd" other rocks and the Martins pond boulder, once painted, with the words "Sex Drugs&Rock", there is no argument about that, the year it was painted, and then an orange re-paint , are not settled , which is to my loss.

So
 when, & After  
Having pointed out that - who ever was responsible-
it was messed up & ,that  they had caused an infestation of chiggers.
by placing rotting limbs & wood down between ,
the once perfectly kept , and once easily  maintainable
 sweepable
hard pack,
 &
 a couple of back breakers,,.

 I had hoped to go to another less sacred area,
but to my surprise "czd" had a grainy black & white video of Skullz Rock., "You don`t know where this is, do you?" he asked with a air of arrogance, bordering on superiority.
 so while the chalk and the stupid addition of a rotting (not) "platform for pads"? was criminal to my sensibilities.  I admitted to knowing where it was  and led the way,
  "czd" , crushed it, Flashing every thing.
 Oh the desecration!

sincerely,  ~  would you look to restrict climbing at every shelter rock?

(bold print added to help the slightly more challenged among us, watching them  learning to do more with less, is so inspiring!)

This thread is getting more and more hilarious (actually sad) how ignorant so many are.  Calling them more primitive?  Believing raising crops was a european concept brought to natives?  No metal?  These are just a few in this thread.  You can almost see how some ignorant and arrogant settlers considered them savages.  Then, captured their children, cut their hair, forbid them to speak their native language and forced Christianity on them, and later stuck them on some of the most useless land in the county.  The ignorance continues today, as we can see in this thread.

Natives were quite sophisticated well before euros arrived.  The Anasazi, politically correct known as Ancestral Puebloans, 800 to 1000 years ago, built huge structures which aligned with the sacred directions (n,s e,w) within less than one degree.  They built the complex structures in cliff walls in SW Colorado.  Additionally, they had sophisticated irrigation systems to raise crops... in the desert no less!  Just a few examples.

Greg D wrote: This thread is getting more and more hilarious (actually sad) how ignorant so many are.  Calling them more primitive?  Believing raising crops was a european concept brought to natives?  No metal?  These are just a few in this thread.  You can almost see how some ignorant and arrogant settlers considered them savages.  Then, captured their children, cut their hair, forbid them to speak their native language and forced Christianity on them, and later stuck them on some of the most useless land in the county.  The ignorance continues today, as we can see in this thread.

Natives were quite sophisticated well before euros arrived.  The Anasazi, politically correct known as Ancestral Puebloans, 800 to 1000 years ago, built huge structures which aligned with the sacred directions (n,s e,w) within less than one degree.  They built the complex structures in cliff walls in SW Colorado.  Additionally, they had sophisticated irrigation systems to raise crops in the desert no less!  Just a few examples.

Yup. The first half of your comment is Idaho history, for sure. It didn't exactly improve from there....

Best, OLH

Buck Rio wrote:

Copper is very useful, if you can accelerate it to above 2700 feet per second (check out Barnes Triple Shock).  California Condors depend on it. They get lead poisoning from bullets in gut piles during hunting season otherwise. 

California made it mandatory for all big game hunters to use non-toxic projectiles, which is de facto copper. There are some other exotic ammo brands that may use some hybrid, but mostly copper.

I use them exclusively in my .270 Weatherby Mark V Deluxe w/26" bbl (Norma brass, 65 gr. of RL 19, CCI Magnum primer and Barnes TTSX 140 gr.), and have cleanly taken Elk, Deer and a lot of paper targets...even though in my state it is legal to use anything you want.  Great terminal performance, good accuracy and usually results in a bang/flop.

Yes but that accelleration requires working with a lot of other metals beside copper.  Gun batrel certainly ain't made out of copper and neither are shell casings.  So copper working by itself is pretty useless in terms of military might.