Getting this up took longer than I thought it would. I took three classes and taught one, worked at OPA, and tried to keep my Bishop's interview lists full. It was a busy semester.
Keep in mind that the majority of you have had the exact same (or similar) semester during your first year of graduate school, so some of it may be boring. I've liked the outline form that everyone has used so I will continue with that.
501
Honestly, one of the most difficult classes I've ever had. Clark expects a lot and doesn't mess around. Witnessed in this class, were two particularly nasty attacks on one of the newbies. This kid has no background in archaeology and apparently, no real background in research methods. Clark ended our last class period accusing him of having "done diddily". Hope the kid survives.
Anyway, 501 was structured differently than previous years. Our studies were not centered solely on the comp. exam test questions. Rather, we focused on larger issues that could be applied to the test questions. We read two Hodder books, Archaeological Theory Today and Reading the Past. We also read a few more.
Here they are in no real order. We read a monograph by Patrick Kirch on state development in Hawaii. It wasn't the best. Kirch focused mainly on lexical data and did not provide much hard data (artifacts, etc). His main focus was trying to pinpoint the location of a general ancestral polynesian homeland. In my opinion, he relied too heavily on glottochronology. Not my favorite.
We also read a book on biblical archaeology. It was essentially a critique on post-modern approaches. Again, not my favorite. The author, William Dever, spends more time attacking opponents than actually discussing critiques on PoMos. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure why we read the book, it seemed more like an excercise in how to rip your opponents apart. After finishing the Dever book, we watched an anti-mormon film deconstructing the BoM. We got into a lot of discussion on the marginalization of christian/mormon archaeologists, and how our perspective in just one more to add to the many voices of post-processualism.
We read another book on the state development on in China...meh.
My favorite book was Myths of the Archaic State by Norman Yoffee (2005). Yoffee criticizes the neo-evolutionary model of band, tribe, cheifdom, and state. He argues that each culture developed individually and that they should be approached individually as well. Yoffee also criticizes perceptions of traditional leadership roles, suggesting that early states were not as stratified previously assumed. Yoffee feels confident that the agency of various individuals (from all classes) influenced the formation of early states. Therefore, concerns with everyday life served as the catalysts from early state development. Yoffee struggles with the problem of lanugage. He criticizes neo-evolutionary models but still uses their language. It is difficult to understand when he is talking about his version of the state and chiefdoms and when he is talking about the neo-evolutionary version.
Ultimately, I think Myths serves as a great introduction to some new ideas concerning the development of early states. To be honest, I was not aware that there were other perspecitves beyond the neo-evolutionary model. It was beaten into my head in 215 by Joel, and has remained until I read this book.
502
Bottom line, it was statistics.
I think I learned the material better with Jim than I did with Ian. Jim left a lot more to the imagination, and we found ourselves struggling to figure out exactly what he expected of us. Towards the end of the class, he gave us Cowgill's list of 8 things you should remember about statistics.
I chose some of my favorites:
1. Statistical analysis is not a way to arrive at certainty; it is a powerful aid in discerning what your data suggest, and how strongly they suggest it. This is often done better by an estimation approach than by hypothesis testing.
2. Look at your data dirst, through simple tables and pictures. Often this tells you everything important. If not, it will tell you what is sensible or not sensible to do next. Do not rush to apply advanced techniquest while overlooking the messages of simple methods.
4. It's not the sampling fraction that matters; it's the size of the sampel. For example, a well-chosen sample size of 100 that is one percent of a large population can tell you a lot, but a sample of 10 that is 20 percnt of a small population tells you less.
6. Proportions, percents, and ratios represent something relative to something else. Proportions are fractions, with a numerator and a denominator. When you read, always ask yourself whether you understand what denominator is implied. Often you will find that the denominator is unclear or inappropriate.
8. If you are worried about data quality, reducing data to "present/absent" only makes the problem worse unless you are sure that absence in the sample unambiguously implies abscence in the relevant population. But a category that is scarce but present in the population will be totally absent in many random samples from that population, and the chance that it is absent in any one sample is strongly dependent on the size of that sample. Together with sampling vagaries, this makes "presence/abscence" a very unstable statistic. if you want to be conservative, us something like "way below average," "about verage," and "way above average."
For the rest of the 8, see page 35 of
Kintigh, Keith
2005 Writing Archaeology: Analyses and Archaeological Argumentation. The SAA Archaeological Record.
I don't have the volume number (it's upstairs), but it is from September 2005 (SAA members- you should have it)
512
Laws...ARPA, NAGPRA...Agencies...BLM, EPA....Ethics...zzzzzz
Anthropology 207
This is the class I taught. It was a rewarding experience, and I've learned a lot about how a class should and should not be taught.
