Thursday, July 31, 2008
Ancient migrations
In this week's issue of U.S. News and World Report, I updated the tale of Dennis Jenkins and Eske Willerslev's ancient DNA discovery in Paisley, Oregon. (It was a piece of poo, for those who haven't been following along.) Enjoy.
Labels: ancient, dna, paisley, us news, willerslev
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Turkish Oil Wrestling
Friday, July 04, 2008
Happy Birthday, America!
In the first of what I hope will be many appearances on Discovery Channel's Military History page, I dissect the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill -- really Breed's Hill. Read all about it here.
Labels: battles, bunker hill, discovery, history
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Frozen Siberian Mummies
Discover magazine has just posted the full text of my Mongolian mummy piece on their new and improved website. You can read it here.
Labels: mongolia, mummy, Parzinger, siberia
Vikings!
In 845, a Viking chieftain gathered 5,000 warriors, armed them to the hilt and sailed them up the Seine river to Paris. The king of France at the time coughed up 7,000 pounds of gold and silver to make them go away -- a good idea in the short term, perhaps, but not so great in the long term. According to a contemporary, "never had [Ragnar] seen, he said, lands so fertile and so rich, nor ever a people so cowardly." As France and England developed a reputation as easy pickings, Viking raids got worse and worse.
More than 1,000 years later, a bunch of Viking descendants decided to build a 98-foot-long warship and sail it from Roskilde, Denmark to Dublin, Ireland, since France presumably wasn't going to cough up much gold under the considerably more pugnacious Sarkozy. Last spring, I took a pleasure cruise on it around Roskilde Fjord on assignment for Smithsonian. My big lesson for the day -- rowing a Viking ship is really, really hard. I kept punching the poor BBC producer on the bench ahead of me in the back. (Accident! Really!)
I wrote about the Sea Stallion's voyage to Dublin and the history of Viking exploration for July's Smithsonian. It's on the cover, and the photography is really great.
Labels: sea stallion, Smithsonian, Vikings
