The Norse beat the Portuguese to the Azores by seven centuries

The Azores group, in Google Maps. The article's authors say the discoveries of "fecal biomarkers" in lake sediments at Corvo in the northwest around 850 CE and Pico in the central group around 700 CE, given chronological uncertainties, indicate that colonization across the archipelago at an early medieval date was "near simultaneous." PNAS (Proceedings of...

“Stop Messing Around: The Creative Work of William ‘Bill’ Hunter”

My father, William J. (Bill) Hunter, of Hamilton, Ontario, died last spring; he would have turned ninety-one today. He was adamant about not having a funeral, that we should instead have a party. My brother, Andrew, an artist and curator, working with his son, Max, may have gone one better with this exhibition of his creative work.

Researching and writing in a post-pandemic world

I emailed a professor emeritus and independent researcher this morning, to let him know the project for which he had provided assistance in sources, Jackson's Wars, was approaching publication (Spring 2022). I had to look up our last email conversation to get his address, and I realized that we had not conversed since August 2019....

The remarkable Gribshunden find: a 1495 shipwreck revolutionizing our understanding of a critical age of sail

A detail of the Gribshunden wreck, fig. 12 in the 2021 archaeologists' report. Smithsonian Magazine this month has a feature article on the most recent underwater archaeology performed on the Gribshunden (Greyhound), a heavily-armed flagship of King Hans of Denmark that caught fire, exploded, and sank on the coast of Sweden in 1495. Despite the...

“Wreckwatch”

Like history? Marine archaeology? And every point in between? Thanks to a citation in a recent article in the Guardian, I discovered this quarterly magazine, Wreckwatch. Produced in Britain, it's written by actual marine archaeologists and historians, is very readable, roams the globe in content, and is full of nerd-out imagery. Even better: it's free....

A.Y. Jackson and the Hallobobs

69 Hallowell Avenue in Montreal's Westmount neighbourhood While I was in Montreal last week, conducting interviews for a new project, I had the chance (that covid travel lockdowns had denied me) of swinging by an address that figures prominently in my forthcoming book Jackson's Wars. The three-storey row house at 69 Hallowell Avenue, on the...