We began with cordage, processing dogbane, yucca, raffia, and whatever else students brought in. The cordage unit was alright, but I was dissapointed in some of the students inability to go and forage for their own materials. I told them were plants were, and would have been happy to take them to the sources. Instead, I had students ask their mothers to send them yucca from New Mexico, and come to my house and raid my personal yucca plant. There are five good yucca plants in the parking lot across from the Tanner building!
Ceramics were next. I really learned a lot from a book called Ceramic Technology by Owen S. Rye. There were class periods when I was only hours ahead of the students. I was at a loss as to what we were going to make for this unit, but with the help of Jim Allison, we processed some of his clay samples from the Animas La Plata region into tiles. We then fired the tiles to see if the clays turned similar colors.
Lithics proved to be the most challenging to teach. This is mainly due to the fact that teaching one or two people to flintknap is much easier than teaching seven at a time. Dr. Clark and I split the class of 14 into two groups of seven with mixed results.
I saw a lot of great projects. Here are some of them:
Lengths of cordage made of many different plant types
a pump drill
a small basket made in the style of California indians. Acorns were leeched and processed into flour mush which was eaten from this basket.
a small limestone stela carved with mayan glyphs
an atlatl and dart
a processed elk-hide pouch
a set of Oldowan tools
a pair of woven yucca sandals
Those are some of the projects I was most impressed with. I was happy with the quality and effort expended.
That's about it for the SIR. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm sure I left things out, and it may not be exactly what you all had in mind, but here it is.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Quote of the Day
I qoute Beck and Jones 1997
"Since their first discovery there has been much speculation concerning the function of these items. Wardle (1913), in the first published reference to crescents, suggested that they may have been used as surgical instruments. Clewlow (1968) notes that "unless we imagine a vast pre-Columbian medical center on the shores of the Black Rock Desert post-Lahonton lakes, it is difficult to accept crescents as surgical instruments."
You guys might not appreciate it, but it made me laugh out loud. Maybe its the sleep deprivation. Merry Christmas.
"Since their first discovery there has been much speculation concerning the function of these items. Wardle (1913), in the first published reference to crescents, suggested that they may have been used as surgical instruments. Clewlow (1968) notes that "unless we imagine a vast pre-Columbian medical center on the shores of the Black Rock Desert post-Lahonton lakes, it is difficult to accept crescents as surgical instruments."
You guys might not appreciate it, but it made me laugh out loud. Maybe its the sleep deprivation. Merry Christmas.
Craig's Semester in Review
Craig forgot how to get onto FoF, so he sent me his Semester in Review via email.
Hey guys,
My semester pretty much consisted of 4 key activities.
1. Watching wrestling. It's been kind of a bummer since Batista got the belt, but what are you gonna do?
2. X-Box. My roomate and I finally went in on an X-Box together, I'll kick your trash at Halo anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
3. MXC. Can't get enough Spike TV.
4. Making concrete. Enough said.
Smell you later,
Craig
Hey guys,
My semester pretty much consisted of 4 key activities.
1. Watching wrestling. It's been kind of a bummer since Batista got the belt, but what are you gonna do?
2. X-Box. My roomate and I finally went in on an X-Box together, I'll kick your trash at Halo anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
3. MXC. Can't get enough Spike TV.
4. Making concrete. Enough said.
Smell you later,
Craig
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
SIR delayed
You may have noticed that my SIR is incomplete and listed as a draft. I will finish it tomorrow. When I was writing it, I had to respond to a call from a girl in my ward who had "tried" to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. Her home teachers weren't around, neither was the bishop. So the 1st counselor and I went over to see what the deal was. It was an interesting night. I'll finish it up soon.
Joel's review of my term paper
"Thanks for sending me the paper. I found it very well written with only a few typos, etc. It is nice that you found support for our interpretations of the site occupation. A concern I have is how you are treating functionally different structures. What I recall (without checking) is that the storage structures had very different fill content than the pit houses. It almost seemed that people avoided dumping in the granaries. There could be several reasons for that but I wondered how storage vs pit houses plotted."
It is nice? WTH? I realize that the chronometric data from FFR did indicate that most of the site was probably occupied at the same time, but, by Joel's own admission, these data were pretty problematic for a number of reasons. I have generated an independent corroboration of his results, and he tells me that "it is nice"?
I realize that the paper isn't some sort of mind blowing research, but to me, the mound phenomenon is the most important research topic in Fremont archaeology. These aggregates represent a total change in trajectory for the Fremont. If not everyone is convinced that the occupations were large (and according to Jim Allison, they aren't), then we have a real problem.
This is my biggest critique of BYU's graduate program. The grad students are treated as idiots who aren't capable of contributing. As long as they're treated as such, they really won't contribute anything other than maybe a crappy thesis. Some (looking at Yoder here) are able to rise above the oppression, but I thought my ideas weren't good for a long time. Turns out they were good, and I was just being dismissed because of my position.
