July 26, 2006
Deliquescence
Word of the day:
February 05, 2006
Nazis' secret base found
A WARTIME bunker used by Nazis to bombard Allied troops during the D-Day landings has been unearthed untouched — after 60 years.
British treasure hunter Gary Sterne found the base exactly as it was when German troops fled after the Normandy invasion in June 1944.
Gary, 41, said: “It’s truly incredible. Apart from damage to the radio room, the whole place seemed to escape bombing unscathed.”
The bunker sprawls over 20 acres and is thought to be the hidden German battery that decimated US soldiers at Omaha Beach, seven miles away.
The encampment contains 40 buildings — including a field hospital.
Some of the offices contain army papers — as well as radio equipment.
Amateur historian Gary found it in dense undergrowth after buying a German army map at a French car boot sale.
The dad of two, from Manchester, kept it secret for three years so he could buy the land near the village of Grandcamp-Maisy.
He now plans to open it as a tourist attraction this year.
December 15, 2005
Stone Age Columbus - programme summary
I've been curious about when humans migrated to the western hemisphere; though they would not have been the first folks in California, the idea that polynesians sailed to the west coast is especially interesting. This BBC article is a good read on pre-Clovis humans in North and South America:
Who were the first people in North America? From where did they come? How did they arrive? The prehistory of the Americas has been widely studied. Over 70 years a consensus became so established that dissenters felt uneasy challenging it. Yet in 2001, genetics, anthropology and a few shards of flint combined to overturn the accepted facts and to push back one of the greatest technological changes that the Americas have ever seen by over five millennia.
The accepted version of the first Americans starts with a flint spearhead unearthed at Clovis, New Mexico, in 1933. Dated by the mammoth skeleton it lay beside to 11,500 years ago (11.5kya), it was distinctive because it had two faces, where flakes had been knapped away from a core flint. The find sparked a wave of similar reports, all dating from around the same period. There seemed to be nothing human before Clovis. Whoever those incomers were around 9,500BC, they appeared to have had a clean start. And the Clovis point was their icon - across 48 states.
"The best way to get beaten up, professionally, is to claim you have a pre-Clovis site" said Michael Collins, University of Texas.
An icon that was supremely effective: the introduction of the innovative spearpoint coincided with a mass extinction of the continent's megafauna. Not only the mammoth, but the giant armadillo, giant sloth and great black bear all disappeared soon after the Clovis point - and the hunters who used it - arrived on the scene.
But from where? With temperatures much colder than today and substantial polar ice sheets, sea levels were much lower. Asia and America were connected by a land bridge where now there's the open water of the Bering Strait. The traditional view of American prehistory was that Clovis people travelled by land from Asia.
This version was so accepted that few archaeologists even bothered to look for artefacts from periods before 10,000BC. But when Jim Adavasio continued to dig below the Clovis layer at his dig near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he found blades and blade cores dating back to 16,000BC. His findings were dismissed as erroneous; too astonishing to be credible. The Clovis consensus had too many reputations behind it to evaporate easily. Some archaeologists who backed Adavasio's conclusions with other similar data were accused of making radiocarbon dating errors or even of planting finds.
"The first migration was 20,000 to 30,000 years ago"
Douglas Wallace, Emory University
Decisive evidence would have to come from an independent arena. Douglas Wallace studies mitochondrial DNA, part of the human chromosomes that is passed unchanged from mother to daughter. It only varies when mistakes occur in the replication of the genetic code. Conveniently for Wallace's work (piecing together a global history of migration of native peoples) these mistakes crop up at a quite regular rate. The technique has allowed Wallace to map the geographical ancestry of all the Native American peoples back to Siberia and northeast Asia.
The route of the Clovis hypothesis was right. The date, however, was wrong - out by up to 20,000 years. Wallace's migration history showed waves of incomers. The Clovis people were clearly not the first humans to set foot across North America.
