Undead Naked Archaeology

I've got a theory

2009-08-14T18:45:00.002-05:00

So it turns out I may have misspoke when I wrapped things up, this week saw a little more archaeology for me (well a lot of it in a short amount of time). I got called to help on a CRM gig up here in Wisconsin, which I'll be using to tell stories for the next few days I imagine.

However, before all that I'd like to tell you a little story, well maybe it's an anecdote.

Many people, upon finding out they're talking with an archaeologist, get interested and share their stories and experiences (often in the realm of "my grandpa found XYZ on his farm back on the day"). It is what it is, and I have no complaints about it.

However.

When you hear the phrase "I have a theory" escape their lips there are only two possibilities.

Possibility 1:

Be ready to be impressed, a truism is coming.

Possibility 2:

Be ready to swallow your tongue, the batshit insane is coming.

Yesterday, it was the second option that awaited me. So three of us (Katie, Seth, and I) stayed late at the local bar before heading home (we'd been excavating right out front there), and rather enjoyed ourselves. Driving through the town we were staying at (some 15 miles north) we decided to stop for some dinner. It all went well, the food was good enough, and we were ready to head out when our checks came and the waitress asked us if we were working on the highways project (we were covered in dirt still). It's an area of small towns, so everyone knows what's going on (even things we aren't allowed to talk about). She pinned us in conversation for what had to have been an hour, we couldn't leave...she had our checks! And she talked on and on...about how she was personal friends with Stephen Hawking, the great times she had at Star Trek conventions, etc. etc. She was a little braggy on those points, but still at the edge of toleration.

But, she has a theory.

We're all star seed. Aliens were responsible for all the things that were done in the past (pyramids, Rome, etc etc.) in her words "something had to be the spark of civilization," and something about how god had to have a backup plan so there have to be aliens out there (not sure what that really had to do with star seed). To be honest I don't remember all the examples and proof she had because I was looking very intently at the medical tape on my thumb and twitching, trying not to scream. I nodded a couple of times just wanting her to go. away. Seth at one point had had enough and he finally said something to the effect of "that kind of thinking just doesn't do service to how smart people are, and that they couldn't do those things." Anyhow, that didn't have much of an effect other than to slightly steer the conversation back towards racist anecdote this, Jews that, and on...and on...and on.

I wish I had a theory that people would get so excited about...you know, only uhm. True?

Fin

2009-08-06T15:36:00.002-05:00

So, I'm back in Milwaukee after another more or less successful summer. I gathered (nearly) all the samples that I needed, there was one site however that just would not give up the goods. The site's subsoil wasn't clay (it was sand) and the surrounding area is so urbanized that it's hard to find tributary creeks that 1) exist and 2) aren't lined with concrete. I managed to get a few samples, but they're from the furthest reaches of my limit, so not likely to be of much use. Grr.

Oh, I realized I left out an important aspect of my summer, one that was reflected in "Tick Watch 09" but not illustrated here.

You may recall that I was assaulted by spiders last summer (I believe my field journal reflected my incapacitated nature due to the great spider assault of 08 or something). Well, those spiders apparently migrated after the incident (small wonder, I had disturbed their home). They moved to the woods in [redacted] County, just across from the [redacted] site, a little ways up the [redacted] creek. Hmm, that's a lot of [redacted]. It's still a top secret location, and I'm not really in a position to give away much in the way of details, but I encountered a very helpful landowner and I may be back out in the field briefly this fall to assist him at his property. Anyhow, back to [redacted]. I was tramping through the woods when I discovered all 50 of those goddamn spiders from last year. Rather, I discovered them with my body by flailing through their web, and saw them a few minutes later all over me.

Do you remember the movie Jumanji? Well, you may remember that at one point near the climax the group of intrepid heroes are attacked by cat sized spiders. They looked something like this:

Well, while not the same size, there were about a dozen spiders that looked exactly like this clinging to my body. I think I got away with only a bite or two, but between all the mosquito bites I got in Houston and the Poison Ivy marring my alabaster body it's hard to tell which damage can be attributed to which assailant.

Needless to say, covered with those spiders there was some 12 year old girl-like squealing, some flailing, and shuddering. In fact, I've got the heebie jeebies now just recalling it. I think I'll let this one go for now...

MIA

2009-08-03T15:27:00.003-05:00

So I've been a little MIA, but these things happen.

So my summer is nearly completed, my collections (and funds) are about finished. Hopefully the former outlasts the latter, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There hasn't been anything terribly exciting to discuss (at least that I can discuss here. Uh-oh, that sounds like a teaser!). One more day of hard collecting ought to do it, and then I can be home (maybe even before the weekend, wouldn't that be nice?). It all depends on those last little details (returning equipment, double and triple checking coordinates, etc). It's been a productive summer, but a long one and I really am ready to go home...wherever that is...

I guess I'll put up my final tally on the Tick Watch 09. I managed to stumble into some really nasty poison ivy, and get it between my fingers...which just irritates it more and more and more. It's pretty icky to look at and infuriating to have.

A Hard Day's Day

2009-07-27T17:47:00.002-05:00

Did you ever watch Dexter's Lab as a kid? Well if you did you're familiar with his phrase "Today is a fine day for science." If you're a bit of a nerd for the show you'll also remember the episode where nothing he does works out correctly and he concludes "Today was not a fine day for science." It's quite an entertaining episode.

Today was not a fine day for science after all.

To begin with, I snapped each of my bootlaces (one of them twice). I lost all my maps to a rogue breeze and then the creek before I'd even gathered one sample. Everywhere I looked was either hosed, a town, lacking clay, or the freaking Caesar Creek Dam (which is all sorts of disruption to the landscape). My primary GPS went down. I ran out of batteries for my backup.

And I just realized something really went wonky on one of my data collection trips (as well as some disagreements between my two GPS units). If what I recovered is correct (As near as I can reason out) I'm not in "good" shape, but at least I'm in "not totally fucked" shape. I guess I can redo some of this stuff from a land based survey and get back to where I thought I was (the problem is that I'm starting to run out of time...).

Grr.

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley

2009-07-26T15:52:00.006-05:00

So, I'm finally getting around to reading Ancient Monuments of the Mississippie Valley (Squier and Davis 1848) "for realsies." For the uninitiated, this was the first book published by the Smithsonian, used to kick start American science being taken seriously by the world. It was an attempt at a systematic survey of the mound groups in the US (focusing on Ohio, the Mississippi river, some of the SE and the Upper Midwest). Prior to this I had been content with flipping through it, looking at the maps (and appreciating them as art, if not for their accuracy in description of the earthworks...since 150 year old techniques don't quite measure up and recent ground-truthing has shown the maps to be a little less than accurate at times). Sometimes I'd browse the articles, but if the maps are suspect, the writings are laughable in general.

However, if I take a step back from being concerned about little things like "reality" and "accuracy" and "out-right racism" it really is a remarkable work. Of course I'm just jealous that Squier and Davis were able to explore so much of Ohio before development had totally hosed the sites (although even in Ancient Monuments S&D lament "At the period when the original survey...twelve years ago, the lines could all be made out. A few years hence, the residents upon the spot [Newark, OH] will be compelled to resort to this map, to ascertain the character of the works which occupied the very ground upon which they stand").

The audacity to think that two men, even if they networked with some local enthusiasts, could within a period of 5 years survey the entirety of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and their earthworks, as well as conduct enough excavations to satisfy their questions. Bold times my friends, bold times for bold men. What makes this audacity even more outrageous is that their work stood for fifty years before being challenged (and really is the only resource for many of these sites). Were it not for my inability to generate wealth, I'd say I was born 200 years too late, as I can only wish I were able to work on projects on that sort of scale. While I wouldn't want to give up my tools necessarily (carbon dating, all sorts of methodology, etc.), the opportunity...

Reading the book in that mindset I'm just boggled, baffled, amazed, and astounded. Not just at what they were trying (and failing) to do, but also what "used to be." Ah well, it was just too easy for them...they'd never make it a week out at Wildcat. That's where real men are made.

Oh well. We don't get to choose the times in which we live. Still, I really want to find these things poster sized and get them framed: (click for full size)

The Great Adventure

2009-07-23T19:02:00.005-05:00

With a name like that, you know it's going to be a pretty sweet adventure, right? Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, this will be a wall of text, with little to no photographic relief as my camera has failed me. I'll see what I can do to bring something extra to the mix though, there is one photo, but I hid it at the end to insure that you'd read this entire ordeal. A lot happened in the last two days, I'm running it through the editor in my head now trying to boil it down into a 1 entry piece (even though it probably deserves a 5 part HBO miniseries).

Wed. morning...things start out inauspiciously. I drop the canoe on my hand and cut open my thumb real good. It was raining. And there were these ODOT guys hanging out at the launch point (by the time we met, then set up my car at the base of the route and then got back up to the start point they were still there...2 hours later).

But soon we were on our way, and despite a slight drizzle things went well. Keep that slight drizzle in mind.

There was nothing we couldn't handle, I mean at this point we're pretty serious outdoorsmen. We already have one Miami river under our belts, what could it's "Little" cousin throw us that we couldn't handle? Actually? Nothing.

Clay sampling went smoothly, and we got some good stuff. Actually, we got our absolutely best looking sample (no loam, no sand, beautiful color, texture, etc.) from directly under Fort Ancient (which would put it ~ at the Anderson site, I think...maybe South Fort, there are like eighty sites crammed in there). It would be pretty cool if that proved a positive match to some of my samples. First, just just finding a positive match would be great. Second, that would put it in conjunction with a site from the Hopewell culture (~1500 years before Fort Ancient), which would have interesting implications potentially as well. Also, the Anderson focus, which my sites are a part of, are named for the Anderson site which is in this stretch of the river. It would just be very cool. If nothing else it shows why so many sites are in this area, and just one of the resources that were available in such abundance. Okay, archaeology theorizing over.

So, that night we'd made it some 13 miles into our trek...and it was time to set up camp for the night. Oh, remember that rain that started out the day? Well, it didn't stop all day but for a brief period around lunch (which was actually delicious and dryish). It started to get worse and we decided it would probably be a good time to find a place to pitch our tents.

So we pulled into a canoe ground I'd called the day before (who had said it was cool to just drop in, no reservation required). Some 15 year old prick (who we'd interrupted from playing a mean round of Guitar Hero) informed us that because it was raining they were closed. We explained that yes, we knew it was raining, which was why we would like to get out of the river and set up a camp. He, using small words (because of both our obvious stupidity and the fact that he was high as a kite) explained "but we're closed, it's raining." Ben resisted his urge to ask if there was an adult around we could talk to...but grumpily we realized there was no hope and took his vague directions of some other place a bit further down river. I never realized it would be so hard to give someone my money, not met anyone so unwilling to get paid.