For those of you still suffering, let me tell you that there's a whole other world out there. There's a place where prominent researchers treat you like a junior peer, and not like some member of their scout troop. There's a place where you are encouraged to publish your work, a place where you can learn and be respected.
Don't let the man get you down.
El Che Vive!
Anyway, I'd like to get some feedback on the paper sometime. Maybe Joel is right, but I don't think he is...
It is nice? WTH? I realize that the chronometric data from FFR did indicate that most of the site was probably occupied at the same time, but, by Joel's own admission, these data were pretty problematic for a number of reasons. I have generated an independent corroboration of his results, and he tells me that "it is nice"?
I realize that the paper isn't some sort of mind blowing research, but to me, the mound phenomenon is the most important research topic in Fremont archaeology. These aggregates represent a total change in trajectory for the Fremont. If not everyone is convinced that the occupations were large (and according to Jim Allison, they aren't), then we have a real problem.
This is my biggest critique of BYU's graduate program. The grad students are treated as idiots who aren't capable of contributing. As long as they're treated as such, they really won't contribute anything other than maybe a crappy thesis. Some (looking at Yoder here) are able to rise above the oppression, but I thought my ideas weren't good for a long time. Turns out they were good, and I was just being dismissed because of my position.
For those of you still suffering, let me tell you that there's a whole other world out there. There's a place where prominent researchers treat you like a junior peer, and not like some member of their scout troop. There's a place where you are encouraged to publish your work, a place where you can learn and be respected.
Don't let the man get you down.
El Che Vive!
Anyway, I'd like to get some feedback on the paper sometime. Maybe Joel is right, but I don't think he is...
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Mike's Semester in OU Review
Hello all: It seems we have all survived our most recent semester. I never thought people here at OU were serious when they said 6 credit hours was a full load, but I'm a believer now. 35 hours of work a week also adds to the load, but I digress.
I took Cultural Theory (which is a required course for all graduate students - classic 4 field approach) and Political Dynamics of Small-Scale Societies. The first was taught by a recent Berkley graduate (just hired on here at OU). Let me tell you, she fit the mold, but was very conducive to other modes of thought. The Political Dynamics class was a great immersion into theory behind the development of complex societies and a good spring-board into my dissertation. My final paper will eventually turn into my dissertation proposal which deals with Mesoamerican symbolism on pottery produced in the Southwest and how it served as tool for rising elites ("aggrandizers," if you will) to create political legitimacy. The theory behind foreign symbolism for legitimacy is a little weak and undeveloped, but hopefully I will be able to address this issue.
Cultural Theory:
This is a classic anthropological theory graduate class, like the two required at BYU, but combined. It was extremely informative. Just to give props out to faculty at BYU, we're on par when it comes to other institutions. And don’t worry, archaeology students here hate cultural theory just as much as any other archaeologist (except for my twisted self). We basically covered the development of anthropological theory from the late 1800s until about the end of the 1970s. It was a good overview, although it was a bit weak on the post-modernist side. We delved into a couple of ethnographies and trudged through British social anthropological history as well. Glad it's over. Below is the reference to my favorite reading for the semester. In this lecture, Weber really hits the nail on the head when it comes to being a good professor of anthropology (or science).
Weber, Max
1946 Science as a Vocation. In Max Weber: Essays in sociology, translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Mills Wright. Oxford University Press.
Political Dynamics in Small-Scale Societies:
This was an awesome class taught by a visiting professor who just graduated from UCLA. His dissertation was on the obsidian (or “obsdidian”) workshops adjacent to the Temple of the Moon at Teotihuacan. He reminded me of Ian Robertson. He even knew Ian! Good guy who could relate to what we are doing as grad students. Anyway, this guy really knows his political development theory. We read a couple of Clark articles (appropriately) and a few others that were really great (which I've listed below).
DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle
1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37:1:15-31.
Bayman, James M.
2002 Hohokam Craft Economies and the Materialization of Power. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 9:1:69-95.
Wilk, Richard
2004 Miss Universe, the Olmec and the Valley of Oaxaca. Journal of Social Archaeology 4:1:81-98.
(This article is a great effort by a soco to explore the transmission of information and style across cultural boundaries. He used modern-day fashion and beauty pageants as an analogy for Olmec style appearing in the Valley of Oaxaca. Extremely entertaining.)
Other activities:
I've just been working on keeping food on my family's table by working part-time for the department as a GA at the Museum of Natural History. I also have a part-time job leasing apartments (great way to get paid to study). In addition, I have a few publications in the works. One is the New World Archaeological Foundation publication of my thesis, and another is one I'm trying to get out into a peer-reviewed journal (a condensed version of thesis research). Also, I’ve submitted a paper for the SAAs, co-written with one of Chris’s classmates at ASU, but it is still pending acceptance. I also have a film in the works, just trying to find funding to do it. Looking to do a Kekchi-English dictionary with a friend at SUNY Albany and the list goes on. If we all only had double the time and double the funding.
