The Prehistoric Mound Builders of the North American Eastern Woodlands:

Myth and Reality

Guest Speaker: Martin Byers PhD

When:   Thursday, October 20, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:  Centennial Hall

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

The Spanish, French, and English who arrived and penetrated into North America from the 1500s on encountered great, indeed, monumental earthwork locales that for the most part had long been unoccupied. We now know that the earthwork tradition is very ancient in this region but that it particularly exploded during two periods. The first explosion occurred about 100 BC and continued to about 400 BC, contemporaneous with the Mediterranean Roman Empire, and the second occurred about 1000 AD and terminated about 1400 AD, paralleling the European Middle Ages. European scholars and archaeologists have proposed many theories about the societies and histories that were responsible for building and using these great earthworks. Many of them are currently rejected by most North American archaeologists and referred to collectively as the Mound Builder mythology.

This lecture examines examples of monumental earthworks of both periods and briefly explores the myths and realities that they embody and express.

Martin Byers was born in Fort William, now Thunderbay, Ontario in 1937 but grew up in Montreal. He graduated from McGill, BA and MA in history/anthropology, gained a PhD in anthropology/archaeology from New York State University at Albany (New York). He taught anthropology and humanities at Vanier College, Montreal, from 1970 to 1998. Martin Byers is a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has authored numerous articles in scholarly journals and has published 3 books.

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Canada and The Battle of Vimy Ridge

Guest Speaker: Roman Jarymowycz PhD

When:   Thursday, September 15, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:  Centennial Hall

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge (9-12 April 1917) was a classic: considered the making of a national army as well as a text book example of warfighting. Where previously British and French forces failed to achieve success, the young Canadian Corps demonstrated a perfected attack that brought operational as well as political results. The battle incorporated a model set-piece assault that was grounded on break-through scientific techniques, detailed planning, painstaking rehearsal and aggressive reconnaissance on all levels. Vimy Ridge also marked the zenith of Montreal arms, the city's battalions were splendidly represented and, in the case of the Black Watch, the level of participation never exceeded. The techniques and approach to battle of the Canadian Corps set a standard that made its reputation and presented a demanding legacy.

Roman Johann Jarymowycz OMM, CD, PhD

Jarymowycz's publications include Calvary from Hoof to Track; the history of The Royal Montreal Regiment 1945-1990; and the award-winning Tank Tactics. He has most recently completed the official history of the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada, The Black Watch RHR, in two volumes, to be published in the fall of 2016. He is currently preparing a history of The Royal Montreal Cavalry. He has been a frequent contributor to CBC documentaries, including The Killing Ground, The Valour and the Horror, and, The Great War. 

A graduate of Loyola College and McGill University, Lt Colonel Jarymowycz has taught at high school and university levels. He has lectured at the Royal Military College and both Canadian Forces staff colleges.

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Starting in September 2016, the Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield Historical Society invites you to discover different aspects of Canadian History

Everyone welcome. 

Free for members; $2 for non-members
Become a member for $5 per year 

Information: Contact us

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Symposium on Prehistoric America

When:    Saturday, June 25, 2016, Special all day lectures.

Where:   Herb-Linder Annex (BowlingGreen)

              303 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

For this special day, we have scheduled two exceptional speakers who will present their very significant discoveries. We hope you will attend these insightful lectures which will be in English, each followed by a question and answer/discussion session. See the description of each lecture more details.

Schedule:
9 a.m. to 10 a.m.:   Registration and greetings

10 a.m. to noon:     Lecture by Gérard Leduc
                                 The Knights Templar Take to the Sea towards Nova Francia

Noon to 2 p.m.:      Lunch break. Your may choose to bring your own lunch or eat in one of the neighbourhood restaurants

2 p.m. to 4 p.m.:    Lecture by Gordon Freeman
                                ASTRONOMY: Canada's Stonehenge in 3200 BC, and Gregory's Bologna in AD 1575

Registration:
In advance:
                          Online, by filling in the form, specifying “June 25 Symposium” in the “Comments” section
                          At any of our lectures
                          At our AGM on Saturday, June 11, 2016
On site:
                         Registrations start at 9 a.m.

Cost:                  $5 for members
                         $10 for non-members

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The Knights Templar Take to the Sea towards Nova Francia

Guest speaker: Gérard Leduc

When:    Saturday, June 25, 2016, from 10:00 to 12:00

Where:   Herb-Linder Annex (BowlingGreen)
              303 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Octagonal foundations of a tower at the Coteau-du-Lac National Historic Site. It represents a Knights Templar architectural tradition.