So, as it starts to rain a little harder (though at this point we're drenched to the bone, water proof coats no longer water proof) we continue on a ways. Believe it or not, the little stoner actually had pointed us to a real place.

That was closed.

Grr.

The other option the guy had mentioned was getting a motel in town, which at this point was starting to sound pretty good (even if it turned out to be some flea ridden roach motel). So we decided to stash our canoe across the river (just so in the morning we wouldn't run into any of the livery people and fight over our canoe, and to keep our stuff safe...from thieves running around in the freezing rain). We started to hike into town (some unknown distance some unknown direction from here), we ran across an old codger who Ben politely asked direction to the nearest hotel. We were told "not in this town...nearest one is bout 9 miles away."

Goddamn stoner kid...expecting us to walk 9 miles...

But the man, paused a moment, and asked us if we'd tried the livery and campground just over there (he jabbed a finger over his shoulder). We explained we'd tried but the place was locked up tight, and neither of our cellphones got reception (mine had 4 bars but brazenly told me it was for emergency use only. Apparently my phone decided despite blue lips and constant shivering that this was not an emergency). He told us to wait, and called up the owner, who we were told would meet us back at the place (in ~10 minutes).

Twenty minutes later Ben and I were contemplating canoeing the remaining 10 miles to my car at the end of our run or finding some abandoned stretch of river to hide out in and set up an illicit camp. Ben was about a minute from never speaking to me again.

Then Mike came up and saved our lives. Mike, pulled up in his van told us to get in before we froze to death so we could talk over the options. He explained he didn't have any dry ground, but we said it didn't matter, just someplace to set up our tents. Mike immediately dismissed that idea and told us about his buddy who was just getting a Bed and Breakfast ready to open in the next week, and he'd take us there and he'd "work out a deal." So with only a little skepticism in our minds (at this point...yeah, lots of skepticism seeing how the day had turned out) we said we'd check it out (I think I was half expecting a roof with no walls or something).

It turns out that Mike was the Mayor of this town (Morrow, Ohio), and a really nice guy. His buddy, J.P. had set up a little ice cream shop and was opening the bed and breakfast next door. The Ice Cream shop was called Miranda's Ice Cream. With the new B&B it would be called "Miranda's Ice Cream (& suites)." Which is pretty clever I think.

J.P was a life saver. The place had just finished up and they'd set everything up just the other day for photographs. He's an incredibly nice guy, who let us be his first guests, though standing in this nice, new, clean, room dripping wet with rain and mud I felt like a real schmuck. He and his wife got some things in order (getting the coffee set up, the fridge plugged in (not that we used it) and filling the soap dispensers, taking the tags off the shower...like I said JUST finished renovating), and the Mayor ensured us a good deal, and we had the best night of camping set up (cable TV and everything!).

The man had a dryer he let us use, so our "canoeing clothes" weren't soaking wet in the morning (heaven!). The shower was hot (heaven!), and Ghost Hunters/Monster Quest were on TV (amazing). Ben and I ate dinner at the ice cream shop (they make a decent burger, although the girls working the counter (JPs daughters) were giggling the whole time. I guess it's not every day two scientists (at least one of them smoking hot) are saved from certain death by their father. Oh! I forgot the best part!

When Mike introduced us to JP he did by saying "Hey, these are two scientists working on the river, and they need a place to stay." That is the first time in my life I've ever been introduced as such (aside from a friend joking around), it was pretty darn cool. (Being cold and miserable we hadn't resorted to our usual dog and pony show of being vague about our real task...saying "I'm doing archaeology" just ends up opening a can of worms, so it's easier to say "I'm doing a soil survey" which is technically true, but no one is interested in so lets us go on without incident)

Anyhow, Miranda's Ice Cream, in Morrow, OH. If you're ever out that way check them out, I'm more than willing to give them a glowing review, and I'll definitely look them up next time I'm out that way in Ohio (it's a little town ("not quite Mayberry, but close") along the river and bike trail) .

Miranda's Ice Cream

Well, Mike, the Mayor, drove us back to our canoe in the morning and Ben and I were back on our way. He was a very nice guy, who gave us each a poncho (sort of as a joke reminding us to stay out of the rain like normal people do), some really helpful information, his cell number, and an offer to help us out with outfitting any future trips. He'll definitely be getting a copy of this when all is said and done (not that he'd be interested specifically in the finer workings of clay, but he did express gratitude that people were doing research and utilizing the river as a natural resource, and not something to exploit, he's proud that he and J.P. are the (unfortunately) only two guys in town doing the tourism/scenic river business).

I can't believe how lucky we got...a series of improbable events led us to having a really good evening, met some really nice and helpful people (who might even be contacts/partners/resources Ben and I can use in the area for any future work). One of the two of us owes lady luck some human sacrifices in the very near future. Probably me, but I kept telling Ben, he just has to stick with me, I'll take care of him.

Well the rest of the day went smooth as silk, we got our samples, had an easy day of paddling and got home nice and early. So, what does sampling along the Little Miami look like (in comparison to the sampling you saw along the Great Miami earlier?)

Something like this:

This is the only picture we got on this trip, it's just with my cell phone camera, so it's not that great. It had stopped raining today so we fished it out after I got up there since it seemed photo-worthy. It's hard to tell exactly but that's a 100 foot cliff if it's a foot. Okay, maybe 20 feet. Anyhow, so I'm clinging to the edge of this cliff when Ben takes this picture. Thirty seconds later the scree gives way and I was sent hurtling down the cliff face. I hugged the wall like they say you're supposed to in order to redistribute your weight...but I just ended up with dirt in my mouth, and my hands torn to hell.

The wost part is I didn't get the clay, it was another couple feet out of my reach when things collapsed. Oh well. That's your sweet archaeology in action shot for the day. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Terrible News

2009-07-21T17:06:00.003-05:00

My camera, loyal companion through thick and thin...

is no more.

It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a late camera. It's a stiff. Bereft of life it rests in peace. Its electronic processes are of interest only to archaeologists. It's hopped the twig. It's shuffled off this mortal coil. It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It...is an ex-camera.

It is very sad, and I'm not looking forward to buying a new one (even though it wasn't terribly expensive, still...I'd rather keep the 90 bucks in my pocket, you know?)

In archaeological news today was "Thank goodness my father made me work construction with him" day. Backfill day. Bobcat day. Spent 4 hours tearing around the site returning the site (more or less) the way we found it. You know...except for the giant packed dirt areas it looks pretty much the same. I'd do a photo comparison, but ... my camera you see.

My hands still feel like they're vibrating.

Tomorrow Ben and I have a 2 day canoe trip down the Little Miami for clay gathering. Yes, in 14 short hours we'll hoist the jolly roger and terrorize those fair waters. Yarrrrr.

The Mighty Miami? Tamed.

2009-07-16T18:03:00.014-05:00

Today Ben and I set forth from Sunwatch down the Miami. Adventure? Charted. Science? Plotted. Adventures were had, data was collected. Science? We took science by the horns and broke it, tamed it, made it ours.

Everything started tranquilly enough. We dropped the canoe in, and right away had a sample to gather. Bingo. Easy as pie. What could possibly go wrong after this auspicious start? (ignore the fact that this was in fact our second time at this bank...we'd forgotten to lock the car, and so 15 minutes down river had to paddle against the current...and after 15 minutes of no clay decided to grab some clay right at the start point, which we had passed by the first time)

In all honesty things went pretty well for a while. There wasn't much clay unfortunately, lots of the Miami's banks are covered with concrete debris (like those highway dividers) apparently making "stone" shorelines is considered a normal way to dispose of this sort of garbage. For a chunk of the time we were right next to the interstate, which wasn't a particularly nice place to canoe, but we started off away from it, in a nice peaceful zone, then swung towards it, then away again. Only once did we choose to explore a "tributary" or "non-main" channel around a cool little island in the morning. We chose...poorly. It turned out to NOT be an island, but rather a peninsula, so we had to backtrack 100 yards or so out of the little pool into the main stream.

At that point we'd left 75 behind, and there were good pockets of clay to gather, rather...not as many pockets to gather from, but lots of potential areas not covered with concrete debris.

Look at that poise! That skill! Look at me test the soil for clay, and then take a sample! (or at least prepare to take a sample in these photos) Have you ever seen anything like it?

In seriousness, this is the only way to do science. What a wonderful, and relaxing, method of data collection. Sure we didn't cover the 11 miles in 15 minutes like we would have by car, but you can't beat the experience (plus for the "good science brigade" we saw far more clay deposits than we could have from a car, we were able to access otherwise inaccessible points, and this would have been a possible method of traveling to clay sources utilized by the Fort Ancient). All in all...giant win for science.

But the Great Miami wasn't going to let us get off easy. Oh no. There was more in store for your intrepid explorers.

That's right...we were getting into the territory of the dreaded Danger Dam. We entertained the idea of just hitting ramming speed and gunning it, but decided against it. (we had previously utilized ramming speed for hitting the beaches, just like marines do it of course)

It was probably a good idea.

You may notice that from here on out the photographs kind of...uhm. Stop. Well, let me explain why my camera is (at least temporarily) out of commission.

There we were, at about noontime. The Great Miami? More like the pansy-ami river. We'd taken anything it could throw at us (like uhm...the time we ran out of water and had to push). Little did we know that the Nelson Narrows lay ahead of us. Ben had decided (now pay attention, this is important) to grab a bit to eat while we cruised down the river. As he was about halfway through his sandwich we had a choice to make, left or right around this little sand and gravel shoal...we chose the way that was more than 3 inches deep.

Well, it turns out the reason there wasn't so much gravel was the current here was pushing it away, but I discovered my natural ability to navigate rivers. "Stay right! We'll hit a good channel away from rocks!" That sort of thing. We sluiced through fairly well, Ben even had time to take a few more bites of his sandwich (I was looking forward to reversing roles and having my own sandwich as soon as he finished). Then...something went horribly wrong. I called that we needed to stay right, because the current was pushing us straight at this tree that had grown sideways out of the bank about a foot off the water. Somehow, despite the furious paddling which had served us so well for the previous slaloms, our efforts failed to save us.

We managed to turn and keep the canoe more or less straight as we barreled through the narrows and straight into the tree. As the bow slammed the trunk I managed to dive backwards so the tree (more or less) passed over me. For a moment I thought we were in the clear. Then Ben caught the tree, sandwich in hand, full in the face. For a moment we hung there as the water rushed past and the tree held our canoe still. Then the inevitable happened, the current pulled us slightly askew, and then with that little toehold pulled us completely sideways and dumped us over.

