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Author Topic: Campfires at the "7 Site"  (Read 61484 times)

richie conroy

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #15 on: August 09, 2012, 03:35:03 PM »

Malcolm

Say's, Any conclusions drawn can't be certain unless the specific case is so good as to allow it

So how do you define "So good as to allow it"

Without no plane and no passport's

What irrefutable evidence is acceptable in the world of archaeology, When you have no aircraft an no bodies ?

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richie conroy

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #16 on: August 09, 2012, 04:57:30 PM »

Is there a aerial view map available of seven site fire feature's ?
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #17 on: August 09, 2012, 05:13:36 PM »

Is there a aerial view map available of seven site fire feature's ?

Not yet.
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richie conroy

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #18 on: August 09, 2012, 06:08:18 PM »

Would be interesting to view aerial map of fire features,

To see if it was possible the castaway's was trying to burn their way through scavalova, Or whether they were chopping through it an burning the piles as they went instead of carrying it to a designated area which would conserve energy.
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Randy Conrad

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #19 on: August 09, 2012, 06:16:37 PM »

Ric...With these "fire features" as you call them...and they were in a circular pattern....Is it possible that the castaway used this to tell the time of day.  I know it may sound crazy...and like Gary...trying to invision why you would want to have that many fire features to cook with...unless like he said you were trying to stay out of the sun and stay in the shade.
 
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #20 on: August 09, 2012, 06:41:38 PM »

To see if it was possible the castaway's was trying to burn their way through scavalova, Or whether they were chopping through it an burning the piles as they went instead of carrying it to a designated area which would conserve energy.

There was no scaevola on the site in 1937.  Back then it was open forest.
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #21 on: August 09, 2012, 07:20:11 PM »

Malcolm

Say's, Any conclusions drawn can't be certain unless the specific case is so good as to allow it

So how do you define "So good as to allow it"

Without no plane and no passport's

What irrefutable evidence is acceptable in the world of archaeology, When you have no aircraft an no bodies ?

Well in this case given the problem that there is no real cultural differences in the material assemblage on the island, i.e. basically all are what you would expect from a mix of European influenced Islander debris and straight Western origin, then you would have to have something with 100% provenance to the missing fliers.

To date all the material evidence that TIGHAR have advanced to support their case lacks that crucial direct attribution and that is why there is so much debate and the lack of resolution. If TIGHAR comes up with something from the videos that requires the same level of reconstruction as the Bevington object to make a case then clearly that will not be accepted as anything more than a possible demonstration that their hypothesis is correct. It will be in the same category as the reassessment of the skeletal data which we know did not meet uniform acceptance, or the various attempts to link some artifacts like the freckle ointment jar to Earhart etc. The simple reason for this judgement is that second party reconstructions and possible attributions are not primary evidence - they are at best informed guesses.

Now I may be wrong but I doubt that after 23 years or so TIGHAR want the same state of limbo to continue anymore than anyone else interested in the fate of Earhart and Noonan. But if the video shows what is clearly and unmistakably an engine or some major structural component of the Electra then that is the answer right there - clear and indisputable. Or, failing that, the next trip finds some directly attributable artifact or skeletal material on the island then that also is the answer to the question. However if they don't find either then the puzzle remains - I don't think after all this time and effort that TIGHAR wants that because ultimately time and natural decay will eventually remove any evidence that remains, wherever it may be.

The debates over the various hypotheses are just that, debates. The search itself is not a race because only one outcome is possible which is finding the Electra and it can only be in one place - wherever that is. It can't be on New Britain, Nikumaroro, the bottom of the Pacific, the Gilberts or anywhere else all at the same time. It is somewhere, so whoever finds it hasn't won a race, they've just found the wreck and cleared up the puzzle. So if TIGHAR doesn't find it and someone else does then the object of the search is achieved and that is what anyone interested in the question wants to see. But if it is reduced to the banality of an argument of TIGHAR against the rest then that is nothing more than farce.
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #22 on: August 09, 2012, 07:21:15 PM »

Ric...With these "fire features" as you call them...and they were in a circular pattern....Is it possible that the castaway used this to tell the time of day.  I know it may sound crazy...and like Gary...trying to invision why you would want to have that many fire features to cook with...unless like he said you were trying to stay out of the sun and stay in the shade.
 

You can do that with a stick stuck in the ground - its called a sundial.
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richie conroy

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #23 on: August 09, 2012, 07:24:44 PM »

According to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season the southern winter starts on july 3rd could the fire feature's represent position of sun over tree line in the following weeks ?

I.E lets say 12 fire features = 12 weeks, is this possible ?
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John B. Shattuck

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #24 on: August 10, 2012, 08:28:45 AM »

Ritchie, there is an overhead photo of the seven site taken with a kite in the Niku VI reports.  I recall one that had the fire feature locations marked but can't find it now
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Greg Daspit

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #25 on: August 10, 2012, 08:53:57 AM »

The fires may have been set at night so time of year and position in relation to the sun can not be determined based on wanting to be in the shade.
That the fires may have been used to boil water could mean the water was collected in the daylight but it is also just an assumption that the water was boiled in the daylight too. I thought about looking at time of year based on location of the fires but that process has too many variables, unknowns, assumptions, and lack of data.


edit:The sundial reminded me of a story I read about Greg Boyington when he was a prisoner of war. I think it went like this.
 One of the American prisoners made a sundial and the Japanese  guard asked him what it was for. The POW said it was to tell time using the sun by looking at where the shadow falls. The guard asked him how do you tell time at night. The POW said he uses a flashlight. The guard said ok and walked away. Later after the guard realized he was made fun of, he came back and beat the POW.
3971R
 
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 09:13:27 AM by Gregory Lee Daspit »
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Tim Collins

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #26 on: August 10, 2012, 09:59:33 AM »


Hey, fellow 'searchers'........another wild thought entered my mind after reading this. Our birgus latros friends.....if push came to shove......and fish and birds temporarily unobtainable, could she/they have bludgeoned a few of these critters for sustenance?? Resident experts, weigh in.

