History has some pretty remarkable stories to tell us And whenever I spend time in my parents Sierra home it seems to leap out at us. I think last time I mentioned learning for the first time about the great flood in California. This time its a few things that I thought you’d appreciate.
Bronze Age beaver fur revealed by coastal erosion in cliffs in Yorkshire
After a walk across a field the path descends to the beach via a gap to an area called Skipsea Withow. For years Skipsea Withow has attracted archaeologists and geologists as more of what was once part of an ancient mere or shallow lake has become exposed by coastal erosion.
Numerous timbers can be seen studded into the cliff face and remarkably
well-preserved chunks of wood fall out of peat deposits onto the sand, as the sea continues to make inroads.
A dig in 1993 by the Central Archaeological Service revealed ash timbers with gnawmarks which were believed to have been part of a beaver dam, Beavers vanished from Yorkshire in the 16th century, hunted to extinction by the early 1500s for their fur, meat and scent glands.
My my my, If there’s one kind of archeological tale I enjoy reading it’s the kind where folks find paleo beaver dams where they might have never expected, But wait, it gets better.
Three years ago local historian Sheila Cadman made an amazing discovery after taking a walk on the beach – and coming across a football-sized clump of fur sticking out of the cliffs.
‘When I saw the hair I wasn’t sure what animal it was from,” said Sheila, who in 2013 had discovered bones of two Mesolithic (10,000BC to 8,000BC) deer on clay that would have once been the bottom of the lake.
“It could have been anything, a horse, from cattle or a dog. It was very black and very soft.
“The tide was coming in so I just got it out with my hands and put it in a polythene bag and bought it home
“The following day I returned and measured the distance from the base of the peat to where I was able to extract the hair and it was 2ft 6ins. It was obvious that it was ancient.”
She gave some to experts at Hull University and Sheffield University and later learned that it had been analysed and found to be Bronze Age beaver fur – meaning it dated from around 2500BC until 800 BC.
Imagine finding beaver fur from the Bronze Age!!! That’s got to be one to tell the grandchildren about. There really isn’t a photo of the fur or I would show you, but go read the whole article to see how it all fits together.
And on a personal history note, yesterday we came across the memoirs if my paternal grandfather. He was born in Fairfield and grew up in Suisun, the son of an immigrant from the Azores who never learned to read or speak English. He was the 4th of 10 children, imagine that.His father died of the Spanish flu in 1918 at 51. Which is remarkable in itself. But what really got my attention was his accounts of childhood where he said the kids learned to swim in the swimming hole in Suisun by cutting TULES to place under to place under their arms and using them to aid in floating while they dog paddled.
Imagine that! The original water wings!
He graduated from one of the only high schools in the area, so students from far away had to ride horses or buggies to school. There was even a big barn at the school to house them all day. In his early teens he tried trapping. This is what really got my attention, He had no look with raccoon but did manage to trap a mink somewhere he called the “BEAVER CUT”. (!!!)
What’s a beaver cut?
There are no footnotes and he is long passed so we cannot ask him. But remember, this is around 1914. I believe during the brief period that the nearly exterminated beaver population was protected in the state. Does cut mean a chewed tree? Possible, but it’s hard to imagine too many trees were in the Suisun marsh. Then or now, Maybe cut is a typo and he actually meant beaver HUT: We can never know. All we do know is that there were beavers in Suisun in 1914. And that my grandfather trapped a mink.
Whose fur he was able to sell in Chico.