The good news was that the water was pretty pleasant, and pretty refreshing. My life jacket turned out to be the best 30bucks I ever spent, as I easily bobbed clear of the tree and dodged our now riderless canoe as it shot past me. And then my backpack shot past me. And then my lunch box. At about this time I was kicking my foot clear of the a limb that had come free with our canoe...then I suddenly realized that 20 pages of data collection were bobbing along the stream in my bag.

As I scrambled after my notes, hauling my bag free from the water and trying to toss it (20 extra pounds of water and all) onto a gravel shoal I saw Ben float past me, feet first, on his back, popping the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. It had stayed dry, and he had stayed cool and kept his priorities in order.

Well we gathered up all of our stuff (luckily it all floated), pulled the ol' SS Nelson upright and set back down the river. I ate my lunch, which had floated (I didn't know that it did that), and it was all good, although Ben got a scratch on his forehead, that we really hope turns into a gnarly scar, with an equally gnarly story. I thought I came through clean, but apparently I caught a tree branch on my arm as I noticed it was all torn up when I got home.

Now this is why my camera is down. It only got a tiny bit wet, but it was enough to (I hope) only ruin the batteries, the card still worked, I just hope I can get it to turn on again with new AAs. The problem is that THIS is the incident I really want pictures of...oh well.

Things went pretty well after that really, although we had to stop collecting clay as we 1) were coming to the edge of my research area of 7km from Sunwatch and 2) all my paper was wet so I couldn't write on it.

We did hit one more rough patch, Schulenburg Shoot. This time, we hit the rapids perfectly, found a deep spot, and were on top of our steering....at least until a submerged rock knocked us sideways. Once more we were at the mercy of the current, until Ben barked a crisp command "Marcus, get down!" And I threw myself to the bottom of the boat, stabilizing us with a lower center of balance and we managed to steer (backwards) through the last attempt of the Mighty Miami to defeat science.

But no, science may experience setbacks, she may unexpectedly capsize, but science can not be stopped.

My god I love my job.

My very own field work!

2009-07-15T18:36:00.007-05:00

Alright, photos or narrative? It's always such a delicate balance. How's this...I'll give you a quick narration of the last 3 days and then some photos to illustrate my more exciting stories.

You already know the most exciting stuff, right? I collected from some of the nastiest backwaters I can imagine Monday. Tuesday actually wasn't nearly as bad as I got further from the more developed sections of Hamilton. Unfortunately those are my low probability samples...apparently the same things that attracted the Fort Ancient to Hamilton attracted Ohioans to the area as well. It's almost as if there are common human needs or something. Nah. That sounds heretical.

Anyhow, Tuesday I polished off Butler County, and today I moved on up into Montgomery County and got all my inland samples surrounding the Sunwatch site. Tomorrow Ben and I are off on a little adventure to collect samples from the river proper.

I ran across all sorts of enchanting places...from the picturesque to the grotesque. And collected from them all. The clay is showing a surprising amount of variation, at least in its raw form, it will be interesting to see how it compares when I get it into the lab.

So three days down, and I'm doing alright I'd say, probably a "B" so far, but I'm learning as a go, getting better at identifying what's actually clay, where it's likely to be, and how to get at it. So without further ado...photographs.

Apparently I was supposed to collect here. It's not far from a site, it's at a confluence of the Miami and a tributary...but apparently there's been some modern alteration of the landscape. Concrete isn't a natural deposit I'm thinking.

However, just across the canal there was some (relatively) undisturbed bank left from which to gather a sample. (The photo is boring, it's of grass and mud...I won't bore you with that).

This is just a typical looking cut bank. Nothing special for all of you guys, but to me? This is a wonderful wonderful thing. Look at all that exposed clay (the gray stuff, not the yellow, that's sand...oh and the big rock shaped things that are approximately rock sized are in fact, rocks).

I apparently had placed one of my collection points here, the calm, serene, Rosehill memorial. I decided it would probably be frowned upon to go tramping around looking for someplace to dig a hole. Respect for the dead and all that. I instead skirted the property line and did my work outside. Letter of my ethical qualms, if not the spirit, right?

Taking a picture of yourself while hanging from a tree into a river is a lot harder than you might think. Actually, just lowering yourself down to the clay on a sheer bank isn't that bad to collect clay, but I was hoping I could get a picture showing how impressive I was making it look easy. The loss of a hand makes me look totally incompetent. Ah well, these are the lengths I go to in order to impress, err, please, you people.

My picture of the immense cliff didn't turn out well, or I'd post that as well. Rest assured my friends, it was 3 meters if it was an inch. Okay, it was exactly 3.1m. I know this because of my notes. Yay science! Ah well, you get the picture. I grabbed a leaning tree and lowered myself down until I could jump. To get out I carved some hand and foot holds in the clay and loam (yay trusty trowel!) and scrambled up. That I wish I had pictures of...instead, you'll have to use your imaginations.

Tomorrow, the voyage of a lifetime begins!

Oh! P.S!

I almost forgot Touchdown Jesus! Cruising down 75 between Cinci and Dayton if you look off the highway you will see, as I did, this!

Sorry it's just a cell phone out the window...but you get the idea.

Goooooaaaallll!!!

To be continued

2009-07-14T18:26:00.001-05:00

So, I forgot to bring my camera...or take the pictures off of them before heading out to the library today.

In short:

No falling into creeks (good!)

No nasty smelly watershed (double plus good!)

16 mile canoe trip planned for Thursday...uncertain as to the goodness within

Ohio's rivers are flammable...never forget that

2009-07-13T19:59:00.003-05:00

No pictures today, sorry...

I was mucking around in creeks, rivers, and random watersheds today in Butler County in my eternal quest to find clay sources. Well, during the course of this I kind of sort of fell into this random creek. Not totally head over heels of course, just a turned ankle, and my legs wet to my knees (and arms up to my elbows as a scrambled out).

Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem. After all, it's summer, I dried out quickly, and who wouldn't want a nice refreshing plunge into aqua pura while working outside?

I should set the scene for you...and I mean no offense to anyone who lives in Butler County, or its county seat (Hamilton). However, this was the filthiest stretch of water that I've ever seen (not just the Miami proper, but the tributaries too). When the water catches in a little rock pile it foams this disgusting yellow color in places. There is so much trash in this thing that I could probably have build myself a raft and canoed down the length (minus a portage over the dam).

I found this lovely little park nestled just above the dam, you know...one of those quaint parks right next to the historic downtown area. Only...this was somehow different. The smell emanating from this park is worse than anything I've smelled in various parts of Milwaukee, Chicago, or Columbus (I'm talking alleys and stuff...not parks). Along the various party pads (areas cleared of weeds and littered with trash, ashes, etc.) I found a pair of men's underwear...large men's underwear. Skidmarks? You betcha! Thank god I didn't fall in right around there...I'd have gone straight to a hospital if I had.

People are just disgusting...I'll never understand the compulsion to just toss your shit in the water, as if that just makes it all go away (until you get dysentery from the water that is).

As I write this it's getting worse, the aches are starting. Bedtime I guess. (Let's take wagers on what strange disease I'll get this year...I'll start the bidding at...uhm...well I guess I shouldn't be allowed to guess, I have an advantage as I know all my minor symptoms).

El finito (that's Spanish for 'the finito')

2009-07-10T16:47:00.007-05:00

Well, it seems we can lay to rest the 'cat. Three summers and we seem to have enough information to (start) answering the questions we've had. I can't say I'm sad to finally write it off...but there's still a little twinge...just a little tug. I learned a lot about archaeology in that field, and hopefully it'll stay protected (although that's pure sentimentality speaking...not scientific judgement). But all things must come to an end...so it's off to other things in the coming weeks. We're taking the show on the road, so to speak. We're going to hit a couple of other sites, doing a bit of minor work at them and I'll have time to run off and do my own thing.

Fare thee well Wildcat.

July 8th Part II (electric boogaloo)

2009-07-08T18:43:00.004-05:00

Okay, Background photography completed. If you somehow don't have a feel for where I am...well, I could say something mean to you...but instead I'll offer a "ask me a question, I'll see if I can answer it" deal.

So, what was I up to today?

Zen of course. (I'm all about the zen of archaeology)

It all started with a nice little blobby stain of dark soil (with carbon and those sorts of goodies distinguishing it). Inspection of the area revealed...well, I'm not sure quite what to call it. It's some sort of "heat altered" rock. It's been turned red and shiny (as heating quartz-like stones tends to do) and it's very brittle. The large stuff will crumble if you poke at it wrong.

Some digging revealed the area was bound by this heavy gravel lens...which thanks to some sand and clay had turned to cement. This seemed like a pretty good natural level, it was (more or less) bowl shaped, with some golf ball sized "heat altered" rocks peeping through/embedded in the stuff. There wasn't any carbon or anything "featurey" in the gravel so it was let be...and by noon I had this:

Not much to look at, but an acceptable basin sort of thing.

Poking and prodding beyond the apparent boundary didn't reveal anything featurey in the gravel. In fact, there wouldn't be anything cultural about that were it not for the strange manner of the gravel concretion, and what was under it...

As it turns out those little ping pong ball sized rocks were just a couple nodules of something else...my own personal rock garden:

In a brief explanation of what didn't show up in the picture: jus to the left of center is a rock running ~ left to right. Well, there's an odd stain running to the right and down of that (it forms the slope of the basin) and connects to a small cobble. That's actually the "inside" of the rock, but it's disintigrating pretty badly, so it looks like the surrounding gravel lens. To compound the "huh what?" part of this conglomeration of now very large "heat altered" stones...I'm pretty sure that the two very large ones in the middle of the picture, just to the left of center are actually one huge rock. Also, I think that "line of rocks" going up the left hand side to the top large-ish rock are in fact connected to that top large-ish rock. I'm not entirely unconvinced that this is in fact just one boulder.

Anyhow, my off the cuff interpretations aside (and let's stress that they're just spur of the moment conclusions...which I often make as ridiculous as possible, because it's more fun to do, even if it only is barely based in reality...although in this case i'm not being too ridiculous) this is a nice complex maze of rocks, some clay, and lots of pea gravel and the weird cement-like stuff. I was getting pretty frustrated with it all until I realized: it is the nature of Wildcat to not give up her secrets. The only secrets worth knowing are the ones worth protecting. So muttering other faux zen mantras to myself I just relaxed in my rock garden poking around (and dulling both of my trowels...which reminds me, I should at least pretend to have an edge on them tomorrow).