I took Cultural Theory (which is a required course for all graduate students - classic 4 field approach) and Political Dynamics of Small-Scale Societies. The first was taught by a recent Berkley graduate (just hired on here at OU). Let me tell you, she fit the mold, but was very conducive to other modes of thought. The Political Dynamics class was a great immersion into theory behind the development of complex societies and a good spring-board into my dissertation. My final paper will eventually turn into my dissertation proposal which deals with Mesoamerican symbolism on pottery produced in the Southwest and how it served as tool for rising elites ("aggrandizers," if you will) to create political legitimacy. The theory behind foreign symbolism for legitimacy is a little weak and undeveloped, but hopefully I will be able to address this issue.
Cultural Theory:
This is a classic anthropological theory graduate class, like the two required at BYU, but combined. It was extremely informative. Just to give props out to faculty at BYU, we're on par when it comes to other institutions. And don’t worry, archaeology students here hate cultural theory just as much as any other archaeologist (except for my twisted self). We basically covered the development of anthropological theory from the late 1800s until about the end of the 1970s. It was a good overview, although it was a bit weak on the post-modernist side. We delved into a couple of ethnographies and trudged through British social anthropological history as well. Glad it's over. Below is the reference to my favorite reading for the semester. In this lecture, Weber really hits the nail on the head when it comes to being a good professor of anthropology (or science).
Weber, Max
1946 Science as a Vocation. In Max Weber: Essays in sociology, translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Mills Wright. Oxford University Press.
Political Dynamics in Small-Scale Societies:
This was an awesome class taught by a visiting professor who just graduated from UCLA. His dissertation was on the obsidian (or “obsdidian”) workshops adjacent to the Temple of the Moon at Teotihuacan. He reminded me of Ian Robertson. He even knew Ian! Good guy who could relate to what we are doing as grad students. Anyway, this guy really knows his political development theory. We read a couple of Clark articles (appropriately) and a few others that were really great (which I've listed below).
DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle
1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37:1:15-31.
Bayman, James M.
2002 Hohokam Craft Economies and the Materialization of Power. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 9:1:69-95.
Wilk, Richard
2004 Miss Universe, the Olmec and the Valley of Oaxaca. Journal of Social Archaeology 4:1:81-98.
(This article is a great effort by a soco to explore the transmission of information and style across cultural boundaries. He used modern-day fashion and beauty pageants as an analogy for Olmec style appearing in the Valley of Oaxaca. Extremely entertaining.)
Other activities:
I've just been working on keeping food on my family's table by working part-time for the department as a GA at the Museum of Natural History. I also have a part-time job leasing apartments (great way to get paid to study). In addition, I have a few publications in the works. One is the New World Archaeological Foundation publication of my thesis, and another is one I'm trying to get out into a peer-reviewed journal (a condensed version of thesis research). Also, I’ve submitted a paper for the SAAs, co-written with one of Chris’s classmates at ASU, but it is still pending acceptance. I also have a film in the works, just trying to find funding to do it. Looking to do a Kekchi-English dictionary with a friend at SUNY Albany and the list goes on. If we all only had double the time and double the funding.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Am I a whore?
I guess it's time for me to come clean. I've been secretly working on a Book of Mormon archaeology project. That's right, me, the biggest critic of non-John Clark apologists, is working on a BOM archaeology project.
Essentially, what I've done is read through the BOM and flag any and all references to cultural things. I have every mention of political structure, material culture, subsistence, etc marked in a copy of the Book of Mormon. I'd like to publish a concordance with some limited ethnographic commentary. I am currently looking for a publisher, and if anyone bites, I'll turn my list into a book.
As Juan has constantly pointed out, people don't actually know what the BOM says about this stuff. This would let the BOM stand on its own with both critics and apologists, and I think it would be an invaluable reference tool.
I would appreciate some feedback when you're through being stunned. Juan doesn't know about this, and I'd appreciate it if neither he nor Joel find out about it yet. Thanks.
Essentially, what I've done is read through the BOM and flag any and all references to cultural things. I have every mention of political structure, material culture, subsistence, etc marked in a copy of the Book of Mormon. I'd like to publish a concordance with some limited ethnographic commentary. I am currently looking for a publisher, and if anyone bites, I'll turn my list into a book.
As Juan has constantly pointed out, people don't actually know what the BOM says about this stuff. This would let the BOM stand on its own with both critics and apologists, and I think it would be an invaluable reference tool.