Dennis Stanford went back to first principles to investigate Clovis afresh, looking at tools from the period along the route Clovis was assumed to have taken from Siberia via the Bering Strait to Alaska. The large bifaced Clovis point was not in the archaeological record. Instead the tools used microblades, numerous small flint flakes lined up along the spear shaft to make its head.
Wallace's DNA work suggested migration from Asia to America but the Clovis trail contradicted it. Bruce Bradley stepped in to help solve this dichotomy, bringing with him one particular skill: flintknapping and the ability to read flint tools for their most intimate secrets.
He spotted the similarity in production method between the Clovis point and tools made by the Solutrean neolithic (Stone Age) culture in southwest France. At this stage his idea was pure hypothesis, but could the first Americans have been European?
The Solutreans were a remarkably society, the most innovative and adaptive of the time. They were among the first to discover the value of heat treating flints to increase strength. Bradley was keen to discover if Solutrean flintknapping styles matched Clovis techniques. A trawl through the unattractive flint offcuts in the storerooms of a French museum convinced him of the similarities, even though five thousand kilometres lay between their territories.
The divide was more than just distance; it crossed five thousand years as well. No matter the similarities between the two cultures, the possibility of a parallel technology developing by chance would have to be considered. More evidence emerged from an archaeological dig in Cactus Hill, Virginia. A bifaced flint point found there was dated to 16kya, far older than Clovis. Even more startling was its style. To flintknapper Bruce Bradley's eye, the Cactus Hill flint was a technological midpoint between the French Solutrean style and the Clovis points dating five millennia later. It seemed there is no great divide in time. The Solutrean flint methods evolved into Clovis.
"[Stone Age] people crossing the Atlantic would be perfectly normal from my [Eskimo] perspective"
Ronald Brower, Inupiat Heritage Center, Barrow, Alaska
If time could be discounted, Bradley's critics pointed to an obstacle that was hardly going to go away: crossing the Atlantic Ocean in small open boats. How could Stone Age people have made such an epic journey, especially when the Ice Age maximum would have filled the Atlantic with icebergs.
Dennis Stanford returned to his earlier hunch, looking for clues among the Arctic Eskimo peoples. Despite the influx of modern technologies, he was heartened to discover that traditional techniques endured. Clothing makers in Barrow, Alaska, recognised some Solutrean bone needles he showed them as typical of their own. The caribou skin clothing the Inuit still choose to wear could equally have been made by people in 16,000BC. And for Eskimo peoples the Arctic is not a desert - but a source of plentiful sea food. If the Solutreans had the Clovis point it would have made a formidable harpoon weapon to ensure a food supply. Would modern Eskimo ever consider a five thousand kilometre journey across the Atlantic?
The answer it seems is yes - they have undertaken similar journeys many times.. Most encouraging was the realisation that Inuit people today rely on traditional boat building techniques. 'Unbreakable' plastic breaks in the unceasing cold temperatures whereas boats of wood, sealskin and whale oil are resilient and easily maintained. The same materials would have been available to Solutrean boat builders. Even if the Stone Age Europeans could make those boats, would it survive an Atlantic crossing?
"DNA lineage predominantly found in Europe got to the Great Lakes, 14,000 to 15,000 years ago"
Douglas Wallace, Emory University
Stanford believes the boats' flimsiness is deceptive. With the Atlantic full of ice floes it would be quite possible for paddlers in open boats to travel along the edges, always having a safe place to haul out upon if the weather turned in.
All this evidence was still essentially circumstantial, making the Solutrean adventure possible not proven. Douglas Wallace's DNA history bore fruit once more. In the DNA profile of the Ichigua Native American tribe he identified a lineage that was clearly European in origin, too old to be due to genetic mixing since Columbus' discovery of the New World. Instead it dated to Solutrean times. Wallace's genetic timelines show the Ice Age prompted a number of migrations from Europe to America. It looks highly likely that the Solutreans were one.