Photographs: The continuing saga (July 8th update Part I)

2009-07-08T18:09:00.002-05:00

Right, I left off yesterday with some general background, but not many specifics. I'll try to finish that stuff off tonight, as well as getting caught up with the activities. Festivities? Nah, probably not. It's a good crew (small), but it's not quite reaching the "every day is a party" stage. Science: serious business.

Anyhow.

I'll begin with the summer of 2007. A fine summer. A fairly cool summer (if memory serves). And a summer filled with "that guy." We all know "that guy," so I won't go into too much detail. To this day his spirit lives on in all of us, motivating us and lightening our souls. Ben declared that in 20 years he'll still be shouting "Get on!" and windmilling his arms. No one will know why he's doing that…but he will. And he'll laugh.

Anyhow, that summer we did a 20m grid on the top half of the field (and a small peninsula down to the bottom quarter) not that those details matter to you. Anyhow, here's one of our old shovel tests. What…you can't see it? It's right there! I mean, it's so obvious that there's no way while thrashing through waist high weeds I could have missed it, stepped in it and turned my ankle, right? Actually it's just a demonstration of how the weeds have come roaring back, even though this section was mowed last year, and the year before…and actually back in 2006 during the first Topo survey/Mag reading/Total Station run

Here's what it probably looked like in 2007:

Anyhow, the year of the shovel tests was good…we plopped down a couple of 2x2s, hit a couple features (juicy stuff, enough to keep an intrepid field student or two excited about the prospects of archaeology). Searching through my archives: a bell shaped pit from 2007 (1.3 m deep). Look at it. Revel in its bell-like nature.

While that's really cool in a "stuff" sense ("Gotta get the stuff! Gotta get it out!" – that guy), we're post hole fishing now, trying to finish off a couple of structures that we caught the middle of…but no edges on…in our trenches from 08. So my life is all about these (no, not the plow scar, the other thing…):

Exciting stuff, eh? Okay, while not visually exciting, or filled with "stuff" it's actually pretty darn cool, and I'm enjoying the game of trying to piece together these little dark circles (when they're real posts, and not rodent runs) to make some sort of structure. As a side note, you can kind of see the clay and gravel mixture here that makes things so wonderful, although none of the famous Wildcat Magnetic Cobbles are visible. The store just up the hill has been tremendously helpful, they've let us borrow all sorts of stuff (like sprayers, a couple years running they lent us an ATV to haul stuff), and have just been everything we could hope for. Every once in a while when we stop in for a drink, or supplies, or whatever, one of the clerks who recognizes us will ask us how it's going. The other day Ben and I (rather excitedly actually) explained that we'd found a series of posts holes. The man stopped…and after a second of thought responded "Post holes? Like what I dig for my fence?" The underlying text being: Really? That's it? Damn kids…get a real job!

Oh, here are the remains of a 2008 trench (filled in by yours truly: The Bobcat-driving, backfilling, bad ass). It's kinda cool how the plants grew back so differently where we backfilled…you can still pick out the 2x2s from 2007 and 2008, as well as the old trenches. (The trench is the strip of tall weeds with the white tops). I'm standing just at the edge of the newly growing forest and the old slash underground creek looking back up the hill.

I can't wait to see what our uber deep trench (okay, uber deep for us…to the OSHA limits or so) will look like in the future… (yes, the datum line is sagging and the floor dirty…but we finished with the trench a while back, it's kind of dilapidated now, just waiting to be backfilled). Look at that awesome break from the A to the B. Although, from this angle you can't see the other cool layers within the subsoil…but I didn't figure you wanted a profile picture with all the stratigraphy illustrated.

Oh, on a side note, I came across some odd tracks in the field…I wonder if it was a deer or something…

can deer drive 30 ton bright yellow front end loaders?

Okay, that's pretty much all I've got…some quick background is all done, a brief update on what we're working on (but none of the top secret stuff of course…after all, it's top secret…let's just say we've got proof of a radical Fort Ancient deer domestication program, it's undisputable…very exciting stuff, going to rewrite every book ever written. We've got top men working on it. What men? Top. Men.)

Photo-Assault!

2009-07-07T17:54:00.013-05:00

Right, so I finally have some pictures to share from Wildcat. They're going to be sort of a lot here, as I've got a couple weeks of catching up to do. (pictures are below the description, cuz I didn't feel like making my beautiful wit and wonderful description a mere caption) Oh, and if they're too small to see, click on them and it'll take you to the ginormous images...

First: The setting. You can't start movie without establishing the setting can you?

It's not the easiest to tell from here, but I'm one terrace down from the "top" of the ridges lining the Miami Valley north of Dayton. (The next terrace up is a bunch of strip malls, so it's hard to see anything). I'll hunt around for a better angle, but you can kind of see the drop off to the valley floor, even though it's obscured by a treeline, but more specifically you can see the other side of the valley rising back up. Why yes, that is an interstate, why do you ask? Isn't it scenic? It's not a huge valley or anything, but hey...that's the topography, I can only describe it as it is...Wildcat isn't on the bottom terrace, it's a ways up (vertically) from the Miami River, although the creek that runs along the treeline parallels the Miami for ~5km before finally joining it.

Alright, skewing our view straight down the hill you'll see "Goose Mountain" as the rise just left of center...and a sporting goods store one terrace down from me (these were at one point natural terraces, but of course now they've been developed and highly modified).

From the edge of the next terrace you can look past the treeline and see a clearing (we'll see in a moment that the term "clearing" is being used generously here). Goose Mountain is off to the left now, and you can see a backdirt pile peeking over the treeline. One of many dirt piles.

Okay, and here we are entering the field proper. This was last plowed in ~2003, and aside from random patches we've mowed in the last 3 years it's been left to overgrow free from interference. Another dirt pile is there to the right (actually I was working just to the other side of it all day). The treeline there is ~200m away (If I can remember how that whole Pythagoras thing works).

What's this? A new image from Mars? A false color image from the moon and the new Lunar orbiter? Nope. Wildcat dirt after ~ an hour of exposure to the sun. Words can not express how absolutely terrible this soil is. Moments after exposure and it turns into concrete (the sand/clay and gravel mix is actually not too terribly different from the mixture in a bag of ready-mix). It can soak up water like a beast (as I mentioned earlier) with little effect...when Wildcat gets tired with that trick the water will turn it into a gooey sticky paste that's totally unscreenable. Apparently the soil is so rocky/horrible that not even 5 years of sludge injections were able to make it fertile (info courtesy of Kat Sterner and her brave foray into land use research). The rule of thumb is: if you can work with the dirt...you're in the wrong place. Unfortunately a preliminary survey shows that this abundant clay isn't even that good for use in ceramics (after some cleaning and lots of water I got it to "barely adequate" for working), which is an interesting result to begin my project.

Hmm, I don't want to go into too much more right now, this post is plenty long. I will however end with a picture of me standing where the subterranean river now flows...down where they've let the forest try to reclaim the field. (This picture is kind of staged, since I'm not really working down there anymore, but I did so at the start of the year. Also shown: The Green Bandanna of Revolution (tm) my awesome hat alternates with the headband). That's not the largest/densest of the growth at the base of the hill, but that's where I took the picture, so sorry for your loss.

I love my job.

Three.

2009-07-03T17:07:00.000-05:00

There's an old commercial I'm sure you're all familiar with, a plucky young lad saunters up to a turtle, a Tootsie Pop in hand, and asks the quite elderly (and presumably wise through his years) turtle just how many licks it takes to reach the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop. The clearly senile turtle is unable to provide an answer, offering to push the problem off to the next animal in the woods. Undaunted our young hero plows ahead, asking that next animal, the owl...the WISE owl. We are, I am sure, all familiar with the mythical wisdom found in these feathered avians. The owl, in a moment of Gallilean inspiration, suggests they try some experimentation and record the results. Unfortunately this inspiration was quickly corrupted by some spirit similar Andrew Wakefield and the owl fudges his results yielding the unsatisfactory answer of "three" leaving our young hero depressed and now Tootsie Pop-less. In a VH-1 "Behind the Music" we of course found out that this young champion of the search for truth lost his way and ended his life on the streets giving handjobs at stoplights to score drugs. (You may have seen Nick Swardson's interpretation of this fallen hero on Reno 911).

So what on earth does this have to to with archaeology?

Well, you may be wondering how many gallons of water it takes to make the soil at Wildcat somewhat manageable. Today, Ben and I...inspired by the spirit of this young man decided to test it (we discared the notion of selling our bodies at the stoplight). Oh, we were also inspired from the marching orders we received from Dr. Cook...but that's hardly relevant, now is it? Why would you bring that up. Anyhow, there's no hose to reach from the Gander Mountain store to our site (that would be a LOT of hose). However, we did have a handcart...and 8 5-gallon buckets. So we filled the buckets...wrestled our now dangerously overloaded cart to the hill...then fought against gravity to lower the cart down the hill without running me over. To cut to the chase we did have to carry each bucket by hand over a final jumble of boulders and rocks. All in all it was an epic struggle, and all in the name of answering this simple question...how many buckets does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a site?

The answer...to drench a 4x12m area is roughly 150 gallons of water. (For those of you scoring at home that's approximately 1300 pounds of water). Of course we only had enough time after several of these trips to clean trowel a 2x12 strip...hopefully some moisture is left after the weekend in the troweled segment (hah!)

Never fear nameless hero... we have carried your spirit into the 21st century and have not fallen prey to the antics of the purportedly wise owl.

Ready To Go...?

2009-07-01T18:31:00.000-05:00

So, I've spent the evening going over some maps, work from the prior semester, and tearing my hair out fighting with ARCGIS...and I should be ready to begin some sampling at Wildcat tomorrow (and the surrounding terrain) for my thesis. I've got some 16 points marked and ready to go, hopefully at least 9 turn out...any fewer than that and I'll be a bit unhappy with my chances of getting match.

Have I mentioned my thesis? I'm sure I probably have...but the down and dirty:

Sampling possible clay sources at a selection of Fort Ancient sites within the Miami Valley and comparison with collections of sherds. The goal: determine where individual sites were gathering their raw materials (in this case clay) and how ceramics traveled throughout the region (recreating a portion of their economy I suppose you could say: ceramics from creation to consumption to deposition (I couldn't think of a good word that started with "c" there)). I'll start at Wildcat because 1) I know have the greatest familiarity with the site and surrounding landscape 2) I won't be mucking up someone else's site if I screw up 3) I won't get lost driving to some of the more distant collection points (and I know where the actual site is) and 4) it's better to have a test run in comfortable conditions, yeah?