I would appreciate some feedback when you're through being stunned. Juan doesn't know about this, and I'd appreciate it if neither he nor Joel find out about it yet. Thanks.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Watkins Semester in Review - Fall 2005
Finals sucked, and on to the good stuff...
I took three classes this semester, Academic Inquiry (essentially method and theory), Intrasite Research Strategies, and Hohokam Archaeology. Ill also report on my work in Hohokam contract archaeology.
Academic Inquiry
This course was a real disappointment. It was co-taught by Michelle Hegmon and a SoCo guy. Michelle lived up to her work and all my expectations, but the course itself really blew. The newly formed "School of Human Evolution and Social Change" (formerly the Department of Anthropology) is attempting to be more integrative, and the class had first year archaeology, SoCo, physical anthropology, and museum anthropology students in it. What's that? There are people out there with MA's in Museum Anthropology? That's right, you poor suckers might as well use those Museum certificates from Marti to wipe your butts with, casue it isn't going to amount to jack squat.
I really have nothing to recommend from this course. We read some Trigger ("Sociocultural Evolution"), not his best stuff, rehashed Giddens (got it better from Juan Clark), and read a few interesting things on primate social behavior, if you're into that sort of thing. Turns out some animals differentially pass on behavior non-biologically. On some level, I realize that this is probably important, but I just can't bring myself to care.
Whiten, A., V. Horner, and S. Marshall-Pescini
2003 Cultural Panthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology 12(2):92-105.
Whiten, A., J. Goodall, W.C. McGrew, T. Nishida, V. Reynolds, Y. Sugiyama, C.E.G. Tutin, R.W. Wrangham, and C. Boesch
1999 Cultures in Chimpanzees. Nature 399:682-685.
Ultimately, I walked away from this class with the realization that Anthropology is extremely diverse, and that we have much less in common with each other than everybody thinks. Most physical anthropologists don't even understand culture, let alone investigate it. SoCo's never shut up about being ethnocentric (one girl almost broke down into tears in disbelief when we talked about functionalism in archaeology). And museum people are just a bunch of artifact babysitters. Depressing really. Really, really, depressing.
Intrasite Research Strategies
What can I say about this course? It was easily the most difficult, most rewarding, all-around best class that I have ever been a part of. Keith Kintigh is a statistical genius, far surpassing his reputation. In this course, we studied a variety of quantitative spatial techniques aimed at the analysis of a single site. The critical article, which I recommend to everyone, is a summary piece by Keith.
Kintigh, Keith
1990 Intrasite Spatial Analysis: A Commentary on Major Methods. In Mathematics and Information Science in Archaeology: A Flexible Framework, edited by Albertus Voorrips. Studies in Modern Archaeology 3: 165-200. HOLOS-Verlag, Bonn.
It's pretty hard to get, but I have pdf copies I can email to the interested. Even if you're not quantitative, Keith makes this stuff understandable. I wrote a term paper trying to figure out whether there was a large simultaneous, or small repeated occupation of FFR by examining trash deposits instead of chronometric data. Looks like was a large occupation of FFR (suck it Sammons-Lohse!). Some of you have the paper, if others are interested I can email it along.
Hohokam Archaeology
The Hohokam are way cooler than I ever thought. There were several readings of interest but I'm not sure what to recommend. I have them all as pdfs if people would like them. So many really important research questions remain unanswered. Did people live on the platform mounds? If so, were they managerial elites or lineage heads? What drove the Pre-Classic - Classic transition? Burial changes from Cremation to Inhumation, public architecture from Ball Courts to Platform Mounds, and many others. How were the irrigation systems managed? How were households organized? Hohokam archaeology is surprisingly wide open, not as open as the Fremont granted, but there's a lot of work to do. Pueblo Shemblo!
Work
I've been working at the ASU equivalent of OPA, except here I'm either the project director or assistant project director depending on the size of the project. I've never seen so many whole pots in all my life! Phoenix is developing at an amazing rate, and state and federal law require every burial be dug by an archaeologist. Considering the Salt River Basin Hohokam lived in permanent Villages with defined cemeteries, there is a bottomless pit of archaeology waiting to be done.
Pretty much a good year overall. I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone else and buying Holly some Hashemite for Christmas. She could spread it on her bathtub hoagie this Christmas...
I took three classes this semester, Academic Inquiry (essentially method and theory), Intrasite Research Strategies, and Hohokam Archaeology. Ill also report on my work in Hohokam contract archaeology.
Academic Inquiry
This course was a real disappointment. It was co-taught by Michelle Hegmon and a SoCo guy. Michelle lived up to her work and all my expectations, but the course itself really blew. The newly formed "School of Human Evolution and Social Change" (formerly the Department of Anthropology) is attempting to be more integrative, and the class had first year archaeology, SoCo, physical anthropology, and museum anthropology students in it. What's that? There are people out there with MA's in Museum Anthropology? That's right, you poor suckers might as well use those Museum certificates from Marti to wipe your butts with, casue it isn't going to amount to jack squat.