The impact of this new prehistory on Native Americans could be grave. They usually consider themselves to be Asian in origin; and to have been subjugated by Europeans after 1492. If they too were partly Europeans, the dividing lines would be instantly blurred. Dr Joallyn Archambault of the American Indian Programme of the Smithsonian Institute offers a positive interpretation, however. Venturing across huge bodies of water, she says, is a clear demonstration of the courage and creativity of the Native Americans' ancestors. Bruce Bradley agrees. He feels his Solutrean Ice Age theory takes into consideration the abilities of people to embrace new places, adding, "To ignore this possibility ignores the humanity of people 20,000 years ago."
December 14, 2005
Oldest Maya Mural Uncovered in Guatemala
This story dovetails with my current read, 1491 by Charles Mann. 1491, which
Tyler Cowan reccomends, suggests that 90% of The America's indigenous population was killed off prior to documentation by Europeans.
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer>
WASHINGTON - Archaeologist William Saturno said Tuesday he was awe-struck when he uncovered a Maya mural not seen for nearly two millennia. Discovered at the San Bartolo site in Guatemala, the mural covers the west wall of a room attached to a pyramid, Saturno said at a briefing.
In brilliant color, the mural tells the Maya story of creation, he said. It was painted about 100 B.C., but later covered when the room was filled in.
"It could have been painted yesterday," Saturno said in a briefing organized by the
National Geographic Society, which supported his work and will detail the finding in the January issue of its magazine.
[more]
Saturno, of the University of New Hampshire, first reported discovery of the site in 2002 when he stopped to rest in the jungle, taking shelter in an old trench that turned out to be part of the ancient room.
Since then the west and north walls have been uncovered. The room's other walls had been demolished and used for fill, he said. The west wall was the centerpiece of the room, Saturno said.
The mural includes four deities, which are variations of the same figure, the son of the corn god.
As Saturno explained it: The first deity stands in the water and offers a fish, establishing the watery underworld. The second stands on the ground and sacrifices a deer, establishing the land. The third floats in the air, offering a turkey, establishing the sky. The fourth stands in a field of flowers, the food of gods, establishing paradise.
Another section shows the corn god crowning himself king upon a wooden scaffold, and the final section shows a historic coronation of a Maya king.
Some of the writing can be understood, Saturno said, but much of it is so old it is hard to decipher.
Nearby, archaeologists led by Guatemalan Monica Pellecer Alecio found the oldest known Maya royal burial, from around 150 B.C. Excavating beneath a small pyramid, that team found a burial complex that included ceramic vessels and the bones of a man, with a jade plaque — the symbol of Maya royalty — on his chest.
October 07, 2005
Renovation reveals relic from 1918 flu pandemic
The poster spotted on the side building on Main Street was likely put up in October 1918.
During a lunchtime stroll with one of his pals down Main Street, lawyer Harry Cohn spotted the brown, tattered poster on the exposed side of a building under renovation.
Stepping past the concrete blocks left outside the former Supply Room Co. building, he peered at the bold letters that read: "BEST WAY To STOP the SPREAD of INFLUENZA."
"SEGREGATE Those ALREADY INFECTED, so as to PREVENT" further infection, he saw. "This can be Done ONLY with Co-Operation of Citizens."
[more]
It was an original poster from the 1918 influenza pandemic, he said yesterday. Born in 1925, Cohn grew up in Roanoke hearing stories about the worldwide deadly spread of influenza in 1918 from his father, who served in the Navy during World War I. His father told him of the disease's terrible toll he saw while working in the quartermaster's office in Norfolk, so Cohn recognized the poster's place in Richmond's history.
He also recognizes the poster's warning for today's Richmond residents.
"We all have got to be looking out for what can happen," he said.
