The Yukon and its neighbor, modern-day Alaska, were once part of the land that was Beringia. Stunning though this region is today is just a shadow of the world that was encountered by the First Americans. Underground, the soil is frozen solid, as it...
By searching for evidence that still survives today, we reconstruct the landscape and the wildlife of prehistoric North America. During the last Ice Age, massive glaciers covered half of North America. But to the far northwest, there was a land that...
21st century, North America, where people have reached even the remotest corners of the continent, and pushed back the boundaries of modern technology. But it isnt so long since humans first set foot here about 14,000 years ago. And back then, North...
On Good Friday 1014, the opposing forces faced each other at Clontarf, outside Dublin. There were two Irish armies, but both with their Viking allies. Of these Vikings it was said they carried arrows anointed and browned in the blood of dragons. The...
Brian did not see himself as a king among equals but as high king of all Ireland, and with a mighty army he set about trying to control the island. In the only statement of his that we know about, he describes himself as Imperator Scottorum, Emperor...
By the 11th century, the Vikings who had settled in Ireland, the Hiberno-Norse, had been here for over a century and a half. Theyd intermarried, become Christian and formed local alliances. Theyd founded thriving port cities like Waterford, Wexford,...
For over 40 years, the Vikings raided Irelands coastal villages and monasteries, carrying off plunder and slaves in their long boats. They struck suddenly and caught the Irish unawares. So the Vikings became bolder and began to sail down the rivers o...
The Vikings who would eventually descend on Ireland had their ancestral roots here in Norway. From these fjords, they created a maritime empire that stretched from the shores of America in the west to central Russia in the east. The Viking world of t...
In 795, monks on an island near Dublin saw a fleet of ships approaching. The long ships with a dragons head carved on the bow carried a force of warriors who would plunder the treasures accumulated by the monastery over 2 centuries. A monk wrote late...
For the monasteries were still producing great works of art. He might have been less enamoured at the political maneuvering. The status of clergy could have much to do with their alliances and family ties with the local aristocracy. Indeed, from the...
But Columbanus was deeply loyal to the idea of church led by the pope from Rome. He was a decentrer, not a revolutionary. He looked beyond the monastery walls, imagining a Europe united in faith and culture. Is the narration spoken in the language of...
Irish monks would carry their Gospel across the seas. Men like Brendan the Voyager, Colum Cille in the Irish kingdom of Dal Riata in Scotland, or Aidain at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. Now, the Lord had said, Get thee out of thy country and from thy k...
What it says is that the Irish are the centre of the world. Theyre not a small insignificant people. It was woven together in the 11th century from earlier sources as a statement of Irish uniqueness. They didnt want to be seen as peripheral people li...
And this is the great settlement of Clonmacnoise. As you sweep around this turn in the river Shannon, you get the round towers, the churches and everything. You get the first idea that this is a really substantial monastic foundation. How did we arri...
Tell me what happens when the monks arrive. Well, they would have, first of all, made their way to the local king, the local lord, or something like that, because you couldnt just arrive off the next available flight and announce, hi, Im your new loc...
