Reg Porter's Heritage Blog

Residents of the Island since the French Regime must have, from time to time, come across prehistoric artefacts in ploughed fields or at the shoreline, eroding out of the bank or strewn about the beach by the action of the water. From the Fewkes article listed below we have the names of two late Victorian collectors, John Hunter Duvar and the hotel keeper, John Newson. The naturalist Francis Bain was also interested in the subject. This woodcut, from Abbott (1881) shows this pastime which spread from Europe to America. Shell middens appear to have been a primary focus of attention to early antiquarians because of their size and likelihood of…

In my previous post on the peopling of the Americas I described the evolution of the current state of thinking on how this was accomplished. It can best be summarised by maps like this one produced by North American archaeologists. Assuming that there was only one corridor of entry into the Americas, from Siberia through the Beringia land bridge formed over 40,000 years ago as the last glaciation retreated to the north, the proto-Amerindians were all perceived as coming from various areas in Eastern Asia. Since the 1930s after discoveries of very technically advanced stone tools and weapons were made in New Mexico, this “flowering” of technological brilliance was seen…

Before we talk about the peopling of PEI it will be a good idea to contemplate, for a bit, the peopling of the world, and how we fit in near the end of a long and complicated process. This map clearly shows our common beginnings in Africa about 200 million years ago and how, 45 thousand years ago in Europe, our ancestors were already in place. Looking East, we can see a complicated migration process that ends up, 25 thousand years ago, massed up on Beringia, on the bottom of the Bering Strait, revealed by the earth’s rebound following the melting of the thick glacial ice mass. Here, it has…

When I planned the content of this blog it was to include, after a number of introductory and biographical posts, a chronological and thematic overview of PEI Heritage, prehistory and architecture as I knew it and had presented it in my lectures over the past forty years. Lectures are ephemeral things and dissipate with the audience. I want now, at this late time in my life, to record the contents of those lectures – the result of so much work and time and passion – so that it will survive in a more tangible way after I am gone.   HOW DID WE GO FROM THIS TO THIS? The word…

This is the first post on my first blog about the heritage of a place that has, for three-quarters of a century, delighted my spirit and stimulated my mind. Perhaps it is a good thing to begin by asking what the spirit of this fascinating place is all about. In Ancient Rome there was a belief that certain places were protected by entities called a genius loci, or Spirit of the Place. This was usually portrayed as a youth holding a cornucopia in one arm and pouring a libation to the gods with the other hand. Special places have been identified and revered since remote antiquity. This ability to recognise…