I'm pretty excited to give this a shot tomorrow, and of course if we don't have time I'm going to be very disappointed. Oh well, I'm finally (I think) ready...at least I guess. Right about now all that doubt is creeping in ("Am I really there? Am I actually good enough? I sure don't feel smart enough to be doing the thesis thing..."). Ah well, I guess all that's left to do is take the plunge... (is it just me or does life seem to be a series of plunges?)

Have you seen a bright yellow 30 ton machine come through here?

2009-06-29T17:42:00.000-05:00

Digging today, as we actually do from time to time, we noticed a cop car stopped at a break in the treeline at the edge of the field. Odd. Then we noticed the cop making his way though the gap towards us. A couple seconds later a second member of Dayton's finest stepped out of the other gap in the tree line, effectively cutting off any easy route of escape, those dastardly do-gooders!

After the requisite tough-guy questioning "who did you ask to dig out here" (as if there were some great plot involving the three of us to secretly dig a series of very large very shallow holes on the sly) and getting confirmation that Cemex knew we were there we learned the story: they were looking for witnesses to the crime of the century.

Overnight someone stole one of Cemex's front end loaders, demolished a 60x60ft building and then took off. Unfortunately we were not at the field overnight, so didn't see this crime (nor, for that matter could we have seen it in any matter because the Cemex facilities are somewhere way off through the forest and I've never seen any of their operation until today). Equally unfortunately I was having a very difficult time keeping a straight face because while this may have been thus far the crime of the century...it's also pretty amusing. It appears that they found the front end loader, because a couple hours later one cut through the field and hightailed it off along the access road.

In a not-as-amusing note, the one cop (the younger one) spent the entire "interview" (if you will) with his hand resting on his pistol. Two things struck me about this: first of all really? Even after we've moved past "we weren't here at 2am" and into "what do you find out here?" conversation that is pretty inevitable he kept...what? Trying to subtly indicate that he had the power? Odd. But equally dismaying was that as he approached the possible evil doers his hand was on his pistol, and not his taser or mace.

Ben and I have a theory that there's no way this is an inside job, nono, it had to have been the work of the marijuana cigarette smokers in Dayton (the police claim that they've pretty much dealt with the coke and heroin problem, so the recent uptick in murders must be the result of marijuana).

(vroom vroom! Outta my way I'm committing the crime of the century!)

Frankie Says:

2009-06-29T17:07:00.001-05:00

Relax.

It was a pretty low key, yet productive day. We now have a cart thingie with a large sprayer in the back. So we're able to soak our blocks pretty thoroughly (still no tarp to cover it all up though, which is a little counterproductive). Stuff popped out a little better, but it's still rather sparse, which is still okay. The coolest part of all this, if you like, is the cart. It's meant to be hitched to a 4x4 or something, which we don't have access to, so we pull it by hand. It's not quite arranged correctly to pull comfortably as there's always a heel or knee being tagged by the handle. Anyhow, we basically use it like a rickshaw, which provides me much amusement as I do my impersonation of a rickshaw driver. I just wish we had a second one so that a low speed chase could ensue (kind of in a Hong Kong Fooey sense).

Post holes seems to be all we're seeing, no big pits or anything. Ah well, that's the nature of the beast.

It's so hot out

2009-06-26T18:41:00.000-05:00

How hot is it?

It's so hot out that our tarps were melting. Mmm melty plastic-y gooey artifacts! I'm not actually joking, or griping. Honest injun' I looked at one of the tarps we'd put out when we went to lunch and in the 30 minutes (okay, hour...or 2) the edges had turned into a sticky tar-like substance. As plastic is a petroleum product, I can probably call it "tar" and not just "tar-like."

Machine stripped the site today, and things went pretty smoothly in fact. Found a series of stains where we'd expect them based on previous excavations, although not as many as we'd hoped/feared. While on the face of things that is rather disappointing, it should make the summer more manageable, and in a selfish sense give me more time to track down mud.

Burn motherf***er burn

2009-06-24T16:53:00.001-05:00

So it was (almost) dry enough for me to get back to work today, so I proceeded to start some more testing on the bottom of the hill. In case you missed it before, if there is one bright shining point to the Wildcat site...it's the bottom of the field. It's where the good stuff is.

I'm more convinced that ever that there is a (not-so) dry creek bed there hidden under the weeds. Actually, I'd guess that the no-name creek that forms the west boundary used to run right through here...and still does to some extent underground. I should remind you that when I mention a "subterranean river" I'm not referring to some picturesque cavern or grotto you can go cave diving in, this seems to be water that continues to seep through some of the loose soil a couple feet below the surface. I think that "seep" is a good word, I should use it more often.

Anyhow, I'd like to share my final shovel test of the day, or at least the notes. "Displaced 5m to the west due to still active snake burrow. Flooded out at 30cmbs." Yes, I got sent running screaming and flapping my arms like a flightless bird trying to take off while diving deeper into the weeds due to a snake nest popping out snakes at me. When I'd composed myself and got back to work I managed to find my missing river. It was a relief actually, I hadn't seen much of my river (can I name it the Marcus Subterranean Creek?) all day, but thankfully the snakes put me back on track.

Hmm, it sounds like I'm just bitching. I'll try to cut that out (I'm still a little overheated/dehydrated, so my sense of humor is a little wonky). In all honesty being chased by snakes (and no I didn't wrangle these or check to see what kind they were. They weren't garter snakes and they were longer than my forearm) to end my pretty miserable day was pretty funny. I really think a good fire would make this field a whole lot more manageable. Unfortunately swidden archaeology (as I've branded it) has yet to catch on with the mainstream establishment yet. I can't see what could possibly go wrong with razing a field for science.

Summer 2009

2009-06-23T09:26:00.000-05:00

Right. So another new year out at Wildcat. If you've never been to Dayton, there just aren't enough words in the English language to describe it. It's hot, it's so humid as to be damp, and it doesn't really smell too nice. Hmm, a hot, sweaty, stinking...I'll let you decide which body part is the best analogy for this...

Okay, complaining about Dayton aside.

The field is pretty much the way I left it last year, which is good. I'd post pictures, but my camera is acting all weird on me. I'll see if I can't get it working again and get something up here. But the upshot is: the weeds are waist high (and growing like...uhm...weeds...thanks to all the rain in the last few weeks), I can't see the poison ivy through all the cover, and the humidity/dew means I'm soaked to my thighs by the time I get anywhere. It's awesome.

Nothing too much exciting has been going on yet: chased out some anomalies on the far side of the field. As expected, three 2x2s later, they're just a pile of magnetic rocks, likely dumped while the gravel company leveled a road just outside the field.

Wildcat, if I haven't told you before, is on a ridge overlooking the Miami Valley. We're located just one terrace down from the top, and the field slopes towards a small no-named creek. The site, predictably, is at the top of the slope, with the bottom being choked with marshy grasses and some young trees that are trying to reclaim the field now that it's not being plowed. I'm supposed to be spending this week, and last week too, trying to get a handle on the stratigraphy of the lower half of the field. However, it's been raining, and the marshy area is...well...marshy. All the shovel tests have been filling with water, which makes drawing a profile very difficult. So I've been pacing off the units, sticking my shovel in the ground, getting flooded, and wandering off to the next unit, trying to find some high ground to get something done. As I'm updating this at 10:30, you can tell how useful that's been.

Facts, Lies, and Lawsuits

2009-04-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

Well, Jared Diamond apparently forgot to do the whole "fact check" thing in his latest article. Well, that's not exactly true...he just made stuff up out of thin air.

http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-149.php

Diamond of course uses generalizations, and some poor anthropology in his books, but that's a world of difference away from this situation. I'm not the most rabid anti-Diamond anthropologist you'll ever meet (or at least I wasn't until I read this), public anthropology definitely has a place and I don't think that "going public" needs to be a giant stain. After all, what's the point of only writing to your peers, echo chambers don't help anyone.

Anthropology certainly needs public faces. For the primatologists Jane Goodall has served this function well (despite criticisms of some of her work she more or less stands the test of legitimacy). Archaeologists have Indiana Jones (and you can't get much better P.R. than Raiders and Crusade, right?) and the various talking heads on the History Channel (Zahi Hawass and the likes). Poor culture people don't really have anyone...someone should step up and bite the bullet (the bullet being academic ire) and not, oh you know, MAKE SHIT UP.

It doesn't help the profession when a public figure is caught doing this, and even more so when the lies are nothing more than typical "wild savage" stories packaged in the nice respected pages of the New Yorker. Violence certainly is a fact of life (in any culture, past/present or western/nonwestern) and I'm not advocating a Noble Savage mindset here. However at the end of the article you see:

The untruths in The New Yorker article by Dr. Jared Diamond are already poisoning the future of indigenous peoples. Mako John Kuwimb, Handa clansman in PNG and a PhD candidate in law living in Queensland, Australia, must publish a peer-reviewed paper before being able to finalize his degree after four years of study. The referee notes for Kuwimb cites Diamond's article as evidence of violence of Handa in SH PNG [Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea]. The anonymous reviewer suggests that Kuwimb is somehow not honest about his area's violence (" the actual circumstances of Papua New Guinea today" pg.3 ) and uses Diamond's article to support this assertion. He/she writes: "The author comes from Handa village (the subject of an essay by Jared Diamond in the New Yorker, 21 April 2008), not far from the production facilities in the oil fields of Southern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea (not discussed)." (pg.4) The key words are "not discussed."

He/she goes on to further suggest the fact of the violence of the Handa area (that Kuwimb should know about and should have mentioned) in their conclusion: "The paper neither mentions the conflicts of local origin that have resulted in the rise of a gun culture, failed elections, the destruction of most social services, and the imposition of various States of Emergency over the last decade, nor the local political salve that was apparently agreed to in 2008 by the national government and the Southern Highlands oil and gas owners – to form a new Hela Province in 2010. The Southern Highlands has massive social and political problems, and so will Hela Province, but few can be blamed on legislative drafting dating back 120 years."

In other words, the only evidence the reviewer offers for this assertion of violence in the Handa area (that he/she suggests Kuwimb should have mentioned as he is a Handa!) is the Diamond article that, in fact, and unbeknownst to the reviewer, is full of untruths and libels.

Why would Kuwimb discuss an un-peer-reviewed article in The New Yorker magazine in the first place? He certainly would not mention it as it is full of objective factual inaccuracies and libelous assertions. And yet there it is, cited in the peer review simply because Dr. Diamond's and The New Yorker's prestige is powerful—and, therefore, extremely dangerous when wrong.

2009-03-13T14:19:00.001-05:00

That is all.

Grade level

2009-02-11T15:09:00.001-06:00

So I saw some comment on the internet that running an Obama speech through Word's "readability statistics" that he speaks at a 10th grade level while Dubya at a 7th grade level (this wasn't referring to the formal introductions, as those were scripted, but their responses to questions from reporters).

