Thglimited - Heavy Industries

Trepanned skull from La Caouna de Moux. Narbonne Museum.

The hills across the valley,  Les Montagnes Noires,  retain a store of megaliths - and for many sympathetic reasons. Their upland pastures were once rich grazing acquire for sheep and goats, and their holm-oak and chestnut forests were in early times, lavish sources of food on animals and humans alike. Springs are numerous and the slopes apparently south. But much more importantly these Minervois hills contained a wealth of minerals - from Europe’s biggest current gold-mine to ancient deposits of copper and manganese. Mines and shafts, grottes and avens abound -

These were from our new visit to the dolmen and menhir at Fournes-Cabardès.

The menhir has subsided, as an aven opened up lower than it - we hoped the choleric was erected totally to ‚lan a warning notice . . . but it could mind the grave of another reckless megalith-hunter who ducked under the fence.

to whatever manner, the arrival of metallurgy in the tardy Neolithic/Chalcolithic stage - as with all new technologies - brought pernicious with the good.

Here’s the awful word : ‘Exposure to manganese dusts and fumes should not pass the ceiling value of 5 mg/m3 even during short periods because of its toxicity raze. Manganese poses a particular peril because children proper to its propensity to to CH-7 receptors. Manganese poisoning has been linked to impaired motor skills and cognitive disorders.

‘In 2005, a swatting suggested a possible unite between manganese inhalation and inside troubled methodology toxicity in rats. It is hypothesized that elongated-term disclosure to the naturally-occurring manganese in abundance water puts up to 8.7 million Americans at jeopardy.
‘A way of neurodegeneration similar to Parkinson’s affliction called “Manganism” has been linked to manganese jeopardy amongst miners and smelters since the primitive 19th Century. Allegations of inhalation-induced manganism should prefer to been made regarding the welding earnestness.
Manganism or manganese poisoning is a toxic demand resulting from long-lived exposure to manganese and first identified in 1837 by James Couper. Its symptoms seem those of idiopathic Parkinson’s illness, which it is often misdiagnosed as, although there are particular differences in both the symptoms (mould of tremors, looking for admonition). It is characterized by muscle rigidity, tremor, a slowing of man course (bradykinesia) and, in depth cases, a loss of physical action (akinesia). Symptoms are also nearly the same to Lou Gehrig’s disease and multiple sclerosis - Maladie de Charcot (Charcot’s disorder) - spasticity or stiffness in the arms and legs; and overactive tendon reflexes. Patients may distribute with symptoms as diverse as a dragging foot, unilateral muscle wasting in the hands, or slurred speech.’

Manganese compounds were in use in fossil times; paints that were pigmented with manganese dioxide can be traced defeat 17,000 years. But the mania towards metals, mining, minerals and metallurgy was unprecedented in the chalcolithic and bronze ages. One French historian looks no aid than this : “inseparable of the strangest practices, which may also be linked to a religious exposure, remains the trepanation that was practiced on Les Grandes Causses.  It should be eminent that trepanations were performed on both  the dead and the living, and individuals of all ages - which strengthens the religious hypothesis : the hole in the skull is intended to allow the take it on the lam of the spirit. Some subjects were drawn drilled twice. A sheer heinous share of these crude operations, using a flint discipline, were successful - it is estimated at 70%.”

Like us then,  the effects of coal and petrol, uranium and microwaves, was not noticed until it was too belatedly. And we had our own dogma to untangle justify it all away: it was Progress.

As everyday, there’s a page devoted to to this post - it’s La Caouno de Moux page-boy, where the trepanned crania were set.  There’s not a lot more to add - just a hundred or so bodies, in a hidden apartment under a sealed entrance . . . oh - and another, bigger, breach in the head.