Jenny's SIR

Ah semester in review time once again...what could be more enjoyable than reflecting on the anguish and pain all over again, re-opening wounds and salting them with anticipation of next semester's responsibilities? Here goes:

I spent the better part of the first couple of months working with the Forest Service and finishing out the season's fieldwork. In addition, I finally managed to pull together my Farmer/Forager research about an hour before presenting it at the GBAC. That was the highlight of the semester, since it was my first 'real' presentation, though I still feel like I got jipped out of a really good 'Simms makes a scene' moment. According to Dr J, everybody's favorite Little Elf Man has decided--after 20 years, mind you--to accept that his theory needs work and he needn't be offended by those who attempt to move it in a more reasonable direction. Thank heaven!

Early in October, Charmaine and I took Matt Seddon out to Vernon to talk about eligibility and chaining on surface sites. We couldn't resist showing off our homesteads and, being the fellow rust-appreciator that he is, Matt was interested in my thesis and offered to join my thesis committee. Sufficeth to say, I'm thrilled. His insider track on the Level III project, etc is really going to help. Matt's a great guy--it's nice to know that someone with a personality is up there reading our reports.

I only had one class this semester--History 566: Sources and Problems in Utah History. It was interesting to see the difference in the historian approach--as we chose our books from the selected bibliography, I noticed that the three history students most often chose those that were focused on a specific individual's experience. In contrast, I tended toward those that were broader and emphasized the history of many in a specific place. Granted, I also tended to choose the shortest book on the list. The class wasn't fun, per se, but I don't regret taking it since it places all my little rusty homestead bits in better context.

Fairly uneventful, and I'm still trying to find time to knock out a preliminary report for 42WS1931 from last season, but that's what the break is for, right?

Busted!

This morning, I was driving into Phoenix to conduct a brief (< 1 acre) survey of a small parcel we are working on. On my way, I passed by the site of a huge (more than 1,000 burial) Hohokam Village we had excavated the previous year. As I was stopped at a traffic light, I noticed two guys out in the middle of the site fooling around with shovels. The site had been hit by professional looters while we were still in the field, and I immediately called our PI for further instructions.

He called the Phoenix PD, who responded with 4 cars and a helicopter unit. The bosses raced over to the site to survey the damage. Turns out, these were just two members of the Phoenix Symphony (Bassoon and 1st Violin) who were poking around in the backdirt. They had run into a former employee of our company on the site a few weeks back who had told them that it would probably be ok.

While I didn't hook a big fish, and while these dudes are probably not going to be getting into any trouble, I still count this as the first looter bust of my career.

Yoder's Semester in Review

Ah yes, that time of year again….for the semester in review! Guys, I am so freaking ready to be done with school. I need a real job! I need a real income! Sorry. Ok, this semester I only took two classes, one was an ethics and grant writing class and the other was a hunter-gatherer class.

The ethics and grant writing was ok. We discussed a lot of ethical situations, and how you might deal with them. This was actually more interesting than I first thought it would be. We then discussed how to write competitive grants. I found a few useful things from this part of the course, but most of it I had already heard. Though admittedly I have more grant experience than most of the other grad students here. A smart, yet short and interesting resource we used in the grant portion was entitled “Writing from the Winner’s Circle: A Guide to Preparing Competitive Grant Proposals” by David Stanley. This is a good little resource and can be found at http://epscor.unl.edu/rfps/winnerscircle.shtml

The hunter-gatherers class was good. It could have been better, but the class schedule got screwed this semester so that we ended up not meeting that often. This meant we weren’t able to get into a lot of the topics that we wanted to. Overall it was good though. We discussed the characteristics of hunter-gatherers in prehistory and how they interacted with their neighbors. Don’t have any really good articles to give you as you have probably read them already. As I said, we just didn’t have enough time to really get into the interesting topics we would have liked.

On my own research notes. I’m just about to submit an article to the Journal of Archaeological Science on using soft X-rays in perishable research. I hope this one gets in, it would be a good publication. I’m planning on spending the break finishing up a curation article I hope to have submitted by the beginning of next year, and of course, the ever present grant writing for dissertation money. I’ll also be running a week long survey out in the Nevada desert for one of my professors (I need the cash!). Oh, and I might work on the experimental granaries paper for publication somewhere. Though I’m not quite sure if that one is worth it, we’ll see. I’ll also be going up to Utah to visit my in-laws. On the way I’m going to stop by some old fellas who have sandals in their private collections and see if I can convince them to donate them to my dissertation (I think I’m going to dissect one or two). Working with the good ole boys and destroying artifacts, what the h have I come to! Hope you all are enjoying the break. Take some time off and relax.

Virgin Anasazi Ceramic Conference

Kelley Hays-Gilpin gave a guest lecture in my Ceramics of the Southwest class yesterday and mentioned a Conference on Virgin Anasazi ceramics that she, Jim A., and Margaret Lyneis are planning. What the H? I gotta hear about this from the outside?

Anyone know anything about this? I already emailed Jim about it.

PS: Sounds like the MPC just got a really important collection of ceramic vessels from Holbrook. Anyone know about this?

Figurine Analysis

The other day, Aaron and I were talking about the figurines recovered from North Creek.


We were talking about how they are sometimes scored on the back, and were wondering what they might have been attached to. We are currently trying to set up a Scanning Electron Microscope analysis of the dorsal side of these artifacts to see whether any organic fibers or other residue indicating how or what these things might have been attached to. We are trying to get a student in the BYU microscopy lab on-board to help with the analysis and technical stuff.

Any thoughts?

Archaeometry Rules!

Tribute to Dr J

We just had our first USAS Convention planning meeting for next June's USAS/UPAC Meetings. They're typically held the third weekend in June and will likely be there again in 2007. It's a little early, but since this is the last time the Utah County chapter will host the meeting before Dr J retires, Charmaine and I are talking about putting together a session related to Dr J's contributions to archaeology in Utah Valley and to students/amateurs. Assuming we're able to pull it off without the big J himself pulling a veto, would any of you being interested or willing to give a 10 or 15 minute presentation in tribute?

Like I said, Charmaine and I will likely spearhead it and I know there are USAS folks who'll want to talk about things they've done with him, but I'd really like to see the student perspective. He'll be moved off to Washington fishing all day every day soon enough and I know his secret cream filling soft side would really love to hear what we'll take from him after when he's gone. I mean, it'll never be the same as his relationship to Jennings, I suppose...none of us has ever loaned him a shirt that I know of...but it's something.

What do you think? Also if you have any thoughts on presentations that would be interesting or valuable at a USAS convention, especially with regards to projects you've done that used USAS volunteers, let me know--we're still very much in the brainstorming stages and I'm trying to work up a preliminary idea of possible sessions and conference themes.

Fremont Underwater Archaeology

Recently I came across an underwater archaeological investigation of Montezuma's Well, a Southern Sinagua site in Central Arizona. These investigations are not uncommon in Meso either.

It makes me want to dive down to the bottom of the Filmore hotspring and see if there might be any artifacts down there. The thing is deep (ca. 20 feet) and seems to be pretty geologically stable. What if there was a cache of Clovis points down there? Any thoughts...

The Ballad of Peter and Molly

Our good friend Molly recently contacted me asking whether I thought she might be able to sell her story to HaleStorm entertainment. Would you watch a film about Peter and Molly?

