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Displaying pretext
In Parts One and Two of this review, we have seen how George and Darril Fosty ("the Credulous Fosty Boys") used pseudo-history, ill-defined terms, and pure conjectures to further the wild claims about the ancient origins of hockey. In this concluding part, we'll examine more of their assertions, none of which are supported by any real evidence at all.
Pseudo-history of all kinds
The Credulous Fosty Boys are big believers in the ideas of pre-Columbian European contact with native North Americans. Part of the reason for this is that cultures on both sides of the Atlantic played games involving hitting something with a stick, the archaic definition of hockey. Rather than realizing that the idea of hitting a thing with another thing is really quite basic, and such similarities can be explained by concurrent, independent development. Indeed, perhaps the idea predates the original human migration into the New World some 25,000 years ago. But no, it must be Old World contact with the New, in order to pass on this game of hockey, regardless of the utter lack of evidence for such a thing.
But here, the authors actually try to present evidence for their conjecture. First they note that in his Minor Works, Aristotle (yes, the Aristotle) credits the Phoenicians with the discovery of a large island west of the Pillars of Hercules, which are mountains on each side of Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean. They note that Aristotle states:
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