That got me wondering about me, but since I don't have any transcripts of me speaking I decided to figure out what level I write at. Running my "big project" from last semester through the program I apparently write at a 15.7th grade level. Not that I really think this means anything (it just figures number of syllables per word and sentence length and feeds them into a formula). I score "difficult" on the readability score (a 25...with 100 being easiest and 60-70 being "acceptable for literate adults"

Part of me is proud, part of me is ashamed. Part of me realizes that all this is silly.

Eeeeee!!!

2009-02-02T20:52:00.000-06:00

I opened my door today and nearly tripped over a box: I was running to class so I decided to open it when I got back. What was inside? My copy of Squier and Davis's "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" and Justice's "Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States." I nerdgasmed and am so happy that I'm finally getting a start on my collection of nerdbooks (independently curated I mean, not just holding on to what I am assigned in classes).

Eeeee!!!

Finally

2009-01-29T19:52:00.000-06:00

So after some hemming and hawing I finally went through with it.

Global Outlaws...Global Bullshit

2008-12-17T01:09:00.000-06:00

So I'm supposed to be writing an essay comparing the "ethnography" Global Outlaws with the theoretical works of the previous century of anthropological thought. There's only one teeny tiny problem. Global Outlaws has no theoretical model. It's not even a freaking ethnography. Okay, two problems. The book is a shallow, cliched, and frankly juvenile examination of Angola and the crime that runs rampant as a result of the ongoing civil war. With that one sentence description I've done nearly as much as Dr. Nordstrom does throughout her entire book. Oh, I also should point out (to get all of her points across) that war is bad, orphans have it rough, and people who make money are bad.

This isn't to say I don't agree with her points: I'm as leftist as they come; I do believe that money is a corrupting force in this world. I, however, don't see the need to pretend that this is any deep insight. To even put this book in the same sentence as innovators and heroes of the field like Boas, Levi-Strauss, Durkheim, or Radcliffe-Brown is an insult to both these authors and the field in general.

The book is an attempt to make anthropology relevant again, as anthropology has (through its own design and guilt) withdrawn to the arena of academia. The first half of the 20th century was marked by anthropologists aiding governments with reports that are now considered harmful, racist, and frankly completely wrong. The result were governments attempting to completely wipe out people and cultures that didn't "fit" with the Western world (such as attempts to sterilize Native Americans, or to actively destroy their language and cultures). These are some of the worse atrocities that have been committed, and anthropologists feel the sting of their involvement. Now, some anthropologists are itching for a seat at the table again as they observe cultural ignorance causing unnecessary flares in diplomacy and outright failures in regions of the world where the "world community" doesn't know how to interact.

While attempting to rejoin the world is a noble goal: this book fails totally in every aspect. There is not a single piece of research that was done that a reporter could not do. In fact there was not a single element that you, my lovely reader, could not have researched by searching CNN archives. As for structure, she has elected for a narrative, to give to give the piece "zest" and relevance. Unfortunately she stole the narrative from "Oliver Twist," and she stole it poorly. Not many people are Charles Dickens, and Dr. Nordstrom certainly isn't. By page 40 we'd been introduced to the bright and handsome street boy who has to break some minor laws who ultimately disappears from the narrative (the Artful Dodger), the merchant who allows the boy to sell smuggled cigarettes for profit, but also to ensure the boy's survival (Fagan) and the corrupt government official who exploits the system for profit while his dependents suffer in poverty (the Beadle, Mr. Bumble).

There is no ethnography done. No participant observation. No data collected. Instead Dr. Nordstram apparently traipsed from town to town, interviewed single sources for each archetype (or at least reported the most juicy only) and moved on. This is NOT ethnography. The desire to tell a narrative can NOT be allowed to drive how much interviewing you do and which interviews to report. At the very least report that you did other interviews, but have chosen not to go into detail about them. There are no citations, the only direct quotes are of the author herself (the interviewees responses are given in large blocks of amazingly detailed, charming, and complex paragraphs...clearly paraphrased and parsed into colloquial and witty English).

In short this book is bullshit. Margret Meade and Ruth Benedict wrote ethnographies that were popular with the public, and while their information and methods are largely discounted today, at the time they were state of the art. Anthropology does not need to be dumbed down to a level where it is devoid of anything resembling anthropology, methodology, information, or insight besides "poverty is bad." And now, I have to write 8 more pages of bullshit on this bullshit book.

Bullshit.

Update

2008-11-28T15:34:00.000-06:00

Incredulous update...

Someone posted this, and the level of ... well. I'm speechless, so I'm just going to drop this screencap/fail poster someone made of the incident (not the funniest fail poster, but hey the content more than makes up for the poor execution). Words are quite literally failing me...

(click to embiggen)

American Mythology

2008-11-26T20:44:00.001-06:00

Another salvo has been fired in the general direction of Rush and Papa Bear O'Reilly.

We (liberals and academics) have (apparently) declared war on Thanksgiving.

Yes I know, one would think that the wholesale slaughter of turkeys was the first violent salvo of a war, but no it wasn't. The assault is in having the audacity to point out several things:

1) Pocahontas is not an historical documentary regarding Native/European relations
2) Native Americans didn't decide on their own to relocate to the West until the cavalry arrived in the 1860s.

and in more snarky notes that

a) Plymouth wasn't the first colony in North America (even the English beat that with Jamestown by a good margin)
b) Jamestown wasn't even the first colony in the present day states: Florida had been colonized for decades by the Spanish
c) even that wasn't the first colony in North America...did we forget about the 1520s and Cortes? Last I checked we hadn't kicked Mexico out of North America...

That said, I don't hate Thanksgiving. I find it a wonderful holiday to celebrate the years bounty/success with family. And yes, it should also mark the journey that got us here (as Europeans). It surely doesn't hurt us in any way to acknowledge that our past has been checkered with less than pleasant situations...

It was suggested to me that:

"The historically correct version can wait until some 100 level history prof with a guilty conscience beats the cynicism into them with a 200 dollar textbook."

The staggering implications of that sentence are well...staggering. We should teach a false myth in school...despite ample evidence to the contrary (and no one really disagreeing with this information, unlike say creationism where despite how idiotic I think they are...people actually do think it). The (admitted) true story is too depressing and so to mention it is cynical? What the hell...a desire to teach kids the truth is a "guilty conscience?" Shouldn't education be about teaching...you know...fact and not a knowing falsehood? There is surely a way to teach about the colonization of the Americas that doesn't discuss in every gory detail (grave robbing, rape, etc) but provides an accurate portrayal (and not an outright falsehood). Historical accuracy shouldn't take second chair to foolish pride. And at this point there is nothing but false and foolish pride that is being hurt by telling the truth, while the lie just lays the continuing foundation for the belief that the Native Americans were just sitting around being naked and savage eagerly awaiting Jesus, pants, and civilization.

Like this:

You would prefer we tell them that before their nation existed a bunch of hunter gatherers were here happily doing jack shiat with the place so we crushed them like ants and built a superpower?

Yes. Exactly...I'm so irritated that the liberals would want to correct this totally fair and accurate portrayal of an entire people still mired in the consequences of their jack shit existence before they were given pants (and lets face it...they're all drunken welfare addicts who clearly haven't taken well to wearing pants like civilized people).

Fuck, I made myself mad again.

Illinois Nazis, I hate those guys.

2008-11-05T20:25:00.000-06:00

Admit it: you're all just jealous that Harrison Ford never portrayed you in a movie (unless you happen to be a space pirate or a robot hunter...and if you're a robot hunter; Damn you have a cool job).

I'm sorry if my post about the daily drudgery of archaeology is breaking the heart of the future Dr. Jones's. I will apologize for the good of my community. Let me assure you: Bullwhip weilding and Nazi fighting are indeed a part of my usual routine; the courses of which are taught during graduate school however.

I remember the first time I had to fight a Nazi; I was so nervous. Being a Chicago native the only thought that ran through my head was "Illinois Nazis. I hate Illinois Nazis!" Somehow I fought through my tangental daze and focused on the leering bastard. He was trying to steal the Pompadour of Ponce de Leon (which belonged, as we all know, in a museum). This was before my whip-wielding class (which I would take the following semester, ironic eh? Just rain on your wedding day). I wet myself, I won't lie. I also think I started to cry. Nazis are scary man...what with their choreographed walking and crisp neo-gothic fashion sense. Fortunately for me he wasn't prepared for my application of cultural theory in an archaeological context (take note you young budding archaeologists: cultural theory is not useless, a philosophical wasteland of ivory tower self congratulatory inside jokes). After ten minutes of Foucout punctuated with Geertz and the fool was mine. I reached deep into my bag of tricks and finished him with Claude Levi-Strauss himself: ... the distinctive features which are the product of phonemic analysis have an objective existence from three points of view: psychological, physiological and even physical; they are fewer in number than the phonemes which result from their combination; and, finally, they allow us to understand and reconstruct the system ... The blood trickled from his ears while he writhed and convulsed.

Nazis, pah. And Illinois Nazis at that.

I'll never forget Machu Pichu

2008-10-06T14:36:00.000-05:00

Came across a nice archaeology article today on fark. Yeah, it was buried in the Geek tab, but it's nice to see archaeology make it above the science horizon of the public. (Satellite Finds Peruvian Pyramid)

Then, reading the commentary that followed in the thread (with understandably differential levels of understanding, because what kind of loser actually would study old dead people?) someone hit my trigger.

bongmiester: looks alot like the Giza site, if these are indeed pyramids

Cornwell :

I would not be surprised if size and distance match up nicely with Orion's Belt at the time of construction. Celestial architecture and planning is a highly underrated discipline.

Augh!!! There's pseudoscience in my archaeology!

I began to compose a response in my mind as I continued the thread, until I saw this:

trixter_nl:
it may however giza is aligned with north basically how orions belt is aligned to the north star, the size of hte pyramids are also in line with the apparent brightness of the 3 stars that make his belt. There is a theory that they used orions belt as the model for how large and the alignment of the 3 pyramids there.

I do not know if all of that would hold with this one. Would be something interesting to monitor though, especially since its known that europeans came to north america about 16,000 years ago (before it was even believed that native americans arrived by 3000 years). They know this through the national geneographic project (they found a genetic marker that can be tied to a specific group of europeans who vanished from europe about 16,000 years ago). They know this group talked with people, who talked with people, because a tool that existed in europe where the people were spread like wildfire through the americas in just a hundred or so years. Given its similarity to tools in part of europe, the fact that they know that some of that group came over, and the fact that the tool only emerged in the americas (different fundamental design to what was there before) after the genetic link can be established, etc its believed strongly to have been brought by that group of europeans.