Uncle Gardner

While sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table, stuffed full of delicious trukey, rolls, and peanut butter pie, I was made privy to an amazing piece of information...I'm (through a few marriages) related to Gardner Dalley! Aparently my sister-in-law is his niece. She had mentioned to me perviously that her uncle "had done some archaeology" and was now retired and into antiquing (esp. collecting depression glass), but I had never really thought to ask her his name (or she told me his name three or four years ago when I had no clue who Gardner was). So, that's my intersting bit of news from this holiday that I just had to share with you all. (Also, rumor has it, he'll be in town for a family reunion in the spring and they might introduce me). I hope you all enjoyed your various festivities, especially the food!

Dang it AJ, and other thoughts

First off, AJ, it was good to see you again. This was the first field work I've done with you since a quick back-fill near Circleville. I hope the Big Horn Mucky-Mucks let you come back and dig with us in the next few weeks.

Second, as I've been wandering wind-swept lithic scatters near Clear Creek Canyon, I wondered what type of theory/ies will it take to replace the Madsen and Simms model? Can it be replaced? Madsen and Simms have certainly made their model difficult to test, but many out there don't subscribe to it.

Can those who have different perspectives on the Fremont ever overcome academic marginalization? I've talked a little about this with Chris, and he seems to be of the opinion that publications and reasearch based on different perspectives should continue at a slow and steady pace eventually providing a foundation for a different model (correct me if I'm wrong Chris). I think Mr. Watkins has the right idea. No good will come from a combatitive approach to the M/S model without a solid foundation to rely on.

What do the rest of you think? Will we ever see a revolution?

A GBAC Retrospective

Here's my take on the GBAC, I'll discuss a few of the papers presented, share a funny story about Steve Simms and his optimal foraging rage, and end on an inspirational note.

Now that I have been to several conferences, I find myself more and more hesitant to take notes. I still have mounds of notes from the GBAC two years ago, the SAAs in SLC, and the Southwest Seminar. For the most part, these notes have profited me nothing. So, my discussion of a few select papers will be sparse. If any of you want to jump in and add to this, please do.

Rich Talbot's paper on finding sites was very well done. He discussed the need for archaeologists to be more tech savvy and employ the use of large earth-movers to facilitate finding sites. He also suggested that archaeologists look for sites in areas of soft sand, like dunes, floodplains and alluvial fans. Use of earth movers in these areas would be especially helpful due to the large amount of deposition.

The session that Rich participated in was full of papers that promoted the use of large earth moving machines.
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Another great paper was Joel's paper on the Fremont. This paper was very reminiscent of his "100 Years of Utah Archaeology" but it was based solely on the Fremont. Joel discussed the beginnings of Great Basin Archaeology and its heavy ties to the southwest.

Then he proceeded to pimp Madsen and Simms and all that they had done for the Fremont.

Joel then provided a timeline discussing important dates in Fremont theory

1900-1930 Boasian
1970 Processual
1982 HBE
1998 Madsen and Simms
2000,2002 Janetski and Talbot

I feared that this would be yet another political paper designed to keep everyone happy, but Joel surprised me by throwing in a little barb about the genetic evidence from Steinaker Gap which illustrates that the Fremont are closer genetically to the SW than anyother group.
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Clint Cole was a heavy hitter at this conference with a few papers and a poster.
Clint spoke on INAA and Snake Valley Corrugated ceramics. He compared three sites, Parowan, Baker Village, and surveyed sites near Pinoche, NV. Clint discovered that there are some mineral outliers found in Baker Village ceramics. He also determined that the variability in SVC is shared with all three sites, and that 1/3 of the ceramics from Baker Village match those found in Parowan. (chris, fogive the summary, it was a little over my head)
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A student from UNR (Linsie Lafayette) did a study on use wear of Great Basin Stemmed points. Lafayette had someone make two sets of various GB stemmed points and she hafted half to spears and the other half to knife handles. She looked at impact marks on the projectiles (after spearing a dead deer) and butcher marks on the knives. Lafayette determined that some of the GB stemmed points may not have been points at all due to their inability to penetrate or stay hafted.
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William Adrefsky spoke about using lithics to understand land use patterns. He used ethnographic data to figure out the average daily travel time of a Paiute. Then he used debitage data to deterimine that if a toolstone source was farther that 30-40 kilometers that a tool would be retouched more than a tool made out of stone that was closer. His theory being that the more rare a toolstone is, the more it is consvered and recycled. Andrefsky also discussed the problem of retouch in lithic analysis and pimped his retouch index paper that will be showing up in Am. Antiquity next month.
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Now, for the HBE stories. The first involves O'Connell, Andrew Ugan, and a skeptical woman. Ugan had a poster on prestige and ranked hunting on display. A woman (who looked like a professor or high up mucky-muck) was arguing with Ugan and his flowing mane of hair. O'Connell was quick to jump in and Ugan, his hair, and O'Connell did all they could to convince the woman that their theory was correct.

The other story involves Steve Simms. After Kim Carpenter of Far Western gave a paper on return rates and subsistence strategies, Simms got in her face (which was cute cause he was shorter than her) and began to blast her interpretation. She countered by saying she was confused and did not understand how Simms could invest everything in ranked strategies. Simms tried to blow her off and started to walk away two times, she asked him to come back and talk about why he was angry and explain his model better. He did, only to walk away for good the third time with a dimmisive wave of the hand. Such is the Elven rage of Steve Simms (that should be his power if we ever do GB trading cards..."ELVEN RAGE")

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Finally, an inspirational note. This GBAC saw an entire session devoted to essays in honor of Don Fowler. Joel's paper was part of this session. During the session, I sensed a camaraderie between Fowler, his colleages, and students that I do not always sense around Joel. I thought this was interesting. I wonder if it's just due to the fact that Fowler was everybody's drinking buddy...

In the final paper of the session, Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy's) brought up an excellent point. DT shared an experience about Fowler that I really liked. In the past, Fowler has written several glowing letters of rec for Dave Thomas. Once, as Dave was thanking Fowler for helping him so often, Fowler told him that it was his pleasure, and that "Archaeology is a team sport."

Out of all the papers, that concept, however optimistic, was one of the most important shared at the conference. We're all on the same team.

Fremont Annotated Bibliography

I have officially started our open source project on Google Docs, and by open source I mean open source. If you didn't get an invitation, it's because I don't have your email. Catch me (waktins dot chris at gmail dot com) or anyone else who has access to get involved. Let's publicize this bad boy and see if we can't get something cool going.

Happy editing!

Haiku for Waldo Wilcox

Mouthpiece of wisdom
Philosopher and poet
How you enlighten


Add your Haiku about W.W.

More About Archaeology and Less of Waldo

I know we all saw the National geographic article about Range Creek, but my mom just mailed me a copy of an article from the March issue of Smithsonian Magazine which is also about Range Creek. I think we'd all enjoy this one a bit more than teh National Geographic's spotlight on Waldo. Though the Smithsonian article is not without unique quips from Waldo (such as "I think these Indians were so damn poor that when they died they went to the happy hunting ground and there was no need to take what little they had") it is actually a realatively good article about the Fremont for a lay magazine.
For those of you still at OPA, I'm posting a copy on the board.

