Philadelphia flees to Brenham

 

Eleven days ago you saw a great field filled with mixed colonies of Indian paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa) and butterweed (Packera tampicana) in Brenham. From that same April 8th session, here’s a Philadelphia fleabane plant (Erigeron philadelphicus) that was as happy as I was to be in such good company.

 

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If you’re like me, you’ve heard of Atlantis, a land described by the ancient Greeks that supposedly sank beneath the ocean. It became the stuff of legend down through the ages, with some people positing its location in the similarly named Atlantic Ocean, while others favor a location in the eastern Mediterranean.

If you’re like me—or at least like me until last week—you’ve never heard of Doggerland, a region that likewise sank beneath the ocean. The difference is that Doggerland, despite its seemingly outlandish name, was real. It existed during and after the last ice age in a large area that eventually sank beneath the North Sea but used to connect what is now Britain with what are now France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

Over the past century, more and more Doggerland artifacts have been pulled from beneath the North Sea, so archaeologists are slowly learning about the Mesolithic civilization(s) that existed there. You can find out a lot more in Jason Urbanus’s article “Letter from Doggerland.”

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman

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