If they shared tool knowledge they may have shared some of their mythos, which may have taken root down there, even though there was not such a direct link to those people (the europeans settled near the blackfoot, basically in the great lakes area with a tribe I do not recall their name of).

this could be very interesting indeed, and if there is such a link, it might explain some other mythos links, such as atlantis (most cultures globally have a similar legend), man-ape (many continents have a yeti, sasquash, etc type of legend), etc.

Alert! Alert! Abort Mission! Re-evaluate targets and engage!

The ignorance is strong with this one.

This is a problem that plagues archaeology. As a "science-y" science (which is to say we use "hard" science (such as physics, chemistry, and the likes) in combination with theory and ethnography. This makes it very difficult to weed out the pseudosciences from the actual science. As such radical claims held by a distinct minority in the face of overwhelming evidence are often given just as much credence as those of the consensus point of view. Given a mouthpiece such as a newspaper article nothing stands out to separate a kook with letters after his name rambling about how Giza is aligned with Orion, just like Andean Nazca architecture. Or when Kennewick man is proclaimed to have features more in common with Caucasoid groups like the Ainu than modern Native Americans it's hard to combat the minority saying this is proof that Europeans came over from Spain and France to colonize the Americas (the Ainu are Caucasoids indigenous to Japan, preceding the occupation of the islands by mainland Asians).

*As an interesting aside we all know that Kennewick Man famously looks like Jean Luc Picard. However, what if we change a bias? Sculpted from a white/gray sculptors clay it certainly is clear. But what if he's sculpted with a red/brown clay? It's an interesting bias, but of course nothing conclusive as to his origins.*

I never really was able to get back to my point, my rage, about astronomical alignments in archaeological sites. I spent too much time deconstructing the European Migration so that by the time I could address my real pet peeve I'd written a novel. Oh well, I'm sure people aren't really interested in my ranting about why any two points connected with a straight line will inevitably point at a star (especially when you are allowed to cherry pick any two points from a series of identical points).

My example is this: Pick any modern city (so, likely in the US as European cities are more "organic" in their plans), and it is likely to be arranged on a grid. This grid will likely be roughly N/S oriented. As such once or twice a year the sun will rise (or set) perfectly aligned with the cities streets. You can look directly down any of the E-W running boulevards and see a beautiful solar alignment. Are Americans cities built with a mind towards these solar alignments? No. But it certainly looks impressive.

Amateur Archaeologists

2008-09-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

Paleoanthropology Division Smithsonian Institute 207 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it's modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science, Harvey Rowe Curator, Antiquities *** Yes, I'm aware that this is satire.

In Conclusion

2008-08-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while. In fact the dig has finished, I moved on to finish a second dig as well (more on that later).

So here's the thing: I'm not sure what's kosher for me to say exactly. I really don't want to step on any toes and blab about things I'm not supposed to...grrr. Well I guess I should just say the dig was a success and we accomplished pretty much everything we set out to do. We opened a helluva huge area, mapped and excavated all of it. If we are this successful every year this will be a quick, effective, and successful site.

After we finished our site there were still 2 weeks left to go at our sister site (Wegerzyn, or some crazy name like that). I went in intending to put in a good two weeks, but the fates were not on my side. At the end of the first full week I threw out my back and just ended up lying on the couch in abject misery. It was so bad that the last day I tried to dig I couldn't crouch into my 1x1. I had to lie on my belly outside the unit to reach the base. Standing up required rolling over onto my back and forcing myself up. Ugh.

So now it's off to school, where I'll be studying everything I should have been doing, and learning all I should have known, this last year of digging. It'll be interesting to compare the two.

Spiders. Ugh.

2008-07-17T17:36:00.000-05:00

It was decided that as a group bonding sort of experience that our crew would head out to the Sunwatch Village and spend the night in one of the houses. Sunwatch, for you uninitiated, is a reconstructed site from roughly the same period as my site. Of course while my site consisted of perhaps a half dozen structures and 30 people...this site was home to upwards of 300 people.

Anyhow.

Things went pretty well. The fire was nice; we ate venison, corn, and beans. It was simple, but very good all said. At least until I woke up the next morning. My back is now covered with something near to 50 spider bites. Of course, I can't actually count them, since I can't see all of my back. No one else was attacked during the night, so I guess I must have chosen a sleeping bench that was the home of some irate spiders. They've been swelling something fierce, causing muscle aches, and a bit of nausea. I've only worked a half day in the last two days (oh, I've also been feverish and at times super disoriented).

Ain't nature grand?

Holy heat-wave batman!

2008-07-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

It's been hot as balls this week. This means two things. First of all it means that I'm ridiculously tired and drained by the end of the day. Second it means that we've been starting an hour early trying to beat the heat. This is, despite my burning hatred of morning (and especially of the dawn hours), a good idea. We're far more productive in the mornings, especially as regardless of when we start after about 1 pm we just shut down. It gets too hot, the soil dries into concrete, etc. etc. But still...I hate mornings. So much.

I hate bugs

2008-07-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

So you know the deal, right? Just click on the slightly blurry image to the right and it'll clear right up and you can see it in it's full size and glory. I tried out a new style, something different from my old Cue Laughter days. Still using bright colors of course (I'm like a child, I like bold colors) and you can see my "style" still under there (it isn't so much style as where my talent level peaks). But yeah, sorry about the delay.

So about bugs. Digging out here in [redacted] at the Wildcat site is pretty harsh when it comes to those bastards. The weeds are generally running around armpit height (although in some places over my admittedly short head) and in others just up to the shins. Either way it's a veritable haven for insects. I haven't had the misfortune of any ticks making there way into my flesh yet (although Ben has pulled a couple off his clothes). But what I've lost in ticks I've more than made up with chiggers. They're everywhere and in swarms...although it doesn't appear that anyone else is as bothered by them. Dr. Cook has a couple bites on his shins but that's about all. As for me I have quite literally hundreds on my abdomen, shins, knees, and even curving around my waist onto my back. They aren't so terrible (they itch like hell; they itch more when you scratch them) but I just have so many of them. Sometimes I just want to sit down and cry and whine "why me?"

So what are chiggers? Well for one they do not burrow into your skin. Nor do they lay eggs inside you. Basically they latch onto your skin, inject you with some of their digestive acid which dissolves a couple skin cells, then they slurp up the you soup. Lovely eh?

Some people seem disinclined to believe me...so here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Chigger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[...]

In North America, chigger refers to the harvest mite, the bite of which results in an intensely itchy red bump in humans (who are accidental hosts)...

* 1 Chigger Facts
* 2 Chigger myths
* 3 Prevention
* 4 Medical treatment
* 5 References

Chigger Facts

* Chiggers attach to the host, inject digestive enzymes into the bite wound, and then suck up the digested tissue.[4]
* Itching from a chigger bite may not develop until 24-48 hours after the bite, so the victim may not associate the specific exposure with the bite itself.[4]
* Warm, rainy days make these parasitic and predatory mites reproduce into large populations. Once the ground temperature is regularly above 60°F (~16°C), the harvest mite lays eggs, and “chigger season” is underway. This season typically begins in April and ends in the early autumn with the first frost.[5]
* It is the larval stage that feeds on humans (as accidental host) or more commonly on other animals (small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians).[4]
* Chiggers do not like sunlight or humidity. During the wet season, chiggers are usually found in tall grass and other vegetation.[5]
* During dry seasons, chiggers are most found underneath brush and shady areas.[6][7]
* When carrying a tiny parasite called Orientia tsutsugamushi, causes scrub typhus

Chigger myths

* Chiggers burrow into the skin. No, see Facts above.
* Chiggers suck blood. No, see Facts above.
* Applying finger nail polish to red bumps/bites on our skin helps by killing the chigger under the surface. No, by the time the severe itching occurs, the chigger is long gone.
* Chiggers are insects. No, they are mites.
* The red welt/bump on your skin is where a chigger laid eggs. No, it's where the chigger took a meal.[8]

[edit] Prevention

Keep grass short, and remove brush and wood debris where potential mite hosts may live. Keep major hosts away from the area, such as rodents and other small mammals. Secure trash cans to discourage wildlife from coming near your home. Sunlight that penetrates the grass will make the lawn drier and make it less favorable for chigger survival. [9]

For personal protection, apply insect repellent to feet, legs, and mid-section.

Medical treatment

To reduce the itching, apply an anti-itch cream that contains hydrocortisone, calamine, or benzyl benzoate. If you are sensitive to these medications or have questions, be sure to ask your health-care professional or pharmacist.

References

1. ^ ACES Publications : CHIGGERS : ANR-1109. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
2. ^ CDC - Scrub Typhus Reemergence in the Maldives. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
3. ^ Gosling, Peter J. (2005). Dictionary of parasitology. Boca Raton: CRC Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-30855-0.
4. ^ a b c Chiggers. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
5. ^ a b ArmaXX Pest Control. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
6. ^ University of Florida: IFAS Extension
7. ^ About.com: Chiggers Pediatric Dermatology Basics
8. ^ About.com: Chiggers Pediatric Dermatology Basics
9. ^ Armaxx Pest Control: Chiggers Prevention

Wildcat Winter Work

2008-07-06T09:17:00.001-05:00

Every hour in the field translates to 3 hours in the lab, or thereabouts. Last summer's season at Wildcat went 5 weeks I believe, and with 12 students working 40 hours a week we put in 2400 hours of work. That translates to approximately 7200 hours of labwork to process last summer. It should go without saying that it would have been physically impossible for Dr. Cook to go over everything himself. That's were lab monkeys...err undergrads...come in handy. They don't just dig holes in the ground like manual laborers (although that is one of the chief duties of the undergrad), they apparently come in handy in the off season as well.

Kyle was responsible for sorting and labeling all of the debitage that we collected last summer (as well, I'm sure, as throwing out all the "flakes" we collected that were in fact absolutely nothing. It's common practice to look at a tough one and decide to let the lab monkeys sort it out later and collect it anyhow. It's better to over-collect). The poor bastard, but he got really good at sorting and identifying flakes and shatter.

For the uninitiated debitage is essentially all the crap that's left over when you take a fist size cobble and flake or chip away the stone until you arrive at the finished product. It sometimes appears as thin flakes of stone, razor sharp with distinct edges, percussion marks from the blow that struck it from the core etc. Flakes are quite aesthetically pleasing and are all stricken off as part of a plan of working the stone down into the tool. Other times it appears as blocky (but sharp) chunks of stone. These are often from the early phases where a large cobble was placed on a rock and then smashed with a second rock. Not precise or pretty, but the resulting explosion of stone would break the rock into several smaller workable pieces. The tiny pieces that just shatter off...we call those shatter. Archaeology can be crazy - technical and obscure like that sometimes.