A FOF Project

The other day it occurred to me that people don't know anything about the Fremont and that we may be able to help. What say you about getting together an annotated bibliography of the Fremont? We could do an alphabetic and a topical version, as well an abridged one with the critical references.

The problem would be making it so all of us could edit it, and then where to host it. I was thinking we could maybe create a new blog and make the references the post, and then we could all work on the annotations in the comments section. I was also wondering if OPA might host the finished bib. Any thoughts?

Brad is Famous

To all those who have received their SAA Archaeological Record, look at the article about CRM being taught in universities. Brad is all crouched into the pits at North Creek. Props are given to Dr. J and Yoder for the photo. My question is "why does the article mention nothing about BYU, but features a photo of our very own Brad Newbold?" Lay-tar.

A Warm Welcome to AJ

I want to extend a welcome to AJ, an OPA alumni and original founder of the famous "filfoul". This Man from Moroni and Senior OPA employee needs little introduction for those who have had the opportunity to work with him. He has been on several clandestine mission for OPA as a team leader of the secretive and elusive Shadow Company (many of you will now have to be shot after reading this post). We look forward to having his insight here on Friends of the Fremont and hope he will bring to bear some of this expertise in our discussion. Without further ado, everyone welcome the one and only AJ. . . filfoul!

GBAC in Vegas

So the GBAC is quickly approaching, and I need to get a head count of who is going to be crashing at my place. Sally also wants some kinda of idea of when people will be getting here and when you will be going home. As I've said before, anyone who wants to is invited, just bring your own pillows and towels. And ear plugs....my kids are up every morning around 6:30, 7:00 at the latest. Enjoy!

Well done ASASES!

To all involved with the ASAS conference, thank you. I think it was a great success and that all papers presented have potential to be published. I was a little scared at the start of the session when there were only three people there (sorry Mike), but we made it through.

Thanks to all those who contributed to the session, I hope it pads the CV nicely.

Special mention to Mike Searcy for driving 16 hours to Tucson and Mr. Yoder for starting his day off at 3:30 am and ending it (hopefully alive) in Vegas much later that evening. Also, props to Beau Schreiver for enduring his first Clarktastic Crucifixion.

It was good to see you guys.

OPA Reunion Project

I was thinking over the weekend that fieldwork with Uncle OPA was actually pretty fun, even when it sucked. What do people think of getting together every couple of years or something for an OPA Reunion project? Everybody could show up in Provo for a few days or maybe a week to volunteer on a dig or maybe analyze some artifacts or whatever Uncle OPA needs at the time. We could even lower the cost of some more research type projects this way. It seems to me that we could get a pretty good test of Wolf Village done in a week with enough OPA alumni in the house. Of course, Uncle OPA would have to come up with some dough for the analysis or whatever, but it could be cool.

Test post

Testing...

Email Alert

I have figured out a way to send email updates to people whenever a new post or comment has been added to FoF. Leave your name in the comments section of this post if you would like to get an update.

Continued Salvation of OPA?

In the latest wave of good fortune for OPA, we currently have six student employees. If you count Molly who is an off and on OPA employee, then that makes seven. That's pretty good, since it got pretty dire for a while with cut wages and when Holly and I were the only hold outs.

In addition to this, we now have a new AP2

It's kind of a beige color, almost a "Gold Mist Metallic" (see "colors" on the web page)

It's nice to have a new vehicle, but the ground clearance will be an issue. I think we should get it tricked out with a lift and big tires. It needs to lose some of that "fresh from the factory" look.

El Norta Creeko

Ahhhh yes, waking up knowing that in less than an hour you will be completely covered, nay, saturated, in cow feces. Could you be anywhere else than North Creek Shelter? So I just got back from there last weekend, as did Brad, Holly, Molly, Mike, and Mark; all BYUers. A good time was had by all. We dug a lot, yet still did not hit sterile. At 3 meters below ground surface it eludes us. But from the very bottom we did pull the base of a point (looks like a Pinto), so that was great. What was not so great was that the feature that looked oh so much like a pithouse in profile turned out not to be….probably. Which does not bode well for my dissertation. Instead it looks like it was a heavily used use surface. It was chock full of pits. Which was cool and still salvageable, but all the fill above and probably on parts of the surface and in some of the pits was heavily rodent burrowed so that data coming out of there will be suspect. Not good. I am currently completely ignoring this problem and not thinking about what to do, but eventually (probably this weekend) I will have to evaluate things and decide if I can still do my dissertation on the Early Holocene on the Northern Colorado Plateau using data primarily from North Creek. I wouldn’t be extremely bummed if not for the amount of time and energy I have all ready expended in doing background research and writing grants. I don't have the official photos from the dig yet but will try to post one or two when I get them.

UNLV has me teaching two Cultural Anthropology 101 classes this semester. I have the afternoon and evening classes which means that they are smaller, only around 30 or 40 kids a piece. I didn’t know I was going to be teaching them until two weeks ago, and I was in the field so I couldn’t do any preparation. So this week I have been struggling to get things together. So far so good, no one has dropped anyway. A couple of other things going on but I’ll save them for another post; I’ve got to get back to work. It was good to see all the BYU folks again. Aaron, Chris, Cady, Scott, Mike….we were wishing you could have been there, it would have been a good time to have everyone together. Frescas all around!

Skeletons in the display case

Hey all,

I got back from the UK last night. It was a fun trip and I spent some time in museums looking at various Roman and Celtic displays.

One thing that impressed me about the various displays was the presence of human remains. There were Roman skeletons and Celtic skeletons on display. It was refreshing to see the various displays and to read about the data gathered due to unfettered access to human remains.

This led me to wonder why there aren't any widespread repatriation movements by Italians or Celtic descendants. In other words, why did we get hit with repatriation issues that have not affected archaeologists in other countries?

I suppose that depth of time is an issue. In some cases, Italians and Brits are more temporally removed from the displayed human remains than Native Americans; but what about Kennewick Man?

So, ultimately, what brought on the revolution that got the NAGPRA ball rolling? Unhealed wounds from colonial attrocities? Native American religious beliefs? Or a combination of the two coupled with a desire to stick it to the white man?

Anyway, I'm sure there is not a definitive answer to any of these questions, and I know that NAGPRA is here to stay, but seeing those skeletons on display made me feel like I was missing out on a piece of archaeology that became unreachable with the implementation of NAGPRA.

The Experimental Offspring Unite!

The Archaeological Sciences of the Americas 2006 Conference is coming up in September and I thought I would just paste a copy of the powerhouse of BYU "wonderkind" that will be presenting...REPRESENT!


ORGANIZED SESSION: A CORE CONCERN: THE ROLE OF EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
ORGANIZERS: A. R. Woods and M. Searcy
1:30 – 2:00 Moving from Guessing to Educated Guessing: Testing the Ethnographic Record with Experimental Archaeology – M. Searcy
2:00 – 2:30 Quantifying Observable Change in the Visual Appearance of Heat Treated Chert – C. Watkins, C. B. Jardine, and S. Ure
2:30 – 3:00 Two Examples of Experimental Archaeology: Methodology, Findings, and Comparisons – D. Yoder
3:00 – 3:30 Constructing a Curriculum: Teaching Ancient Technology and Replication - A. Woods
3:30 – 4:00 Use-Wear or Not Use-Wear: An Experiment to Investigate the Notches in Ribs Recovered From Durango Basketmaker II Contexts – B. Scheiver
4:00 – 4:30 Discussion – J. Clark

P.S. - It looks like we have 30 minutes a piece now. We better start writing!!!