Cohn, world health officials and now President Bush are worried that a pandemic like the 1918 epidemic, which eventually killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, could be on the horizon. Researchers this week determined that the 1918 flu was an unusual, if not unique, virus that jumped from birds straight to humans and then spread rapidly among a population with no immune defenses against the virulent microbe that shredded its victims' lungs and left them drowning in their blood.
The avian flu spreading now through Asia has killed about 60 people, but so far it has not spread from person to person. If it does, health officials expect a pandemic to rival the 1918 outbreak.
The poster was authorized by Dr. Lawrence T. Price, who was the city's director of Emergency Influenza Work. It's plastered to the eastern wall of the brick structure built in 1893. Apple Hospitality REIT Cos. now occupies the space.
Apple's president and CEO, Glade M. Knight, said he purchased the adjacent building housing the Supply Room early this year. In late spring, construction workers began renovating the storefront.
Knight said it appears that the original front had been replaced with a 1950s-style storefront. When that front was removed in mid-August, a portion of the adjacent wall's brickwork and the poster was revealed.
"I knew that it was a part of history," said Knight, adding that he was old enough that he "realized that there was a time when there were flu epidemics."
The poster was likely put up in early October 1918, when an estimated 195,000 Americans died of influenza.
On Oct. 2, 1918, The Richmond Virginian newspaper published on its front page that the "Spanish Flu" was headed toward Virginia. Within a week, Richmond health officials reported about 3,500 cases and also banned public gatherings, including weekend parties and neighborly visits. By Oct. 10, Price -- just appointed director of the John Marshall High School Emergency Hospital to handle flu cases was himself stricken and replaced by Dr. E.C.L. Miller.
Nearly 600 Richmonders died of flu in that one month.
Price survived his bout with one of history's deadliest plagues. He died in 1939 after suffering a fatal heart attack and falling from his fifth-floor office window at Fifth and Franklin streets.
August 31, 2005
Scientific American
I let me subscription to Scientific American lapse, because I detected a technocratic bias, which saw the state as the solution to individuals' woes. SA saw New Orleans coming in 2001.
*update by raasafrasit*
and from the idiot sector:
"[President "Monkey-fuck" Bush] said the operation being mounted was one of the biggest in US history, and inevitably took time to get under way.
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will," he said. "
Right, who could foresee that a city 15ft below sea-level, in the hurricane corridor and surrounded alternately by the Gulf, a huge lake and the notoriously flood-prone Mississiopi River would ever experinece this kind of problem?
June 21, 2005
Did ancient Polynesians visit California?
Scientists are taking a new look at an old and controversial idea: that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California a millennium before Christopher Columbus landed on the East Coast.
Key new evidence comes from two directions. The first involves revised carbon-dating of an ancient ceremonial headdress used by Southern California's Chumash Indians. The second involves research by two California scientists who suggest that a Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is derived from a Polynesian word for the wood used to construct the same boat.
The scientists, linguist Kathryn A. Klar of UC Berkeley and archaeologist Terry L. Jones of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had trouble getting their thesis of ancient contact between the Polynesians and Chumash published in scientific journals. The Chumash and their neighbors, the Gabrielino, were the only North American Indians to build sewn-plank boats, a technique used throughout the Polynesian islands.
But after grappling for two years with criticisms by peer reviewers, Klar and Jones' article will appear in the archaeological journal American Antiquity in July.
If they are right, their finding is a major blow to North American anthropologists' traditional hostility to the theory that non-Europeans visited this continent long before Columbus.
Until now, few scientists have dared to speculate that the ancient Polynesians visited Southern California between 500 and 700 A.D., that is to say, in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. This is known as the "transpacific diffusion" hypothesis.
"The dominant paradigm in American archaeology for the past 60 or more years has been anti-diffusionist, and our findings are already stimulating a rethinking of that paradigm," Klar told The Chronicle.
Falling out of favor
The idea that ancient North America might have received visitors from the Pacific islands and Asia has had few friends in modern times. The idea was popular among researchers in the 19th century, but fell out of scholarly favor in the 20th.