Anyhow Kyle, either caught up in a fit of genius, desperation, insanity, or a mixture of all three invented the Kyle 2000. A debitage sorting device, soon to revolutionize lab work the world over and make him a rich man (as soon as he installs the print out and voice chip that is). Essentially it's a box with a series of holes in the top arranged by size. When the debitage fits through a specific hole, that's its size. Simple, effective, and quite brilliant. The Kyle 3000 (with the print out and a voice chip that says "computing") is in the works.

Jake, a student who was actually not part of our crew at Wildcat, analyzed the faunal remains, which were for the vast majority from only a single pit that we uncovered. Feature 3, a bell shaped storage pit repurposed as a trash pit, had been chock full of bone, as well as part of a ceramic vessel, and other miscellaneous trash. The bone turned out to be 95% deer or some insane number like that, with at least some of the other bone consisting of shrew/mouse or other critters that most likely worked there way into the smörgåsbord of trash and food before passing from this green earth. He attempted to determine seasonality of the occupation of the site (if the pit contains deer of mainly X age that can be correlate to the season of occupation). Additionally he analyzed the use of the deer (in terms of consumption) to determine the environmental capacity of the land. If they're only using the choice parts of mature deer it stands to reason that resources are plentiful, if they're consuming the toes and nose and taking juveniles it stands to reason that times are rough and they're thinking about eating now and not about how to preserve the deer for the future.

In regards to Wildcat his study appears to have been inconclusive from my discussions from Dr. Cook. I'm making my way through Jakes honors thesis trying to draw my own interpretation of his conclusions, but due to the short length of excavations at Wildcat his paper seems to focus more heavily on the two more extensively excavated sites in the area (Sunwatch and Wegerzyn, which if I'll have time I'll introduce to you all later).

Ben was tasked to examine projectile point distribution, although he ended up working with the Sunwatch collection from the 70's. His database is nearly completed, although he did present a poster over the winter of his preliminary findings regarding proposed zones of specialization as seen by differential distribution.

As for myself, I too was assigned a small task from the Sunwatch excavations. There was a bag of artifacts collected called "Non-Fort Ancient points." Not a particularly descriptive bag...as "non-Fort Ancient" refers to roughly 12,000 years of Ohio prehistory. In it were points spanning the entire span, stretching back from the onset of Fort Ancient, all the way back to a single Clovis point. Yes. A Clovis point was sitting in this bag...it was amazing. I can still recall setting all the points in a row, thumbing through the identification guide: Archaic, Middle, Middle, Early, Late, Middle, Archaic...uhm...uhm...I turned to the paleo page and I could see the Clovis point, but it couldn't be Clovis. I desperately turned later in time to the Archaic period trying to make it anything but Clovis. Because, Clovis? Really? That's kind of like saying "Oh yeah, I was looking in my attic and I found a signed copy of the Gettysburg address. No biggie." Okay, not quite that rare, but still pretty special.

Dr. Cook looked over at me and asked what I thought. So I kind of shyly turned back to the paleo page and looked at it. "Is it...?" He nodded, "Yeah?" "It's a...it's a...it's a..." "Yup. Clovis."

It doesn't come across in text as well as it does when I tell the story in person, but it was on one hand amusing, and on the other hand amazing. Clovis points are considered the first definitive points in North America, roughly 13,000 years old (setting aside the debate as to when humans really first arrived here). In my hand was one of the oldest man made objects from the Americas. It was the closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had, holding in my hand something that old, just sitting in a box labelled "Non-Fort Ancient Points." Damn right it isn't a Fort Ancient point.

Anyhow, long story aside, that project only took me a day or so, and I was working too far away from the lab doing my CRM gigs to make it back again. But the point of that story was that these excavations were done in the 70s and only now were some of the points being identified, uncatalogued, and properly recorded. So we still have years of work in the lab until just the 07 season at Wildcat is completely recorded and documented. Of course the 08 season looks to add considerably to the workload.

So the winter lab work was partially enlightening as it yielded zones of extensive debitage creation (thanks to Kyle) helping narrow and refine our focus on the site. Jake's work, while inconclusive, has shaped what we're looking for this year (namely more skeletal remains, or floral remains to attempt to explore environment and seasonality through alternative avenues, something which Dr. Cook has already set a Grad student upon).

I can only imagine that this winter Kyle will be tasked with more work, maybe he will get to make the Kyle 3000 after all, one of our field students Jen seems to have had the hooks sunk into her, and Dr. Cook will likely ask for her assistance with something. As for Ben, well he's looking to follow the Marcus track and take a year to do CRM work before heading to Grad school, so he might not be available. As for me? Well being in Milwaukee I won't be around the corner, but who knows...I definitely want to continue on the site next summer, I might be able to make my way to Ohio to do some rogue lab work.

Background on Wildcat

2008-07-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

It's hard to cram the last 3 weeks of work into anything resembling a short post, after all this is the sort of thing I'm supposed to write hundred plus page theses about.

So what sort of site is Wildcat? I suppose that the best place to begin would be there...at the beginning.

Wildcat is a site located just outside of Dayton, OH, on the eastern-most crest of the Miami Valley (about one mile away from the Greater Miami). It's a ways below that eastern rise, the top is home to a series of shopping malls, to the south is I-75, and surrounding the site are a series of gravel quarries. I'd give more details, but with looting, academic ownership, and all that stuff you'll have to deal with this more landscape oriented description. There's a tiny nameless creek that meanders around an old field, bounded by forest.

In the 13th century A.D. the area would have been a mixture of prairie and forest in a mixed setting. The river valley (carved by glacial action and then filled with water, as opposed to being carved by the river action) is rather extensive and the most significant feature in this part of the state, breaking up the relatively flat terrain. The Fort Ancient peoples lived in what I suppose would best be described as hamlets or towns, ranging in size from hamlets of just a handful of houses (and a few dozen people) to full fledged towns like the Sunwatch site (population 300). They were a largely sedentary people, practiced fairly intense agriculture (including corn) in addition to hunting and fishing.

In 1981 (or thereabouts) a surface collection was done, and site 33MY499 was entered into the annals. Nothing was noted during this collection, other than that the artifacts were concentrated on the eastern side of the field, and the numbers of the artifacts (stone celts, projectile points, that sort of thing).

So she sat for 20+ years, cultivated and plowed until sometime in the last 5 years. Cemex, the gravel company which owns all the land on this rise, never quarried here after discovering the plot was no good for aggregate. A single road, long abandoned, runs just to the east of the site, down a hill from the mall. The road was named "Wildcat Road," and as a result the site is now known as the Wildcat Site under Dr. Cook of the Ohio State University (it just has more of a ring than 33MY499).

Last summer was the first year digging had been done at the site, and the eastern half to two thirds were systematically shovel tested on a wide grid (20 meters). What did we find? That the site is located in the eastern half of the field (atop a rise), which was pretty obvious from 1) the surface collection and 2) logic. After completing this first survey a series of 2mx2m units were opened over areas that were thought to be features based on magnetic data, our shovel tests, and probing. We found 2 pits, an odd concentration of dark soil and artifacts with no feature associated, and a possibly burned floor. The 2007 summer proved 1) the site was occupied and 2) where the occupation was most likely focused. Over the winter students (myself only briefly) worked in the lab to make sense of the season. Kyle especially worked over the debitage, while another student, Jake, studied the faunal remains (deer especially).

I've gone on enough for now...but next entry I'll explain what the winter labwork showed.

Back in action

2008-06-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

So I've moved on to Wildcat.

Ah the cat. I'm here in lovely Dayton, OH digging right at [location redacted]. It's nice.

And by nice I mean it's been in the mid nineties for a week straight and humid as hell. Oh and the dirt started to smell pretty rank the other day. It was like being in a jock strap. Gross.

That said: we're coming down on something interesting. We're not sure what it is exactly...perhaps a hearth or posthole from an enormous house (we're talking something like 15m long). Who knows. But whatever it is, it is way far away from everything else. We're going to be stripping a pretty large area on the top of this particular landform about 60 meters away. This thing is at the base of it, a strange place for a structure. Our best guess? "Ceremonial*"

I've got a new place, settled in (with a room, a desk and everything) so I'll be updating this a bit more regularly (in other words: no month delay between posts).

So hang in there, you'll get your fix shortly.

*When an archaeologist calls something ceremonial there is a pretty good chance that what he or she really means is "We don't really know what it is. It has no clear function so we're going to assume it was some sort of ritual or ceremonial object." It's basically our catch-all, meaning "fuck if I know what that is!"

Mea Culpa

2008-05-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

Brief post today: the wonders of dig food.

I don't know what I ate but my body is not happy with it. I vomited everything in my system back up I think (I'm actually worried I might have lost some pieces of liver or my kidneys). I'm also pretty sure that vomit isn't supposed to come out your nose. Yay gas station food, or the alternative of unrefrigerated sandwiches because your company wouldn't spring the 5 bucks a night to put you in a room with a fridge.

It's part of the life I suppose, but I'm not happy about it.

Sorry if you never ever wanted to hear that...I didn't intend to go into so much detail, but my brain doesn't want to focus on what I had planned to write.

The First Day

2008-05-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

It's always a little strange the first day on a dig, especially when you don't know anyone from previous experience. You arrive at the hotel the night before, often very late after driving a good distance, getting lost, not having a room reserved through an administrative foul up, whatever, and skillfully throw your stuff about the hotel room until it resembles home. The next morning's breakfast is awkward as you head to the lobby...you clearly recognize the group of archaeologists there (they're the dirty ones, covered in dust and mud from the day before), but you don't know them. So you awkwardly insert yourself into the group, finding out who is in charge, exchanging history, experience, figuring out who you've worked with in common. Eventually you'll come across someone you both know, or a shared experience and you're in. But it's fairly nerve-wracking, at least for me. Generally speaking we're not the most socially graceful group, archaeologists were at the bottom of the social ladder back in high school when that sort of thing mattered. For some of us it means we're overbearing and obnoxious, others are elitists, some (like me) are a bit on the socially anxious side, a shy guy.

But never fear, we're united in our nerd-dom, our geeky passions, and often love of the same 80s cartoons...terrible music...video games...and of course old garbage we've found in the ground. So before long we merge into an oversexed, loud, terribly inappropriate, social circle. We use our field voice indoors (along with field stories: usually about sex, drinking, dead baby jokes, sex with dead baby jokes, or drinking while telling sex with dead baby jokes) standing out in the calm small towns against the polite, proper, "civilized" locals. The stares we get: priceless.