Due to thread drift, I'm replying to the following post from the Lambrect search thread found here
http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,253.0/topicseen.html This is just one scenario, of what I would think should be very many scenarios, that better answers the question about how the artifacts got to the seven site, than the Amelia Earhart as the castaway of the seven site theory does.
All the artifacts that we have found at the seven site could easily have gotten there without the existence of a castaway.
occam’s razor ?
GLP
cn't lay my hands on the exact reference as i'm between locations but I have recently read about AE digging for and eating oysters/clams the American way!!
Tom King made much out of the many clam shells found at the seven site because they had not been opened in the native fashion but in the standard American fashion so Eahart must have been a castaway opening those clam shells. I was born and raised in Chicago and I have no idea of how to open a clam shell, American or otherwise. Amelia was born and raised in Atchison Kansas, just down the street from Chicago, so why would anybody think she knew the standard American way to open a clam? But of all those Coasties, I'll bet that some were from New England so it is much more likely that it was the Coasties that had the traditional Down East Clam Bake at the seven site than Earhart.
gl
I don't know where I saw it but it was somewhere on this site - that AE learned to open and eat clam on the US East Coast. Having done so myself I can attest to the distinctive way you open a clam on the East Coast (at the hinge, especially Quahogs), consistent with what was found at the Seven site.
The interesting question is: how many other places in the world are clams opened this way? If few or none, that is another piece of evidence.
You guys are missing the point about the clams.
First of all, I'm not sure that Tom King would say there is a "standard" American way to open a clam, however if you have sat at an oyster / clam bar you would notice that the person shucking will typically to open a clam by inserting his/her clam shucking knife between the shells from the front, away from the hinge. see
http://video.about.com/gourmetfood/How-to-Open-Clams.htm
You would also notice that when shucking oysters, they insert an oyster knife knife, somewhat different than a clam knife, from the hinge side and pry it open. see
http://video.about.com/gourmetfood/How-to-Shuck-Oysters.htmThis is because the hinge of an oyster is held together primarily by a ligament, whereas the hinge of a clam has more developed interlocking parts of the shell called hinge teeth, and is generally much stronger and resistant to the shucker's knife.
What Tom has suggested, based upon the tridacna clam shells that were left behind, is that the person trying to open them:
a) did not know the usual pacific islander way of harvesting these clams which is to either cut the meat out while they are still in the water, or leave them on shore down by the beach until they open and harvest the meat. Islanders don't drag 20 lbs of tridacna clams 100 yards into the bush.
b) attempted to open them from the hinge side using a tool, as if they were an oyster.
c) got frustrated and bashed in one side of the shell
d) apparently learned over time, as the second batch of shells show no damage
e) perhaps used these clam shells to try to collect water
That behavior does not seem to be consistent with a Pacific Islander, or with American Coasties from NE who might know more about bivalves. One can also presume that the Coasties would have learned the islander way of harvesting clams quickly through observation.
Such behavior might be consistent with a castaway who hadn't spent a lot of time in the Pacific, and might have been familiar with Oysters. We know of one such missing person in the area who grew up in Kansas, but did live in Boston for while. We also know that Niku had a castaway somewhere down on that part of the island who appears not to be a pacific islander.
Proven? Certainly not, and we've never claimed it was a proven connection, just one that would be consistent with a scenario of AE making it to Niku and being that castaway. If you don't think AE was the castaway of Nikumaroro, then you have two missing European females to account for instead of just one. Simpler to have one.
I believe that the interviews with the CG guys, they indicated that they did not eat the local seafood, they rarely went into the bush (such that a trip to the 7 site they do remember well), they did not have opportunities to mix with the locals in unsupervised conditions, and they did trade with the islanders for items which include inlaid pieces of non zinc chromate aluminum alclad.
It is easy to poke holes at any unproven hypothesis with speculative offerings, but at least we've tried to do some homework on the activities at the 7 site and Nikumaroro in general, and tried to make sense of what we have found on Nikumaroro in the context of known events there. You guys have only offered speculation. How do you know the CG guys were from NE? You don't. What evidence do you have to offer that the 7 site was used as lover's lane for trysts between CG guys and island girls? None, in fact there is evidence to the contrary if you wanted to look for it. What analysis of of the artifacts at the 7 site have you performed?
TIGHAR's approach is to try to determine if the artifacts and the 7 site are actually connected to other known events - the castaway known to be on the island, and AE disappearing. By far, when artifacts have been proven not to be related, it has been TIGHAR who proved they were unrelated to AE, not armchair archaeologists. What's left is the stuff we think might be related, and we can't prove came from somewhere else. We are our own critics, and we've had to eat crow a number of times, but the basic hypothesis - our working scenario - still stands.
Andrew