Gibson may be a drunk, but has a good idea

I just wanted to respond to Aaron's post as well as comments to his post on Apocolypto, since I have a heightened interest in this field.

OK. First, I guarantee that Apocolypto will not be any where close to accurate. We still don't know what accurate is in the Mayan region. Population size, the existence of a proto-Mayan language, and the "collapse" are all areas that are still heavily debated. I am convenced there is no final definition of Mayan culture nor that it will be depicted in the movie. But, this film is building on a known genre, that of "historical drama." In this case, it would be more appropriate to call it "PRE-historical drama," an entirely uncharted style that could aid archaeologists in the ever-dreaded search for funding.

This is where I think we can really make headway in getting the general public involved in archaeology and where Mel Gibson is creating a new type of film that gets us all thinking a little harder about the big picture when it comes to prehistoric cultural groups (i.e., how they all interacted, what it may have looked like, what the language may have sounded like, etc.)

Now, in reference to Gibson's actions, I think he has a problem, and like all Hollywood types, will do the rehab shuffle and be on his way. They are smart to postpone the release of the film. This is likely to our benefit. Unfortunately, the Mayan region already gets lots of funding. What is needed are more films about lesser-known cultures or a television program that highlights these cultures. As the public gets interested in these areas, they will be more likely to support research through volunteered help or funding.

The big question is "how do we make this appeal to the mass public." That is the main challenge, but I am pretty sure it is not simply through public lectures and other traditional community events, although they are very important to continue. Listen to this segment that was on NPR where Leon Lederman confronts a similar issue dealing with public interest in the general field of science. He says that TV is a "medium that would be magical for our society" if it focused on educating the public, but as we all know, this is currently not the case.

Until we can solve that problem, we will be left with the difficulty of scrounging for money from the usual suspects. I vote for the popularizing of archaeology for our benefit and job security. This may sound selfish, but at the same time we will continue in our scientific pursuits of filling in the blanks of prehistory and preserving the past.

Note to female GBAC'ers

I know that most of you have friends like unto Mr. Yoder to crash with for GBAC, but by way of update, I just found out that I'm gonna have to stay at the Golden Nugget cuz' I've got two days of agency business meetings before the conference even starts.

Charmaine and I will be grabbing a room for all 5 nights, so if any of you girl-types are looking to go in on a room instead of commuting, let me know. I have the student rate reserved though we're looking into the possibility of getting a government rate that would probably be lower. Either way it's certainly not the least expensive venue they might have chosen! Alas!

Let me know if you want to join us. Stifles evening socializing with OPA-ites to some extent, I suppose, but it guarantees more time watching big names get plastered and makes a's of themselves in the elevator! So, hey. (ummm...lame use of Wikipedia to learn how to make links...nothing so noteable as the Toilet of Croc-Hunting. Sorry.)

Word on the street

Now that Rich and co. have scored a big excavation project by the Provo Airport (Hinckley Mounds, here we come!), Uncle OPA is back on top.

It's a good thing, because I heard that during the lean times he had been sleeping out under the old wheelbarrows between Allen Hall and the Elms.

Anyone else heard anything about our good pal?

Archaeology and Movies (useless summer post #3)

With all of the recent news of Mel Gibson and his run-in with the police, it has been suggetsed that his Lamanite thriller Apocolypto will be postponed yet again. Originally, Apocolypto was scheduled to be released sometime this month, but, due to heavy rains in Mexico, it will be released in December. Although, with recent DUI charges, rehab, and anti-semitist remarks, who knows if it will be pushed back even farther?

I was/am still excited to see what Gibson does with the subject matter. I can't remember any good feature films set in Mesoamerica (unless you consider "Ancient America Speaks"). Sadly, I fear that I will be greatly dissapointed. In general, films depicting archaeology have been lacking in accuracy and details.

The Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and tragically, Alien vs Predator (shout out to Craig) films all had some sort of "archaeological" theme but fell flat when it came to accuracy.

Now, one could argue that archaeology is in itself, boring. Who wants to film someone filling out site forms or digging a test pit? But there have been some exciting discoveries and events in the archaeological world. The question is, which is better? Making a film about modern archaeologists in adventurous positions or making films ala Apocolypto set in the past, loosely based on the archaeological record?

I would argue that the latter holds more appeal, but the problem is that with so many conflicting theories, one group of theorists will always be upset. Imagine, what if someone did a film on (work with me on this) the Fremont? Who would the writers interview to get the skinny? I can picture a film in which culture takes the sideline, many of the concepts of HBE are thrown in our faces(apologies to Dave), and certain interpretations anger the Natives.

Conversly, a film about a modern archaeologist will almost always take an Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider/Bones slant due to the lack of excitement surrounding excavations and field work.

So, in short, is there a future for archaeological subjects in the cinema? I doubt that anyone will ever get the subject completely right, but what do you all think?

I know that on television, many shows have had some success. Programs appearing on the History Channel and Discovery Channel are, despite melodrama and little inaccuracies, archaeologically friendly. Although, when you get guys like the Josh Bernstein of Digging for the Truth at the helm, I shudder. Ultimately, I think that Chris has the right idea for his tv show, and hey, if Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter got a movie, why couldn't Mr. Watkins and his cast and crew of the as yet unnamed archaeology tv show?

Keep Mr. Richens in mind

Just found out a few minutes ago that one of Lane's heart valves (aorta) collapsed this morning. It wasn't considered a heart attack but he has been hospitalized. They put a stent in his heart to clean things up. It sounds like things will be ok, but a few prayers never hurt anything. Apparently he will have a stent in his heart for life and be on medication for a year.

As if it hadn't already been rammed down our throats...or, "Damned Hippies digging up my body"

Just got the August issue of National Geographic.

There's an article about Range Creek in there. The link takes you to an excerpt, but I would suggest taking a look at the full article. There are many cool photographs.

The article itself is a fluff piece full of Waldo Wilcox's ramblings and Metcalf's and Barlow's damage control after Waldo rambles.

At one point, Wilcox gives NG his version of the occupation of Range Creek, (Paraphrase)...

Well, I think that a long time ago little people lived around here, they weren't more than two feet tall, then, the Fremont came in here and killed them off.

As for the "Damned Hippies" reference, that's Waldo's opinion of archaeologists digging up graves.

Check it out.

Jerry's Memories

FYI: I posted Mike's classic "Chris vs. the Big J" on Google Video.

Check it out here.

Mayan Ice Cream (Useless Summer Post #2)

Hi all, saw this and thought you might be interested to enjoy desert like Pacal(or whatever his full name was). Or at least taste how a bunch of euro-americans think mayan chocolate tastes.

Sugar wasn't added to chocolate until it got over to europe right?

If anything, the interactive website is pretty cool.

The Holy Trinity of Fresca (useless summer post)

We all know that Fresca flows through the veins of all true OPA fieldworkers, but the question is, which Fresca is best?

As many of you may or may not know, Fresca is now available in three flavors.

