This is where the skulls were seen. Can you identify this pool?
I had forgotten where I had read this. While scanning yesterday’s TRM blog, I came across Zane Grey’s original description of the Dreadnought Pool location and rediscovered his comments. The intriguing thing is whether this may have been the original inspiration for the “TONGARIRO Skulduggery” mockumentary plot?
When considering Zane Grey’s adventurous tales, it is challenging to separate the truth from the imaginative descriptions of the Tongariro River environment a hundred years ago. However, back then, only limited information was available, and his books were more highly regarded, probably far too highly.
Nevertheless, during his descent to the Dreadnought Pool, his guide Hoka explained:
“My people once fought battles here. They had a pa on top of this bluff. I’ll show you graves that are wearing away. The skulls rolled down to the river.” etc.
Then the author described: “The bluff had a bold bare face, composed of three strata, the lowest a dark lava studded thickly with boulders, the next and middle one a deep band of almost golden sand, and the topmost a grey layer of pumice in the top of which I saw the empty graves of bygone Maoris.”
Is this all that is left of the Dreadnought bluff?
Next time Juno takes me exploring that upper river region, I will try to keep much more alert in case she starts digging up some buried treasure. And I promise not to read any more of Zane Grey’s novels.
Which brings me to the second morbid issue that will not go away. SWMBO still gets questioned about TRM’s “mockumentary”, Tongariro Skulduggery’s plot surrounding the discovery of an ancient skull in the upper Tongariro and the DNA coincidence… Fishy expert (?) readers have claimed that it is impossible to track the DNA after 800 years. So we sent them the following blog to consider:
Beyond coincidence?
Warning – this has nothing at all to do with fly fishing, but it may be more interesting…
Ever since “Tongariro Skulduggery” was published last September (2020), so many TRM inmates and other readers have doubted and questioned or even scoffed at the plot, based on the extreme unlikelihood of analysing two identical matching DNA after over 800 years.
Fishos and authors do not usually reveal the source of our information, but this fantastic story has been questioned so many times that SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed), who is old enough to qualify as the Ancient History Consultant at TRM, advises that a confession may be needed. This revealing post confirms and explains that a similar match that inspired the plot has actually been traced elsewhere after 9,000 years! Such is the miracle of DNA. For doubters, this blog could be interpreted as a confession of where such an extremely unlikely plot might have come from.
At some time on our big OE in 1972-73, we visited the Cheddar Gorge caves near Bristol in Somerset, UK. – where, amongst numerous skeletal remains, in 1903, they discovered a Mesolithic human male fossil, a complete skeleton discovered at Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, near the village of Cheddar. He is famous as being the oldest complete skeleton ever found in the UK. Radiocarbon dating indicated he died around 7150BC.
At that time, the British Isles were still linked to Europe by marshes, and animals such as wild horses, antelope, and bears lived there, as confirmed by skeletal remains. This is mentioned for all the healthy sceptics out there who question “global warming” – it had started back then.
The archaeologists’ analysis decided he was about 23 when he died from a violent blow to the head, so he may have been murdered. Interestingly, they deduced from the pattern of bone cuts, which matched those on nearby animal bones, that these early ancestors were cannibals. This is also why the “Cheddar Man’ discovery was so valuable, as most other skeletons from the post-ice-age period had been broken up to suck the marrow.
Then fast forward to the present. DNA’s (deoxyribonucleic acid) double helix was discovered in the 1950’s. Now, everyone is aware of DNA being used to solve murders, sheep (Dolly) are cloned, and crops are genetically modified. People can now predict personal chances of living a long life or suffering from obesity, demystifying what were matters of providence, fate, or even morality.
In 1997, the Oxford University Institute of Molecular Medicine finally extracted mitochondrial material from the teeth of a molar from the Cheddar Man. Then, after taking swabs from local people, they announced they found a complete match, a blood relation after 9000 years. Perhaps just as remarkable, Adrian Targett was a local history teacher who lived less than a mile from the caves.
So suck on that… Tongariro Skulduggery’s DNA plot, dating back over 800 years, was relatively recent. Spooky eh?
