Forgotten Woodlands
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Forgotten Woodlands
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Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#2Im powering humanity forward
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#3Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#4Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#5If someday someone does this study for South Florida, they will wonder how a previously mountainous terrain became so flat. You can drive around and spot "Hills," "Heights,” “Ridge,” “Vista,” and “View” on pancake-flat sites. Hopefully there weren't ancient Scottish versions of real estate developers confounding this study.
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#6It was spoken in the north of Caithness into the 20th century in Dounreay parish, and previously some other areas just to the west of Thurso. (There is evidence of past Gaelic usage in Dunnet parish, and if "the Caithness Book" is to be believed, even in Stroma, the most northerly part of Caithness.)
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#7Names like Cults outside Aberdeen may refer to forests. Calton Hill in Edinburgh appears to refer to hazel trees. Beith/Beath in placenames may refer to birch trees.
This is without going into the Brythonic names, of which there are many.
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#8If someday someone does this study for South Florida, they will wonder how a previously mountainous terrain became so flat. You can drive around and spot "Hills," "Heights,” “Ridge,” “Vista,” and “View” on pancake-flat sites. Hopefully there weren't ancient Scottish versions of real estate developers confounding this study.
Some of these may have been artificial and built by native peoples. Others might be remnants of ancient tsunami and hurricanes, changing sea levels, floods and so on.
The same phenomenon occurs elsewhere. The Netherlands have tiny features they call hills. In East Anglia, the flattest region of England, there are tiny hills. If you look at any pictures of the Gog Magog Hills south of Cambridge, you could walk up them barely breaking a sweat. In fact in some of the pictures, you'd struggle to spot the hills. In Scotland, they wouldn't even be considered a hill range.
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#9Speaking of forgotten woodlands, I've talked about this on HN two times already, might as well say it third time. Go on Google maps and look at the size of the Sherwood forest. I've never truly recovered from that experience.
I mentioned Birnam Wood in another post, which features in MacBeth. Shakespeare plays fast and loose with Scottish history, but Birnam Wood was a real place. One or two of the old trees are still there, but not much. The area has been reforested a bit within the past two hundred years.
Re: Forgotten Woodlands
#10If someday someone does this study for South Florida, they will wonder how a previously mountainous terrain became so flat. You can drive around and spot "Hills," "Heights,” “Ridge,” “Vista,” and “View” on pancake-flat sites. Hopefully there weren't ancient Scottish versions of real estate developers confounding this study.
In a low lying area, all these names can refer to far more smaller features than they would in hillier places. The "ridge" in question may have been only twenty foot tall for example, and smaller than a railway foundation. Some of these may have been artificial and built by native peoples. Others might be remnants of ancient tsunami and hurricanes, changing sea levels, floods and so on. The same phenomenon occurs els…