Sparkling Citrus (original)
Sparkling Peach Citrus
Sparkling Black Cherry Citrus

I will admit, when these new flavors came out in 2005, I was skeptical. Since then however, I have become quite the fan of peach fresca. It truly is paradise on the tounge. My personal ranking of the Frescas is as follows:

Peach
Original
Black Cherry

Have any of you tried them? I know Holly and I share the same sentiments, but I ask you fellow Fresca lovers, which of the three is your favorite?


DRINK PEACH FRESCA AND LIVE

Jenny's FIR

Hi all!

I'm glad to leave overall summarizing to Aaron's debriefing, but I've now had enough time away from field school to actually sit down and reflect and thought I'd throw it on here for another perspective.

Amen to the refreshing attitude toward decision-making down there! I couldn't believe how often we heard Jim say "It's your dig, what do YOU think?)! And, in the end, I have to give up my private tirades against Arizona...it was a paradise compared to St George, although both camps were comfortable.

My personal highlight was our last three days after several weeks of survey and site recording. My crew spent 3 days on a site we named Hilltop Condos for the number of habitation structures clustered tightly around a small plaza on the point of a hill. Great site! We drove over it with Jim when we went to show him a feature we'd found during survey and it's absolutely gorgeous. The rubble we first recognized in the road turned out to be one of the round structures on site. We eventually identified 3, possibly 4 or 5 total round structures. One is set way apart from the others with very few artifacts. Best guess is it's our kiva, but we didn't have time to test it. Not sure what Hilltop dates to, but ceramics ran the full gamut from PI-ish (I think) to a single poly-chrome piece. We dropped a 1x1 into the plaza where the midden is darkest. Hit our best bet at sterile only 30 cm down, paling in comparison to Aaron and Brad's site, but boy was it artifact rich.

Well, anyway, it's a great site. I think Dave may be the only person on here who saw it, but we were still finding features at that point, so it may not have looked like much. And there's no real comparison to Molly's Imperial 400 or Brad and Aaron's Poverty Ridge East.

The students did really well, I was very impressed. It was an interesting group. Eclectic, to say the least. Jim's kids were an interesting addition. Molly and I shared a tent with Elizabeth and Christopher spent a couple days out on survey with my crew. And, despite my insistence that historics can be fun, it was really great to spend some quality time with real artifacts and such. I really wish I'd known my stuff better--horribly inadequate--but there is still so much to learn about the Anasazi. Our biggest problem, as ever, will be finding good dates for these sites, but hopefully next year they'll get corn.

Well, I'm glad to be back and enjoying a much needed change of company, though I'd stay with the venue down there anyday. It's going to be interesting to see what develops in lab, though I don't envy the students for the amount of washing and labeling they'll have to do on top of their analyses. Molly, Brad, Aaron and I will be co-authoring a paper with Jim for GBAC, mostly summarizing and presenting preliminary data. We'll see how that turns out.

On an aside, if anyone knows people looking for volunteer experience--poor jobless undergrads and such--send them my way. We've got the Uinta National Forest PIT Project out at Vernon 2nd week of August and are pretty short-handed. We'll be focusing on homestead recording, but we've also got some wicked big lithic scatters to chase out. Not the most exciting work, but gorgeous scenery. Vernon's the center of the universe, after all. There are a couple postings about it on the bulletins at the MPC.

Happy field work, everybody! Savor the summer, woe the winter, eh?

Aaron's FIR (Fieldschool in Review)

Alright, so I said I'd do this a few nights ago, but never got around to it. So here goes.

After all of the stress of loading up gear and then sitting in the parking lot for hours while Jim tried to get organized, we headed down to St. George. We camped on a wildlife preserve owned by BYU called Lytle Ranch. It was a nice little area with plently of trees and shady spots to camp, showers, and flush toilets. The only draw back was that Lytle Ranch was 45-50 minutes from our sites. So, every morning, we had to drive for quite a while to get to where we were going. Nothing like the convenience of Barnson's land.

Our work in Utah focused on the area of Land Hill, just outside of Ivins, Utah. The sites ranged in size and complexity form small storage features to large room blocks. The whole western face of Land Hill was covered in rock art. Molly and Jenny's crew were in charge of large scale excavations of roomblocks and storage features. My crew was more nomadic, tending to do re-record many of Gardner Daly's pre-recorded sites. In addition to re-recording, we dug test pits at many of these sites. Brad's crew was in charge of recording the rock art. That involved taking lots of photographs and placeing large sheets of Mylar over the panels and tracing over them with sharpies.

Jim's main research interests for Utah were to collect a high sherd yeild, understand the scale and quantitiy of sites on Land Hill, and to use this data to compare the data gathered in the AZ highlands.

I'll speak from personal experience, but our artifact yeild was significant. I got fairly good at choosing tet pit spots afte ther first few were a bust. Turns out, if you dig near or in midden, you get a lot more stuff than if you were to dig in or around a structure. The majority of our artifacts were ceramics. We had plenty of Dogozhi (sp?), Washington Black on White, Redware, corrugated and redwares.

The AZ part of fieldschool proved to be much more interesting (everything's better in AZ right?). We climbed up to an elevation of 6,500 feet. Which made temperatures much more tolerable. We camped at a BLM station in the middle of nowhere. The closest city was St.George, an hour away on a primitive road.

The sites were spectacular and relatively untouched. Brad and I worked on site A:10:24. This site had originally been recorded in 1988, and then later surface collected. As we got on site we were amazed at the high artifact densitiy. Immediately we found complete proj. points, shell beads, unworked olivella shells, lug handles, and painted sherds the size of the palm of your hand. The site was a sea of pin flags. The research strategy for AZ was slightly different. Jim was hesitant to excavate structures and preferred to do test pits and complete collection areas. Even with 10 people working on A:10:24, we still had too much to do. Jim wanted us to point plot all diagnostic and exotic artifacts on the surface (which really slowed us down). Field specimens collected from this site totalted in the 700s (and that was only two weeks of excavation). We also found a single piece of worked turquoise, a strangely worked and shaped scapula (mayan eccentric-esque), and the fragment of a human mandible, molars and pre-molars intact. Jim's strategy for dealing with the human remains was to simply stop digging and rebury it. The Hopi and Paiute agreed to that strategy, so we didn't have to notify anyone, inluding Joel's friends Rick and Rena... (if you don't get that one, I'll explain it)

After working on that site for two weeks my crew was put on survey. We didn't find much. Mostly lithic and ceramic scatters. Other survey crews found several large architectural sites with upright slabs, circular features, and high arifact densities.

All in all, it was a good field school. Jim was flustrered and stress at many times, especially after 9 flat tires, a run-in with a cow and one of our Yukons, and local crazies. It was obvious this was his first year. Joel had it down to a science, but Jim was way more flexible and open to suggestions. It was refereshing though to work with somone who felt that they could walk away from your site with the confidence that you were doing things the right way. That trust was refreshing and empowering. I feel like I could actually run an excavation now.

There is much more, including a visit to UNLVs excavation (sadly, Karen Harry isn't as colorful as Dave Madsen)(no funny stories), and the little funny stories about hitting the cow and other things.

Welcome home Virgins

Let's get the report! Dish, DISH!!!!

Fremont Symposium

Cady and I were talking the other day, and it occurred to me that we should have a one-shot Fremont Symposium at BYU. I'm picturing like less than 30 people.