An original lecture by Gérard Leduc Ph. D., from Potton

The Order of the Temple was created in Jerusalem in the year 1099 and its armed branch, the Knights Templar, have the mission to protect the pilgrims worshipping the Holy Land. They adopt the red pattée cross as their emblem. In addition to this mission, they conquer Palestine, establish a multinational enterprise in Europe and raise a large fleet. They take to the sea, reach other continents and, in less than two centuries become immensely rich. In 1314, the King of France, Philip le Bel, orders their arrest and many are condemned to the stake. Thousands others escape and reach other countries for a better life.

At the height of their peak, they sail to Nouvelle-France and they leave many vestiges in the archives and in several buildings over the Quebec territory, and elsewhere in the American Northeast. One can recognize their ancient presence through the red pattée cross on ancient layout plans of Ville-Marie (Montreal) and Quebec City and in the sophisticated stone works in Montreal, as well as on the New England Coast and in Newfoundland. A major discovery was that of a Knights Templar religious outpost on the Island of Chekoutimi , on the Saguenay River, across from the present Town of La Baie (Chicoutimi). This mythical island has since physically disappeared but my research has rediscovered it.
Architects and well experienced craftsmen imbued with astronomy and with mysticism, these pioneers Templar left traces of their buildings, tunnels and secret chambers.
What happened to them? The Little Ice Age, beginning around 1300 A. D? The Bubonic plague? Indian hostility?
Renaissance arriving, the European powers launch the Great discoveries era. From France, the Kings send secret agents looking for the Knights Templar sites abandoned some two hundred years earlier in Nova Francia. One can thus follow the paths taken by our discoverers searching for the bygone Knights.
Today, the Fee Masons’ links with the Knights Templar tradition are fascinating to discover.

Gérard Leduc

Following studies in Biology at the University of Montreal, Gérard Leduc entered Oregon State University where he obtained a Ph. D. in Fisheries, in 1966. He joined the faculty of Concordia University in Biology as professor, and retired in 1990. After moving to the Eastern Townships, he founded the Potton Heritage Association which he presided for fifteen years. He pursued research on stone works of Celtic and of Viking origins. He wrote many press releases on the local archaeology and history, authored one video, produced exhibitions and wrote a book on the Potton History in 1997. He also animates field excursions and gives public lectures.
At the same time, he undertook research on the ancient presence of the Knights Templar in Nouvelle-France long before the French Regime of the 17th century. A book is in preparation on this subject, and he writes on the Free Masons’ enigma.

ASTRONOMY: Canada's Stonehenge in 3200 BC,

and Gregory's Bologna in AD 1575

Guest speaker: Gordon Freeman

When:    Saturday, June 25, 2016, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Where:   Herb-Linder Annex (BowlingGreen)
              303 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Mr Freeman and his wife discovered the Sun Temple near Majorville in southern Alberta on 21 August 1980. Since then they have lived on the site for many days in Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring, in all months except February. A total of about 250 days.
The Temple contains accurate solar and lunar calendars, marked with long lines of stones or cairns that point exactly to rise and set points of the Sun and Full Moon at calendrical hinge dates: the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Fall Equalday/nights. (In Old English, henge means hinge, hence the name Stonehenge.)
The most exciting discovery was that the dates when the day and night are each exactly 12.0 hours long, the Equalday/night, are NOT the dates of the so-called Equinoxes in our calendar, the Gregorian Calendar.
Mr Freeman will show how the solar calendar worked on the Great Plains in 3200 BC, and in Gregory’s Bologna in AD 1575. And tell why Pope Gregory XIII deceptively gave a wrong dates to the Equinoxes (Equalnights) in AD 1582.
New discoveries are still popping up as he analyzes the 13,000 photographs of the site.

 The Sun rose at a time and place that changed our history.

Rocks that speak without sound and know without words.                              