I really have nothing to recommend from this course. We read some Trigger ("Sociocultural Evolution"), not his best stuff, rehashed Giddens (got it better from Juan Clark), and read a few interesting things on primate social behavior, if you're into that sort of thing. Turns out some animals differentially pass on behavior non-biologically. On some level, I realize that this is probably important, but I just can't bring myself to care.
Whiten, A., V. Horner, and S. Marshall-Pescini
2003 Cultural Panthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology 12(2):92-105.
Whiten, A., J. Goodall, W.C. McGrew, T. Nishida, V. Reynolds, Y. Sugiyama, C.E.G. Tutin, R.W. Wrangham, and C. Boesch
1999 Cultures in Chimpanzees. Nature 399:682-685.
Ultimately, I walked away from this class with the realization that Anthropology is extremely diverse, and that we have much less in common with each other than everybody thinks. Most physical anthropologists don't even understand culture, let alone investigate it. SoCo's never shut up about being ethnocentric (one girl almost broke down into tears in disbelief when we talked about functionalism in archaeology). And museum people are just a bunch of artifact babysitters. Depressing really. Really, really, depressing.
Intrasite Research Strategies
What can I say about this course? It was easily the most difficult, most rewarding, all-around best class that I have ever been a part of. Keith Kintigh is a statistical genius, far surpassing his reputation. In this course, we studied a variety of quantitative spatial techniques aimed at the analysis of a single site. The critical article, which I recommend to everyone, is a summary piece by Keith.
Kintigh, Keith
1990 Intrasite Spatial Analysis: A Commentary on Major Methods. In Mathematics and Information Science in Archaeology: A Flexible Framework, edited by Albertus Voorrips. Studies in Modern Archaeology 3: 165-200. HOLOS-Verlag, Bonn.
It's pretty hard to get, but I have pdf copies I can email to the interested. Even if you're not quantitative, Keith makes this stuff understandable. I wrote a term paper trying to figure out whether there was a large simultaneous, or small repeated occupation of FFR by examining trash deposits instead of chronometric data. Looks like was a large occupation of FFR (suck it Sammons-Lohse!). Some of you have the paper, if others are interested I can email it along.
Hohokam Archaeology
The Hohokam are way cooler than I ever thought. There were several readings of interest but I'm not sure what to recommend. I have them all as pdfs if people would like them. So many really important research questions remain unanswered. Did people live on the platform mounds? If so, were they managerial elites or lineage heads? What drove the Pre-Classic - Classic transition? Burial changes from Cremation to Inhumation, public architecture from Ball Courts to Platform Mounds, and many others. How were the irrigation systems managed? How were households organized? Hohokam archaeology is surprisingly wide open, not as open as the Fremont granted, but there's a lot of work to do. Pueblo Shemblo!
Work
I've been working at the ASU equivalent of OPA, except here I'm either the project director or assistant project director depending on the size of the project. I've never seen so many whole pots in all my life! Phoenix is developing at an amazing rate, and state and federal law require every burial be dug by an archaeologist. Considering the Salt River Basin Hohokam lived in permanent Villages with defined cemeteries, there is a bottomless pit of archaeology waiting to be done.
Pretty much a good year overall. I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone else and buying Holly some Hashemite for Christmas. She could spread it on her bathtub hoagie this Christmas...
Friday, December 09, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Mr. Yoder's Semester in Review
Ok, all papers and projects are out of the way and only one final left. Time for......drumrole.........THE SEMESTER IN REVIEW!
I took three classes this semester. Environmental Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and Ethnoarchaeology.
Environmental Arch: Sadly this was a class which included senior undergraduates so it was taught at a pretty basic level. Much of the reading came from two books that I don’t particularly recommend. Although I did read an article that I really liked which I’ve already posted about, but in case you missed it:
Reinhard, Karl J.1992 Parasitology as an Interpretive Tool in Archaeology American Antiquity 57(2):231-245.
(This is a really informative article that also is a well spring of ideas. Plus it’s easy to read. Bonus!)
Historic Preservation: Basically a CRM class. We read all the laws, regulations, etc. Essentially Jim’s A's class at BYU. Didn’t gain any fascinating new insights. Besides the fact that there is a big curation problem and we need the YAR (Yoder Archaeological Repository) now more than ever. This has prompted me to begin an article. Basically I want to know how many theses and dissertations are written using brand new material and how many are being written using collections. I think I’ll send out a questionair to a bunch of universities and ask about how many of their students in the last five years completed a thesis or dissertation using new research and how many using archaeological collections already dug up. I think universities should encourage grad students to focus more on the collections so that we can get this huge backlog of stuff reported on. Yeah for Cady doing PVAP!