One day would be papers from each participant on whatever Fremont topic they wanted.

The next day or 2 could be set aside for open discussion of topics. You could submit a topic and a bibliography and people could come in and talk about it openly. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to have a 30 minute round-table discussion on whatever you wanted? Why don't we find Fremont whole vessels? Where are all the burials? What the H is a central structure? The list goes on...

People to attend in addition to the FoF:

Joel
Rich
Lane
Jim A.
Margaret Lyneis
Phil Geib
Shane Baker
Byron Loosle
Charmaine Thompson
Matheney?
Glenna
Kenny Winch
Alan Reed
SHPO/State Archaeologist People
Renee Barlow
Duncan Metcalf
Steve Simms
Dave Madsen
Andrew Ugan
Jason Bright
Interested U of U students
Karen Harry
The new Fremont Indian State Park archaeologist
Any other interested Great Basin Archaeological All-stars (Mel Aikens, the Fowlers, Gardener Dalley, McFadden)
Other Government people
Marti Allen?
The SUU Lady (name escapes me)
Etc...

Special Guest Star: V. Garth Norman

I know Ray tried to do this once with Anasazi pottery and nobody showed up, so we'd have to be a little careful. I'd also like to leave subsistence out of things as much as possible. We don't need to bring up all the old arguments, the point of this would be to press ahead.

ASU = BYU South?

The following is an excerpt of an angry email from Dr. Mary Rothschild, a long-term professor of history and former chair of Womens' Studies. She is part of a vocal cadre of faculty who are extremely opposed to the policies of ASU's President, Michael Crow.

"And I know I shouldn't say this, but many of us hate that we are becoming BYU South. The Fulton fundraising does not come without strings. You should see the flyer that is in the box outside the fence where the new enormous LDS Institute is being built. It is an article from the Church News that has quotes from the president saying that ASU is particularly glad to have Mormons because they raise the retention rates and are such good students, etc. Honestly, and we are put on public notice in the Wall Street Journal for not hiring a professor of religious studies because the local church objects. It takes me back to my first graduation here when Homer Durham returned to be the public speaker and he began with a prayer and I walked out. I think there should be a WALL between religious groups and public universities. Campus ministries are fine, but they exist for students and should be nothing more than extracurricular activities."

I guess I know now why I got into ASU huh!?

Note: Homer Durham is my great-uncle.

Doug McFadden Update

This morning I was perusing the Arizona State Museum list of permit holders, and noticed that McFadden had started his own contract company out of Kanab.

http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/profsvcs/permits/permittees.shtml

Note also that Sean's company out of Layton, UT is also on this list.

Searcy SIR - Spring 2006

After a year at OU, I feel a little closer to the end. Overall, I've been enjoying myself and the work here. Classes went well this semester. I took two, one was a directed readings of Southwest archaeology under Paul Minnis and the other was my core class for biological anthropological theory.

Southwest Readings
Paul drilled me good with this one, requiring me to read about 2 books a week at the beginning of the semester, then he tapered off at the end. The last part of my semester was dedicated to writing a paper that would be part of my dissertation prospectus and likely part of a future NSF dissertation improvement grant. Best books of the semester - "Exploring the Hohokam" (edited volume) and "Ceramics and Ideology" (Patricia Crown). Least impressive book of the semester - "Becoming Aztlan" (Carol Riley) - this last one came out last year and talks of how southwestern cultures were where Aztec ancestors originated. He kind of jumped around from weak evidence to weaker evidence.

Theories of Biological Anthropology
This is the required course for all grad students here at OU. The instructor is really great and knows a lot about the history of physical anthropology. I really enjoyed getting a better grasp on evolutionary issues and attempting to understand the taxonomy of early man. I still don't know if I believe that the Neanderthals were a different species from homo sapiens because I know a number of people with distinct crested brows. This may prove the theory that early homo sapiens moved north into Europe and were hooking up with the Neanderthals of that area. Great book from this class/fun read - "Race is a Four-Letter Word" (Brace) - this book looks at how the concept of race is a socially constructed phenomenon.

Other activities
The Spring semester also brought a close to the rewriting of my thesis for publication. Dr. Clark is in the process of editing it as we speak, pouring buckets of blood over the pages, so that it can be published. Clark originally offered to publish it in the NWAF Papers series, but said that if it is good enough, he will take it to some university presses (Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, etc.) to try and get it picked up. We'll see what happens.

Also, I was able to put together a paper for the SAAs in Puerto Rico in April, co-writing it with a friend from ASU (Jamie Holthyusen). It highlighted my ethnographic research of metates in guatemala and applied those findings to a collection of metates excavated from La Quemada, Mexico. I haven't heard a report of how the session went, but hopefully someone may have decided to listen to the session rather than lounge on the beach. I know what I would have been doing.

Otherwise, I have been working a lot on a full-length documentary dealing with illegal immigration, a real hot topic right now. We have a lot of footage of the recent rallies here in OKC and in Dallas. We also have had a number of interviews with state representatives and will be filming in Mexico and at the border after my dig at Casas Grandes in July. I also just started work on a Q'eqchi'-English dictionary with a student from SUNY Albany and that seems to be rolling along. The semesters never end. Take care all.

Watkins SIR Spring 2006

Two classes for me this term, both of which are only tangentially related to Archaeology.

Agent-based Modeling in the Social Sciences

What is agent-based modeling you may ask? At the end of an entire semester, you'd think that I'd be able to answer that question. Tragically, I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to do that.

It may be best to begin with an example. Have you ever wondered how they do those epidemic disease predictions? You know on the news when they say, "If the Bird Flu broke out in Hong Kong, 10,000 people would be infected in the first 6 hours, Tokyo and Beijing would be hit within the first 12 hours, yada yada yada..." Well, these predictions are made with agent-based modeling. They basically program a bunch of little people, aka agents, and let them walk around a city. They program stuff like infection rates and the proximity of infection and then watch what happens. They run it like 1,000 times and then interpret the results.

We were supposedly trying to apply this technique to problems in the social sciences. Good luck. This is simply the newest fad in archaeology. Most of the models are based on so-called prisoner's dilemma exchanges, where agents are assumed to be selfish. I could get into a lot of reasons why ABM is problematic, but it just makes me remember the horror of last semester.

Archaeometry

This class was really cool. I worked with turquoise, a geological sample from Kingman, AZ and a bead Joel and Cady loaned me from the Parowan Valley. We learned a materials science approach to analysis, where you characterize the texture (surface characteristics), structure (phases), and composition (elemental makeup) of a substance. Identifying texture is done primarily with scanning electron microscopes. There are a variety of techniques available to determine elemental composition (INAA, PIXE, Electron Microprobe, ICP-MS, etc). These sort of data are most often used in provenance studies. What is a phase you ask? This is kind of a tough question. I think it's best explained with an example. If you sent a piece of chert through a compositional analysis, the results would be mostly silicon with traces of whatever else is in the material (i.e., Ti, Fe, Ca, whatever). Running the same sample through a structural analysis would identify it as chert. Essentially, instead is identifying elements, compositional analysis identifies minerals and various molecules.

Anyway, these folks believe that to do an analysis right, you need to address texture, structure, and composition. There are a lot of advantages to this approach, and if you have the $$ and the means, I would highly recommend it.