Gordon Freeman was born in 1930 in Hoffer, Saskatchewan, and was introduced to Stone Age artefacts at the age of six. His father collected stone projectile points and stone tools from the Saskatchewan prairie after dry winds had blown away tilled soil.
He obtained an M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan, a Ph.D. from McGill, and a D.Phil. from Oxford. He is a Chemical Physicist, was for ten years Chairman of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Alberta, and for thirty years Director of the Radiation Research Centre there. He is now a Professor Emeritus. For fifty years he has pioneered interdisciplinary studies in chemistry, physics, archaeoastronomy, and human societies. He has more than 450 publications in chemistry, physics, archaeoastronomy, and other subjects.
As a hobby he visited many archaeological sites in Canada, the United States, Britain, Ireland, Europe, and Asia. In 1980 he and his wife Phyllis discovered a 5200-year-old Sun Temple in southern Alberta, and have studied it ever since. In 1989 they took observation techniques they had developed in Alberta to England, to resolve the controversy that surrounded a possible calendar in Stonehenge. The astonishingly beautiful, nearly the same, ancient calendars in southern Alberta and Stonehenge have far ranging implications for international prehistory and history.

Relevant book by this author:  HIDDEN STONEHENGE: Ancient Temple in North America Reveals the Key to Ancient Wonders, London, Watkins Publishing, 2012

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Migration, Genetics, and Social Stratification in Human Prehistory

Guest Speaker: Alex Kim

When:   Thursday, May 19, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:  Centennial Hall

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Video Lecture in English.

Alex Kim will give insights into human prehistory from genome-wide ancient DNA data and the emerging dialogue of genetics, archaeology, and historical linguistics. Focus geographically will likely be on North America.

Alexander M. Kim
B.A. Harvard 2013 (Organismic & Evolutionary Biology; Uyghur language).
Research associate 2013-15, David Reich Ancient DNA

Laboratory, Dept. of Genetics, Harva

rd Medical School:

- exploring human population hist

ory using ancient and modern genetic data.
Ph.D. candidate 2015- in Archaeology, Dept. of Anthropology, Graduate School of Arts & Science, Harvard University:

- investigating questions of migration, admixture, and social stratification in the human past,
especially in high-latitude Eurasia & North America, but also in Central Asia & the broader Pacific world.
- hoping to synthesize genetic and other lines of inquiry (e.g., classical archaeology, historical linguistics)
for a more complete perspective on human prehistory.

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Rock Art of the Eastern Canadian Shield

Guest Speaker: Daniel Arsenault

When:   Thursday, April 21, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:  Centennial Hall

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Doctor in anthropology with specialization in pre-Columbian archaeology at Université de Montréal, Daniel Arsenault has spent the last dozen of years doing researches on aboriginal rock art sites of the Canadian Shield and Eastern Arctic, for

content analysis as well as conservation and enhanced

presentation. The study of rock art lead him to research

studies of sites in Québec and Canada, A

ustralia, Italy, United-States, Antilles and Brazil. He presently leads an international workgroup which mandate is the production of an innovating document on documentation of rock art sites around the world.

The Triple Lines of Evidence for Prehistoric Migrations:

Genetic, Archaeological, and Linguistic

Guest speaker: Roy Keys

When:    Thursday, March 17, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:   Centennial Hall
              288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

In the past decade and a half, the relatively new science of genetics has shed new light on the peopling of the world. Recent results confirm the archeological evidence for 2 major waves of migrations into Europe after the last ice age, and enable a reconstruction of the genetic history of the populations of modern Europe.

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The Last of the Beothuks : Shawnadithit or Santu?"

Guest speaker: Roy Wright

When:    Thursday, February 18, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:   Centennial Hall
              288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

While most Canadians with historical curiosity or feeling will have heard of Shawnadithit and her poignant fate, very few will know the name of Santu, whose story was published in 1922 by University of Pennsylvania Prof. Frank G. Speck. He wrote the short monograph BEOTHUK AND MICMAC after meeting Santu, the last Beothuk still living a century ago among the Micmac of Conn River, Newfoundland.

This remarkable encounter was the result of Speck's perseverance and the mutual trust developed between this maverick ethnologist and the indigenous people, mostly Algonquian, that he worked with in eastern North America, from the Catawba of South Carolina to the Lenni-Lenape, Abenaki-Penobscot, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet, Micmac, and Naskapi-Cree of the Northeast as far as Labrador.

We will focus on this little-known part of the history of Newfoundland, tracing the earliest origins of these "Red (-Paint) Indians" to the earliest human hunters south of the last glaciation on the Canadian Shield.

Santu Toney.                                                  Shanawdithit                                                    The son of Santu Toney and his family.

 Photo Frank Speck 1910.                                                                                                                                                    Photo Frank Speck.
Courtesy of American Philosophical Society (4595a)                                                                                                           Courtesy of American Philosophical Society (4595a)

A request has been made for anyone with musical talent to record an MP3 version of Santu's Song!

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