Through the last century, scientists' opposition didn't seem unreasonable: Not only is the Pacific the world's widest ocean, sailors from the west would have faced contrary currents and winds that would tend to push them in the wrong direction.
Recently, though, scientific opposition to at least some diffusionist ideas has begun to waver. A huge blow to the skeptics came more than a decade ago, with the discovery of archaeological evidence that ancient Polynesians ate sweet potatoes, which are native to South America. Presumably, Polynesian sailors ventured to South America, obtained sweet potatoes and brought them back to their home islands.
That discovery seemed to undermine a major plank of the critics' old argument: that Polynesian travel to the Americas was physically impossible. Still, direct evidence for Polynesian contact with North America has been scarce.
Until now, that is. Now, the tide is turning in this old debate, in a way that might transform our understanding of the early peoples of the Golden State.
Chumash canoes yield clues
The first bit of new evidence is Klar and Jones' analysis of the Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" -- which they claim is extremely similar to the Polynesian term for the redwoods used to build the same mode of transport. (The Polynesians made their boats from redwood logs that had floated across the Pacific with the prevailing ocean currents.)
The Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is tomolo'o, while the Hawaiian word for "useful tree" is kumulaa'au. The Polynesians colonized Hawaii during the first millennium A.D., and in the process their language evolved into the Hawaiian language. The Polynesian word tumu means tree or tree-trunk, and ra'akau means wood or branch; Klar's complex linguistic analysis shows how the combination of those two words evolved into the Hawaiian kumulaa'au. Many Hawaiian words that start with "k" originally began with "t." Replace the "k" in kumulaa'au with a "t" and the similarity between the words becomes obvious. The similarity is so great, Klar says, that it is highly unlikely to be a coincidence.
The sewn-plank canoe was the Chumash Indians' version of an ocean-worthy yacht, a vehicle sturdy enough to allow them to fish in deep offshore waters. Traditionally, Native American canoes were relatively simple objects, often dug out of logs or assembled from bundled reeds. By contrast, the sewn-plank canoe was a highly engineered vehicle, one in which planks were cut, heated in hot water and bent into streamlined shapes. Holes were drilled in the wood, allowing the planks to be sewn together with strong plant fibers from yucca leaves. Tar was affixed to the gaps between the planks, making them watertight.
The resulting vessel was sleek, lightweight, fast and durable, or the perfect vehicle for long-distance travel through choppy waters, including deep- sea fishing areas.
Sharing knowledge
Klar and Jones reason that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California and shared their boating knowledge with the Chumash. This was an ancient form of what would today be called "technology transfer," as in the post-World War II transfer of nuclear power technology from the United States to other nations.
Before now, scholars argued that the Chumash invented sewn-plank canoes on their own.
One key piece of evidence for this view was the carbon-dating of abalone shells from a Chumash ceremonial headdress fashioned from the skull of a swordfish, a deep-sea fish. Based on earlier carbon-dating methods, the shells, now stored at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, were thought to be about 2,000 years old. That date implied the Chumash were fishing in deep-sea waters about 400 years earlier than the Polynesian-Chumash contact hypothesized by Klar and Jones.
As it turns out, though, the original carbon-14 date, which was determined before scientists realized they had to take into account varying levels of atmospheric carbon-14, was wrong.
A cautious investigator
Inspired by Klar and Jones' hypothesis, John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum, decided to recalibrate the abalone shells. He discovered they dated from approximately 600 A.D., several hundred years younger than previously thought. He announced his finding in April at an archaeology conference in Salt Lake City.
Six hundred A.D. is smack in the middle of the period during which the ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California, according to Klar and Jones' theory.
In an interview, Johnson cautioned that despite the recalibrated date, he thinks it's premature for Klar and Jones to declare victory. This is partly because some of their archaeological evidence hasn't been recalibrated, either, he said. Also, he's worried that they have fashioned their linguistic argument from a reanalysis of just a few words in the Chumash and Polynesian languages, too few to clinch their argument.