Ethnoarchaeology: This was a good class in that it opened my eyes to the potential of ethnoarchaeology for really getting at issues that can be difficult to see in the archaeological record. Unfortunatley, ethnoarch is mostly useful if you are working with recent cultures. Although by using the general comparative approach it can be used in deep time as well. A couple of good articles about ethnoarch in general are:
Gould, Richard A., and Patty J. Watson
1982 A Dialogue on the Meaning and Use of Analogy in Ethnoarchaeological Reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:355-381.
Wobst, H. Martin
1978 The Archaeo-Ethnology of Hunter-Gatherers, or the Tyranny of the Ethnographic Record in Archaeology. American Antiquity 43:303-309.
(Wobst takes his argument to far in my view, but it is a good warning)
Wylie, Alison.
1985 The Reaction Against Analogy. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8:63-111.
(Although this Wylie article SUCKS to read, it is the seminal paper on the use of analogy. Be warned…very boring, long, and theory laden. But she makes good points, if you can find them)
As to ethnoarchaeology in actual use, these are some well done articles:
Frink, Lisa
1996 Social Identity and the Yup’ik Eskimo Village Tunnel System in Precolonial and Colonial Western Coastal Alaska. In Integrating the Diversity of 21st Century Anthropology: The Life and Intellectual Legacies of Susan Kent. Edited by W. Ashmore, M. Dobres, S. Nelson, and A. Rosen. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, University of California Press, Berkely.
Weedman, Kathryn
2005 Gender and Stone-Tools: An Ethnographic Study of the Konso and Gamo Hideworkers of Southern Ethiopia. In Gender and Hide Production, Lisa Frink and Kathryn Weedman eds., pp.175-196. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek.
Frink, Lisa, Brian W. Hoffman, and Robert D. Shaw
2003 A Comparative Ethnoarchaeological Study of Ulu Knife use in Western Alaska. Current Anthropology 44(1):116-121.
The instructor for this class, Lisa Frink, kind of ambushed me in that although this was an ethnoarchaeology class, it was equally about gender. Almost all of our readings had something to do with gender. Which although it bugged me at first, did raise some good questions in my mind. One of which is…Are there any articles focusing on gender, or discussing gender for that matter, for the Fremont? I couldn’t think of any. Yet in other areas people are looking for and finding gender with as much information as we have. I may one day look for gender among the Fremont, but right now I’ve got to finish some other projects I have going.
In this class I wrote a paper on the Mojave Sink area of the Mojave Desert in California. I’ve sent it off to the two Big Boys in the field to see if they think its article worthy. It’s content in sum: Trying to determine cultural affiliation of sites in some areas can be very difficult if not impossible because of similarities of material culture, fluid cultural boundaries, and limited ethnographic information. This is true in the late prehistory of the Mojave Sink and is even more so for the Paleo and Archaic time periods. I say we need to look for more cultural diversity in the early time periods and outline a couple of ways we could do so.
So there you have it, the Semester in review for Mr. Yoder. It was busy, but good. For any interested my thesis will hopefully be up on the BYU website soon, as I’ve turned it in and should graduate this semester….at last. My rabbitskin article is also out and in print in the wonderful publication the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. I have yet to see it, but I’ve been told by those who have it looks good. Yeah. And Jason Bright says that my CRM article is supposed to be out in the next issue of Utah Archaeology, but who knows when that will be. So if you are desperate to know how much money you are likely to make in the world of CRM, or are interested in a number of other CRM related issues, just let me know and I’ll email you a copy.
Keep’en it real in Lost Wages (which by the way gets old REAL fast so don’t say this to people who live in Las Vegas, because I’ve only been here for 6 months and am already sick of people saying, “So, you live in Lost Wages...hahaha”, or “I went on vacation to Lost Wages last year…hahahaha” Yes, you are so funny.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and the whatnot (Seewhat I did with the colors there...ahhhh...very creative)
I took three classes this semester. Environmental Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and Ethnoarchaeology.
Environmental Arch: Sadly this was a class which included senior undergraduates so it was taught at a pretty basic level. Much of the reading came from two books that I don’t particularly recommend. Although I did read an article that I really liked which I’ve already posted about, but in case you missed it:
Reinhard, Karl J.1992 Parasitology as an Interpretive Tool in Archaeology American Antiquity 57(2):231-245.
(This is a really informative article that also is a well spring of ideas. Plus it’s easy to read. Bonus!)