If I recall correctly, there is mention in someone's journal (Gallagher, I believe...but won't say for sure) about the colonials being quite ecstatic when they first arrived and saw the coconut crabs....later running off to find some for cooking.    Therefore...clearly they are edible. 

No doubt that 'if push came to shove' I'm sure the idea would, at the very least, occur.  (Get hungry enough and you'll be willing to eat the south end of a northbound skunk!)

I believe you're thinking about Maude's discussion of Gardner from his Of Islands and Men. As coincidence would have it, I just read it last night. Here are a couple of the passages of interest related to what you are probably referring: nb. bracketed interpolations are mine.

re Gardner's fauna:
p.324: ...and Gardner [has] some of the largest coconut, or robber, crabs in the Pacific.

Scouting out the islands:
p327: We arrived at this atoll [Gardner] on 13 October and tied up to the wreck of the Norwich City, near the main lagoon entrance. I remember stepping out of the canoe into shallow water on the edge of the reef with a feeling of pride at being the first to land on this remote shore for many years; but this was soon cured by a young lagoon shark, which knocked me over in its pursuit of a school of fish. The lagoon and shore waters of Gardner teemed with fish, like those of all uninhabited coral islands, and in the hold of the Norwich City they were swimming around by the thousands: the officers of the Nimanoa [the boat that brought them there] used to shoot them by torchlight with revolvers. ... I shall always remember that first night in the Phoenix Islands. We lay in a circle under the shade of the giant buka trees by the lagoon, ringed by fire as a protection against the giant robber crabs, who stalked about in the hhalf-light or hung to the branches starringbalefully at us. [he includes the foot note: The islanders called Gardner by the appropriate name of Mota Aonga (the island of coconut crabs).] Birds were everywhere and for the most part quite tame, and the noise they made until well into the night was deafening. Unfortunately for them, both the crabs and birds were very good eating and we gorged ourselves on a diet of crabs, boobies and fish. Until I stopped them, the delegates would walk up to the boobies, seize them by the neck and crack them like a whip before roasting them on one of the fires. The fish were so plentiful and unaccustomed to man that they were literally scooped out of the water by hand.

arrival of colonists:
p.334: After five days at sea we reached Gardner, and slept our first night under a large tarpaulin, ringed by fires as before.  Those who slept at all, that is, for the majority were too excited ny novel sights and sounds, and spent the night feasting on the robber crabs and boobies.

Water on Gardner:
p336: [returning to gardner on way back to Gilberts after leaving "pioneer" parties on islands] Here we found dire trouble among the ten men left here: the well water was considered undrinkable, one condensing plant had burnt out and they were afraid the other would go too. They demanded to be taken home forthwith. Argument appeared useless and we had a final and sad meeting prio to departure , in which I happened to mention how sorry I was at the turn of events as I was returningto the Gilberts to bring their wives back with me on the next ship. The effect was instantaneous and ludicrous. "wives did you say? said their spokesman. "Why, the water here is not so bad, afterall. We're staying on.

re poisonous fish:
p.337: The main trouble of the sydney settlers appeared to have been fish-poisoning, and most of them had been down with it for varying periods. On coral islands certain of the reef fish tend to be poisonous for portions of the year, the types of fish and times during which they are poisonous changing from island to island. In the Gilberts, of course, these periods are well known to the local inhabiyants, but when they reached the Phoenix they had to learn afresh by bitter experience what fish could be eaten and when.
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richie conroy

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #27 on: August 10, 2012, 02:18:18 PM »

Ritchie, there is an overhead photo of the seven site taken with a kite in the Niku VI reports.  I recall one that had the fire feature locations marked but can't find it now

Is this the image you mean http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuVI/Niku6overview.html

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Randy Conrad

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #28 on: August 10, 2012, 04:22:45 PM »

In correalation with the freckle cream ointment jar, the fires, and the bones of birds, turtles, and fish...did anyone run a test on the bones to see if mercury was present? With reading bout the potentional of fish poisoning...makes me wonder if there wasn't another culprit...as in mercury poisoning!
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Andrew M McKenna

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Re: Campfires at the "7 Site"
« Reply #29 on: August 10, 2012, 05:39:44 PM »

Richie

This might be a better overhead - Similar photo with the features identified.  The two main fire features are the SL and the WR units.



http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuVI/dailiespics/SevenSiteUnits.jpg

This photo is from Niku V in 2007, not Niku VI in 2010.  It was posted on the Niku VI page as an example of the work there that was expected to be completed.  We greatly expanded the site in 2010 from what you see in this photo.

Andrew
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