"They may be right -- I'm just more cautious," Johnson added.
Jones replied that the archaeological artifacts cited in his and Klar's paper "have been calibrated with the most up-to-date calibration program." On the linguistic side, Klar replies that the word similarities are too close to be the result of coincidence. Rather, the Chumash must have learned the Polynesian word for sewn-plank canoe during face-to-face contact.
Studying the study
An unusual aspect of the Klar-Jones thesis is that it gives the public a chance to glimpse the behind-the-scenes processes by which scientists promote a controversial scientific idea. At The Chronicle's request, Klar and Jones agreed to share copies of the letters written by outside experts -- peer reviewers -- who evaluated their manuscript for possible publication in the journals Current Anthropology and American Antiquity.
The editor of Current Anthropology, Professor Benjamin S. Orlove of UC Davis, sent copies of it to nine peer reviewers, an unusually large number.
The reviews, all written before the redating of the abalone shells, are polite and thoughtful, although sometimes sharply critical on technical points; several express enthusiasm for the Klar-Jones hypothesis. The shortest review is one sentence, from an anonymous expert: "Interesting, scholarly, and bound to cause trouble!"
One positive reviewer says Klar and Jones' linguistic argument "seems to be systematically and exhaustively argued," but urges them to "have linguists skilled in Polynesian languages take a hard look at this."
Overall, five of the reviews were positive about the Klar-Jones paper and two were negative, but most suggested various improvements. One reviewer advised Orlove to reject the paper but to ask the authors to resubmit it after they made improvements. One reviewer was neutral.
Even though a majority of the reviews were positive, Orlove decided to reject the article. Why?
Reasons for rejection
Orlove stressed that he rejected an earlier version of their paper rather than the one slated for publication in July. He also said that his job as editor is not simply to add up pro and con votes of peer reviewers.
"We're certainly more than just a vote-tallying machine," he said. Rather, as editor, he must ponder the reviewers' remarks and make the best judgment he can: to publish or not to publish?
Orlove acknowledged that nine reviewers is "certainly unusually high." That number was necessary partly because of the interdisciplinary nature of the paper, which required feedback from experts in various subjects.
"By and large, our reviewers are fair and generous, and, by and large, we trust them," Orlove said. "I'm certainly a strong believer in the peer-review process."
Ultimately, the article was accepted by American Antiquity. That journal's peer reviewers also gave the article a "mixed" reception, editor Michael Jochim told Klar and Jones, but Jochim elected to publish it anyway.
One anonymous reviewer for American Antiquity was "not fully convinced" by their thesis but welcomed publication anyway:
"Jones and Klar do us a service by resuscitating the debate (over Pacific diffusion) from the 'unthinkable' shelf it has for too long languished on."
June 17, 2005
Got Grok?
Few people have been able to find ways to effectively test the ideas of individualism. I learned as much about rational anarchism from Heinlein as anybody. His stories are among the most texts important I have ever read. A quote on the back of a collection I have puts it this way, "If there is anything that can divert the land of my birth from its current stampede into the Stone Age, it is the widespread dissemination of the thoughts and perceptions that Robert Heinlein has been selling as entertainment since 1939." A quote from a person with the improbible name of Spider Robinson.
Besides all that, this is a image worth posting.
April 20, 2005
Old Johnny Reb on The Recent Unpleasentness
A recording of Civil War veteran tells historic tale
By LINDA MCNATT, The Virginian-Pilot
"After fighting several hours, Gen. Ewell surrendered us. And thus I became a captive."
- Julius Franklin Howell
SUFFOLK — Russell E. Darden’s great-great-uncle Julius first reached out to him about 20 years ago, when a sudden stiff breeze blew through an old house in Southampton County.
