Global Outlaws...Global Bullshit

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The book is an attempt to make anthropology relevant again, as anthropology has (through its own design and guilt) withdrawn to the arena of academia.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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.