Other News

Knowing what Mike and Dave are currently going through, I feel a little guilty mentioning this, but it is going to come out in the end. My dissertation has just been funded by the NSF, through no effort on my part. At the beginning of the semester, I was attached to an NSF proposal submitted by my advisor, Dave Abbott, and some other ASU faculty. A few weeks ago, we learned it had been funded, and I'm going to be paid for 2 years to work on the project. We'll be investigating the Southern Sinagua (the so-called Verde Confederacy consisting of the pueblo sites along the Verde River, like Tuzigoot, Montezuma's Castle, etc), and my part of it is going to be creating a ceramic typology, chronology, and a mechanism for sourcing the pottery. I think that it's going to be kind of a big deal, we're essentially taking a culture from 0-60 in a few short years. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about it, while at the same time, I ackowledge that I have fallen into this without really doing anything much to particularly earn it.

Hope to see some other SIRs soon. I feel bad that mine was late too.

NSF Avoidance and Burial Excavation

I am currently in the middle of re-writing my NSF dissertation improvement grant. Not fun. It's taking me for freaking ever and I just can't seem to get it done. So to avoid having to stare at it some more I'll do a quick recount of my excavation of a burial two weeks ago.

Some kids found a burial out at a teen party spot, under some rocks in a little overhang on a rock outcrop. The sheriff didn't know if it was historic/prehistoric, native american/or whitee. So he called a forensic anthropologist here at UNLV. Since all the archaeology professors were out on business, the forensic anthropologist took me and a couple of her students along. Long story short, I got to excavate the burial. It still had some flesh on different parts of the bones (although it was leather hard or even brittle in some places). Anyway, it was an interesting morning and nice to get out of the office. So that's my story...sadly it was short and now I have to go back to the NSF. For those of you out at Jim Allison's fieldschoo, I think I'll be coming to visit June 14 or 15 or somewhere around then. Are there any tents with only one guy in them, or should I bring my own tent?

Possible Thesis Topic

On the way back to Provo, I had a Yoder-esque epiphany (remember the M.A.N. in the Van moment Dave?)

I'd like to do something of a border study between the Parowan Valley (Fremont) and the St. George Basin (Virgin Anasazi). In other words, looking at differences and similarities between the Fremont and the Anasazi.

It is obvious we have a ecological and cultural border, it would be interesting to chart many of the cultural differences and similarities.

I could do this in several ways:

First, toolstone preferences. North of the St. George Basin (in the Parowan Valley) we see a preference for obsidian and PBN points (made of obsidian). In the St.GB we see the PBN point style but they are all made of chert. This difference is also evident in debitage from various sites.

Second, ceramic design styles and distribution. Are pots coming from north of the St. GB or east of the St. GB?

I think that it would be intersting to see how the borders really affect cultural styles/diagnostics/etc. In many ethnographies we see that border differences are much stronger, but in some we see that border cultures are muddled and blurry (Hodder 1982).

Anyway, it's all very preliminary and sketchy, but I'd like to look at the possibilities that a topic like this could bring. I'd appreciate any criticism (with the realization that it's all very general and was devised today) . I probably won't get to many of your comments for a little while (internet access is difficult right now).

Greetings from the Middle of Nowhere

Hey everyone,

I'm up for the weekend from the 2006 fieldschool.

Things down there are good, but incredibly hot.

The project is divided into four areas situated near Land Hill, just outside of Ivins, Utah. Here's a brief summary of the activities going on down there.

Molly's crew is doing a full scale excavation of a large PII or PIII site (I think it's a small community site). They are just getting started with excavation after two weeks of surface collection and mapping.

Jenny's crew is doing something similar to Molly's. They are currently chasing a wall. I don't know much more than that.

Brad's crew is recording or re-recording all of the rock art on Land Hill. In the process of recording the rock art, they have discovered two rock shelters among the boulders.

My crew is currently re-recording all of Gardner Dalley and Doug McFadden's recorded sites. We have tested one PIII site and several rock art sites. We have been doing something interesting with rock art recording. We have taken large sheets of mylar, placed them on the rock art panels and then traced over the rock art with sharpie markers. In this way, we have been able to get full scale representations of the rock art. When we get back, we hope to scan them. It really beats using a tape measure and feature sketch form.

Brad's crew has yet to use this method, but I am pretty impressed. On Tuesday, my crew will test a PIII site with a lot of redware polychrome sherds and white on black sherds. There is also a moderate amount of obsidian debitage.

I really don't know much more about the other crews or their activities since my crew is much more mobile and more survey/testing oriented.

Travel Discount

Well summer is here, at least in Vegas anyway! It is already heating up in the city from hell. We refuse to turn our air conditioner on any earlier than we have to .. last night our house registered 88 degrees inside but we will not give in! Electricity is too expensive so we're going to hold out even if it means we no longer wear clothes inside.

On a lighter note, while most of you will be doing thesis/doctorate work, I thought I'd let you all in on a chance to save some money if you will be traveling with your families. My husband became a travel agent a month ago and we now receive discount travel. We are going to San Diego in July and will get into Sea World, San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park all at 50% off as well as 30%-50% off our hotel. If you are traveling at all this summer, email me before you make your reservations and I'll can let you know how to save some money; with gas prices escalating quickly, every little bit counts.

Sorry this isn't "archaeology" related but so many of us are married and have little ones that discounts on travel come in very handy and I thought I'd share.

Mr. Yoder's Semester In Review 2006a

Schools not over for another week, but I'm sick of working on my papers.
Three classes again this semester. Need to get out of school man. Chris and Mike, do you realize how much we are going to be in debt by the time we're finished. I try not to think about it. Anyway......here we go.

Origins of Agriculture: In this class we talked about….the origins of agriculture. We spent a large amount of time talking about the near east. Understandable, since this was where agriculture started, but disappointing in some ways. Although we did discuss the New World, it took a back seat (like the VERY back of the bus type seat) to the near east. We also didn’t talk much about the spread of agriculture to non-agriculturalists, hunter gather/farmer relations, or the impacts and direct effects of agriculture, which is what I find most interesting. We did discuss this stuff, but only lightly. On the positive side we read lots of classic articles by the likes of Braidwood, Bar-Yosef, Binford, Flannery, Smith, and the like. One of the most interesting was by Rindos. Check out Rindos 1980 for an interesting symbiotic view of things. Who freaking needs culture, we have evolution! (Just kidding, it really is a good article)

Rindos, David
1980 Symbiosis, Instability, and the Origins and Spread of Agriculture: A New Model. Current Anthropology 21:751-772.

Some of the main questions at the beginning of the class were why, how, when, and under what conditions was agriculture adopted. The conclusion…..who freaking knows. It’s not quite that bad, but a lot of very intelligent people disagree on most of these issues. Why was agriculture adopted? I think the current trend is to say for a lot of reasons and be kinda wishy washee. True, lots of things came into play, but grow a pair and state what you think THE prime mover was.