Darden, a Civil War buff and a historian, was visiting an elderly friend, a man whose father had served in the war. He remembers looking up, startled, as a bedroom door blew open in the wind. On the back, framed in plastic, were photos of soldiers in Confederate uniforms.
Darden didn’t know it then, but the breeze had pushed open a door to his family’s past.
Several months later, with the faces of the men still haunting him, he returned to his friend’s house and asked permission to examine the pictures again.
On the back of one faded daguerreotype, he found the name of Julius Franklin Howell, a corporal in the 24th Virginia Cavalry.
His great-great-uncle.
It took years for Darden to uncover the full story of Howell, the Civil War veteran who became a college president, addressed the U.S. Congress and lived for more than a century.
The most exciting moment came when he got a telephone call from a man at the University of Texas who had somehow heard of his quest for knowledge about his relative. In the university’s archives was a recording of Howell on a wax cylinder -– made in 1944, Darden believes, when his uncle was 98.
On Sunday at Riddick’s Folly House Museum on North Main Street visitors to Suffolk’s Civil War Weekend can hear Howell’s haunting account of the years between 1861 and 1865.
Displays Saturday and Sunday at Riddick’s Folly, which was occupied at one point by Union forces, are only part of the weekend’s activities. There will also be artists, noted authors, re-enactors in period costumes and tours, including a lantern tour though historic Cedar Hill Cemetery.
As for the authentic voice of a true Civil War veteran, Darden said he believes the audio recording may have been professionally made by Warner Brothers. Uncle Julius was great friends with Mary Pickford, the silent film star, who was part owner in the film company at the time.
Howell, his southeastern Virginia accent strong and clear on the recording, says, “I remember very well when John Brown tried to free the slaves.”
Russell Darden
He explains that he considers it a “distinct honor” to be recalling the war years, and he asks the listener to forgive him “if I make little mistakes,” because “time has passed so rapidly.”
Howell, who was born in 1846 near the Holy Neck section of Suffolk, in the Holland area, would likely enjoy being a part of the weekend in his hometown.
He was the youngest of 16 children, the son of a prominent Baptist minister. His daddy wouldn’t allow him to join the army until he was 16½, he says in his account.
He saw action guarding the Blackwater River against Yankees until his regiment was called to help defend Richmond in 1864. By then, he was a corporal and courier for two generals.
In April 1865, Howell was taken prisoner at the battle of Sailor’s Creek and was transported to Point Lookout, Md., a notorious Union prison. He was there when he heard about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
“I arose pretty early,” he says. “There were 20,000 of us there. I saw a flag pole, and a flag stopped halfway.”
The youth, a slightly built man with bright red hair, knew what it meant.
“I stuck my head in a tent and said, 'Boys, there must be some big Yankee dead.’ ”
A guard told the men later that the president had been shot. Howell says he felt no hatred toward Lincoln, only kindness.
“We didn’t fight for the preservation or extension of slavery,” he says. “It was a great curse on this country that we had slavery. We fought for states’ rights, for states’ rights.”
After the war, Howell taught at Reynoldson Institute in Gates County, N.C. He soon left teaching and went to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a history degree. From there, he went on to Harvard and got a doctorate in history.
Howell was a history professor at the University of Arkansas. He eventually headed the department. In 1901, he was named president of Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, where he served for 50 years.
Uncle Julius, said Darden, was forever loyal to the South. He became state commander of the Tennessee Confederate Veterans and, in 1940, was named commander-in-chief of the national United Confederate Veterans.
In 1942, Life magazine did a spread on Howell. Several photos of the old gentleman show him dressed in his Confederate uniform. Because legislators wanted to hear more from the Confederate veteran, Howell addressed the combined Congress of the United States in Washington in 1944, when he was 98, and Darden thinks that’s when the tape was made.
Four years later, in February 1948, on his 102nd birthday, the city of Bristol threw a party. Mary Pickford and her family attended.
Howell, who had never been sick a day in his life, according to his great-great-nephew, died the following June.