Historic Preservation: Basically a CRM class. We read all the laws, regulations, etc. Essentially Jim’s A's class at BYU. Didn’t gain any fascinating new insights. Besides the fact that there is a big curation problem and we need the YAR (Yoder Archaeological Repository) now more than ever. This has prompted me to begin an article. Basically I want to know how many theses and dissertations are written using brand new material and how many are being written using collections. I think I’ll send out a questionair to a bunch of universities and ask about how many of their students in the last five years completed a thesis or dissertation using new research and how many using archaeological collections already dug up. I think universities should encourage grad students to focus more on the collections so that we can get this huge backlog of stuff reported on. Yeah for Cady doing PVAP!
Ethnoarchaeology: This was a good class in that it opened my eyes to the potential of ethnoarchaeology for really getting at issues that can be difficult to see in the archaeological record. Unfortunatley, ethnoarch is mostly useful if you are working with recent cultures. Although by using the general comparative approach it can be used in deep time as well. A couple of good articles about ethnoarch in general are:
Gould, Richard A., and Patty J. Watson
1982 A Dialogue on the Meaning and Use of Analogy in Ethnoarchaeological Reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:355-381.
Wobst, H. Martin
1978 The Archaeo-Ethnology of Hunter-Gatherers, or the Tyranny of the Ethnographic Record in Archaeology. American Antiquity 43:303-309.
(Wobst takes his argument to far in my view, but it is a good warning)
Wylie, Alison.
1985 The Reaction Against Analogy. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8:63-111.
(Although this Wylie article SUCKS to read, it is the seminal paper on the use of analogy. Be warned…very boring, long, and theory laden. But she makes good points, if you can find them)
As to ethnoarchaeology in actual use, these are some well done articles:
Frink, Lisa
1996 Social Identity and the Yup’ik Eskimo Village Tunnel System in Precolonial and Colonial Western Coastal Alaska. In Integrating the Diversity of 21st Century Anthropology: The Life and Intellectual Legacies of Susan Kent. Edited by W. Ashmore, M. Dobres, S. Nelson, and A. Rosen. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, University of California Press, Berkely.
Weedman, Kathryn
2005 Gender and Stone-Tools: An Ethnographic Study of the Konso and Gamo Hideworkers of Southern Ethiopia. In Gender and Hide Production, Lisa Frink and Kathryn Weedman eds., pp.175-196. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek.
Frink, Lisa, Brian W. Hoffman, and Robert D. Shaw
2003 A Comparative Ethnoarchaeological Study of Ulu Knife use in Western Alaska. Current Anthropology 44(1):116-121.
The instructor for this class, Lisa Frink, kind of ambushed me in that although this was an ethnoarchaeology class, it was equally about gender. Almost all of our readings had something to do with gender. Which although it bugged me at first, did raise some good questions in my mind. One of which is…Are there any articles focusing on gender, or discussing gender for that matter, for the Fremont? I couldn’t think of any. Yet in other areas people are looking for and finding gender with as much information as we have. I may one day look for gender among the Fremont, but right now I’ve got to finish some other projects I have going.
In this class I wrote a paper on the Mojave Sink area of the Mojave Desert in California. I’ve sent it off to the two Big Boys in the field to see if they think its article worthy. It’s content in sum: Trying to determine cultural affiliation of sites in some areas can be very difficult if not impossible because of similarities of material culture, fluid cultural boundaries, and limited ethnographic information. This is true in the late prehistory of the Mojave Sink and is even more so for the Paleo and Archaic time periods. I say we need to look for more cultural diversity in the early time periods and outline a couple of ways we could do so.
So there you have it, the Semester in review for Mr. Yoder. It was busy, but good. For any interested my thesis will hopefully be up on the BYU website soon, as I’ve turned it in and should graduate this semester….at last. My rabbitskin article is also out and in print in the wonderful publication the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. I have yet to see it, but I’ve been told by those who have it looks good. Yeah. And Jason Bright says that my CRM article is supposed to be out in the next issue of Utah Archaeology, but who knows when that will be. So if you are desperate to know how much money you are likely to make in the world of CRM, or are interested in a number of other CRM related issues, just let me know and I’ll email you a copy.
Keep’en it real in Lost Wages (which by the way gets old REAL fast so don’t say this to people who live in Las Vegas, because I’ve only been here for 6 months and am already sick of people saying, “So, you live in Lost Wages...hahaha”, or “I went on vacation to Lost Wages last year…hahahaha” Yes, you are so funny.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and the whatnot (Seewhat I did with the colors there...ahhhh...very creative)
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Checking in
Things have been a little quiet here at FoF the last week or so. I figure that this is due to finals, which is why I haven't been posting.
I guess I just wanted to say good luck on finals, and I'm looking forward to everyones semester in review, and that Veronica Mars is probably the best show on TV right now, and that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan can suck it.
I guess I just wanted to say good luck on finals, and I'm looking forward to everyones semester in review, and that Veronica Mars is probably the best show on TV right now, and that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan can suck it.
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