Dream #47
— January 26, 2026 at 5:30 am
Limerick
A manatee drove to Brands Hatch one day
In an Audi Q8 painted gray
It met Roger Moore
At a B&B door
Who was dating a poet from Ireland, they say
In an Audi Q8 painted gray
It met Roger Moore
At a B&B door
Who was dating a poet from Ireland, they say
Haiku
Armenian stones rise—
tachinid flies circle
the silent radio
tachinid flies circle
the silent radio
What If
What if the geographic distribution patterns of tachinid fly genera like Adejeania could serve as biological markers for tracing ancient trade routes between archaeological sites like Mont Lassois and early automotive manufacturing centers?
Feasibility Assessment
This is a genuinely novel and creative hypothesis, but it faces significant scientific challenges that render it currently speculative rather than testable. Let me evaluate it systematically:
**1. Testability Assessment:**
The hypothesis is **currently speculative** due to fundamental temporal and biological mismatches. Mont Lassois was an Iron Age oppidum (ca. 6th-5th century BCE) that controlled tin trade routes from Britain to Italy during the Hallstatt period, while early automotive manufacturing began in the late 19th/early 20th century CE - a gap of over 2,000 years. Adejeania is a tachinid fly genus from the Americas, with most species in South America and A. vexatrix occurring from Mexico to British Columbia. This creates a geographic disconnect, as tachinids would not naturally occur at Mont Lassois.
**2. Intersecting Research Areas:**
Several established fields do intersect with elements of this idea. Archaeoentomology studies insect remains at archaeological sites to assess past environments, arthropod biogeography, and burial customs. Research shows that dispersal of synanthropic insects is strongly linked with human movement, farming spread, urbanization and trade. Ancient DNA from insects can be used to retrace ancient trade routes. However, these studies focus on synanthropic species (those living with humans), not free-living parasitoid flies like tachinids.
**3. Key Obstacles:**
The primary obstacles are biological and temporal: Tachinids are parasitoids of arthropods, usually other insects, not synanthropic species that follow trade goods. Tachinids are distributed worldwide in terrestrial environments with most major lineages broadly distributed across biogeographic realms, making their patterns more reflective of ancient geological processes than recent human trade. The 2,000+ year gap between Mont Lassois and automotive manufacturing makes any causal connection implausible.
A more scientifically grounded approach might examine synanthropic insects (grain beetles, stored product pests) from Iron Age sites to trace ancient trade connections, or use tachinid biogeography to understand much older geological processes - but not to link Celtic oppida with modern industrial sites.
**PLAUSIBILITY: [Speculative]**
**1. Testability Assessment:**
The hypothesis is **currently speculative** due to fundamental temporal and biological mismatches. Mont Lassois was an Iron Age oppidum (ca. 6th-5th century BCE) that controlled tin trade routes from Britain to Italy during the Hallstatt period, while early automotive manufacturing began in the late 19th/early 20th century CE - a gap of over 2,000 years. Adejeania is a tachinid fly genus from the Americas, with most species in South America and A. vexatrix occurring from Mexico to British Columbia. This creates a geographic disconnect, as tachinids would not naturally occur at Mont Lassois.
**2. Intersecting Research Areas:**
Several established fields do intersect with elements of this idea. Archaeoentomology studies insect remains at archaeological sites to assess past environments, arthropod biogeography, and burial customs. Research shows that dispersal of synanthropic insects is strongly linked with human movement, farming spread, urbanization and trade. Ancient DNA from insects can be used to retrace ancient trade routes. However, these studies focus on synanthropic species (those living with humans), not free-living parasitoid flies like tachinids.
**3. Key Obstacles:**
The primary obstacles are biological and temporal: Tachinids are parasitoids of arthropods, usually other insects, not synanthropic species that follow trade goods. Tachinids are distributed worldwide in terrestrial environments with most major lineages broadly distributed across biogeographic realms, making their patterns more reflective of ancient geological processes than recent human trade. The 2,000+ year gap between Mont Lassois and automotive manufacturing makes any causal connection implausible.
A more scientifically grounded approach might examine synanthropic insects (grain beetles, stored product pests) from Iron Age sites to trace ancient trade connections, or use tachinid biogeography to understand much older geological processes - but not to link Celtic oppida with modern industrial sites.
**PLAUSIBILITY: [Speculative]**
Sources:
General Information about Tachinid Flies
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Tachinidae - Wikipedia
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Tachinid fly | Description, Biological Control, Examples, & Facts | Britannica
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Tachinidae
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Tachinidae - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
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History of tachinid classification (Diptera, Tachinidae) - PMC
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Tachinidae - Tachinids | NatureSpot
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The genome sequence of a tachinid fly, Tachina lurida (Fabricius, 1781) - PMC
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Family Tachinidae - Parasitic Flies - BugGuide.Net
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Tachinid Flies (Family Tachinidae) · iNaturalist
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Adejeania - Wikipedia
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Tachinid Fly - Adejeania spp.
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Extraordinary diversification of the “bristle flies” (Diptera: Tachinidae) and its underlying causes | Biological Journal of the Linnean Society | Oxford Academic
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General Information about Tachinid Flies
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Tachinidae - Wikipedia
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Adejeania vexatrix · iNaturalist
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Beelike flies hunt hosts for their eggs | Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine Archive | University of Colorado Boulder
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Tachinid Fly - Adejeania vexatrix - North American Insects & spiders
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Adejeania vexatrix - Insects of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem | Montana State University
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Adejeania
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Mont Lassois | Burgundy, France
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Archäozoologie am Mont Lassois - BAR Publishing
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Mont Lassois - Wikipedia
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The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, MONT-LASSOIS (Vix) Côte-d'Or, France.
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Mont Lassois Map - Peak - Vix, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
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Mont Lassois — Welcome at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology
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New archaeological discoveries through magnetic gradiometry: The early Celtic settlement on Mont Lassois, France
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(PDF) New archaeological discoveries through magnetic gradiometry: The early Celtic settlement on Mont Lassois, France
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Mont Lassois: plan of the plateau with associated ramparts and selected... | Download Scientific Diagram
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Vix | Encyclopedia.com
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Insects Associated with Ancient Human Remains: How Archaeoentomology Can Provide Additional Information in Archaeological Studies
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln University of Nebraska - Lincoln
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Ancient DNA preservation, genetic diversity and biogeography: A study of houseflies from Roman Qasr Ibrim, lower Nubia, Egypt - ScienceDirect
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Archaeological aspects of insect use | Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
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(PDF) Paleoentomology: Insects and Other Arthropods in Environmental Archaeology
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A bug’s tale: revealing the history, biogeography and ecological patterns of 500 years of insect introductions | bioRxiv
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7 The Use of Insect Fossils in Archeology - ScienceDirect
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Historical Bugs: Archaeoentomology - JSTOR Daily
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7 The Use of Insect Fossils in Archeology
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Conversation - Insights from Insects - Archaeology Magazine Archive