Ceramic Analysis: Basically a review of ceramics, including physical analysis and theory. I was disappointed in this class because it was taught with senior level undergrads and so was, well, pretty basic. I did get the chance to do some analysis on a ceramic collection from a Virgin Anasazi site which has gotten me interested in the Virgin Anasazi in general. Pretty cool group. They’ve kinda been forgotten by the Southwesterners, just like the Fremont. They’re kinda like brothers the Fremont and Virgin Anasazi are….bastard brothers….bastard brothers with the same southwestern mom but different fathers. Yeah. There’s an article title in there somewhere, “The Fremont and Virgin Anasazi: Bastard Sons of the Southwest”

Curation Issues: In this class we discussed how important curation and public anthropology are. Reinforced the necessity of the YAR, as well as provided me with the chance to do some research for an article I’ve been wanting to write. I sent out surveys to professors all over the U.S. asking about their students and how many were doing theses or dissertations on curated materials vs. new materials. I’m hoping to write this up this summer. Sent it out to around 100 professors, got responses from roughly 60. How many had bad things to say, only 2. Who were they? One was an academic god of agriculture, the other was our very own Juan. I was soooo not surprised.

On top of classes I did some survey work for one of my professors for some money on the side. I then had to write up the report for the BLM. I was also writing the archaeology chapter for that multidisciplinary project out at Walking Box Ranch. Every other weekend I was in the field helping run the field school. We excavated parts of a rockshelter over in the Mojave Desert, in Cali. I wrote a ton of grants, including the big nasty NSF. But much of that has paid off, as I scored some money for North Creek. I also spent some time doing some more sandal analysis as well as getting the Antelope Cave collection X-rayed. I got some really cool images and will hopefully be finishing that article this summer. All in all I was way to busy and figured about half way through the semester I had bit off more than I could chew. By then I was screwed and just had to stop sleeping to pull it all off.

But now summer is here! I’m going to be spending the first couple of weeks finishing up the sandal article, rewriting my NSF, and writing the curation article. Then I’m going to go visit Jim Allison’s and Karen Harry’s field schools, both up on the Shivwits, and dig me some Virgin Anasazi sites! August is digging at North Creek with Dr. J, where we hope to excavate the entire Early Holocene pithouse. Can’t wait to be in the field.

Projectile Point Database

Does anyone remember talking about putting together an online projectile point database for North America? Well, I think I may have figured out a way to do it without much trouble.

Wikipedia provides for small semi-independent, more insular communities called Wikia. We could pretty easily set up one of these and start putting up the Great Basin points that we know. Once it gets going, I think we then write an article about it in Lithic Technology and email a bunch of people to get involved.

An open source project like this would be really cool, especially if we could categorize the points in a number of different ways to help people check points they may not know. We could also set up a section to post "mystery points" for others to check out and see if they can identify.

What does everyone think?

Air-Conditioned Grad Office is now a Reality!

Yes my friends, the dream is now a reality. Sorry to rub it in the faces of those who have since left the Office of Public Archaeology, but the grad office is now AIR CONDITIONED with a "Frigedaire" (complete with remote control) air conditioner. As part of the generation of the air-conditioned grad office, I would like to say that it is indeed a beautiful day. The sweltering summer heat will now remain outside of the building, and in the field where it belongs. It seems Al-Uzzah has smiled kindly upon us...

Ay Chihuahua! Casas Grandes, Mex.

Well, I thought I would post a few pictures from my recent Spring Break trip. I went to help a doctoral student at the University of Arizona map and survey prehistoric trails that surround a hilltop site called El Pueblito, in Chihuahua, Mexico. It lies about 2-3 miles southeast of Casas Grandes on a plateau. It is also associated with an atalaya (ceremonial circular structure) that is just up the hill and measures about 17 meters in diameter. It's huge and at the peak of that hill (or mountain if you're from the plains of Oklahoma). Not far from the atalaya is a cave, but is presumed to be an historic attempt to find buried treasure. We decided to explore.

We didn't get far with my make-shift smoke stack...I mean torch. Our attempt to find the end of the cave ended at a drop-off 14 meters in.

I plan to head back down this summer to excavate at El Pueblito in an attempt to get some Southwest experience in the dirt. No money, but the place is beautiful and has incredible archaeology. There is plenty of room on the crew if anyone is interested. Todd Pietzel would love to have you and is even going to pay for food and board.
This last one is of me climbing up to a second cave just up from one of the trails. There was nothing in there but the scraps of a hawk's delicious meal (a chicken perhaps).

Lay-tar.

Self-praise

Quick FoF member update. Two of us (Jenny and myself) participated in the Fulton Mentored Reseach Poster thing. I walked away with first place (in the department) for my poster on Spotten Cave and Jenny was awarded second place for her poster on Fremont settlement patterns near Vernon, Utah.

I feel that this is vindication for the obsdidian incident last year.

Also, the majority of us passed the comps. What a relief!

Hello!

I just returned from a week and a half in Parowan valley, sorry for the lack of posting... By now I think I have been to most of the canyons along the hurricane cliffs. Some canyons are completely lacking any materials suitable for clay, however there are good quality clays coming from the canyons near Parowan and Paragonah. Im taking into consideration both options; either the ceramics were produced from a single self tempering material, or the combination of separate temper and clay materials. I did locate a volcanic ash that is altered to the point of being a clay, it also contains biotite mica , feldspar and quartz. Currently im favoring the other option of separate clay and temper materials, although it has been difficult to locate appropriate tempering materials.

New available publications

Just so everybody will have easy access, two new publications have been added to the sidebar. David's rabbit coat project and Chris's condensed thesis. If anybody has others, send them my way. It looks like I have a place to host them for the time being. Don't ask, don't tell.

FOF discovered?

Today at OPA, Molly was reading the blog and Joel came up behind her...

"what is that?" "Friends of the Fremont?" "what is this?"

Molly quickly closed the windo and we told him it was merely a forum for idea exchange.
He shrugged it off but still seemed interested.

This goes back to Chris' question of, "should we involve the mucky-mucks"

I still say no for now. I know that Rich checks the blog every now and then, but for the most part we are fairly insular.

Thesis Feedback

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has given me feedback on my thesis and the truncated versions I have circulated. If anyone else would like a pdf of my condensed (35 page) thesis, please email me (watkins.chris@gmail.com). Maybe I should send it to Mike for online posting...

I decided to email a couple of people who I thought would be interested in my thesis (Alan Reed of Alpine Archaeology and Margaret Lyneis, formerly of UNLV) to let them know that it had been posted online. I have gotten some good initial feedback with promises of more.

I was a little anxious about shopping my thesis around, and I thought that I would share that I had a good experience. I think we should take advantage of the online nature of our theses and alert people who we think may be interested. It seems to be working for me thus far.

Um...sorry Holly:

Preemptive Haiku
Holly, you are just half-baked
Contribute or leave!

Holy Crap! I jest
But it's just for your own good.
We want you with us.

And I still love you,
Despite your Old World fetish.
It's just so easy.

Now come be our cook,
And all will be forgiven.
Peer pressure is right.

New Links

Some of you may have noticed that I added a "publications" section on the sidebar linking to the theses written by Dave, Mike, and myself. Does anyone alse have any publivcations they'd like to link to? And I guess I should have asked Dave and Mike if they wanted their theses linked to. Let me know if not and I'll take them down.

Here's My Take on the Year

Beef, chicken, pork – Gross!
Vegetarian at last
Oh I’m Lovin’ it!

__________________________

Expensive houses
Traffic that goes for miles
A Vegas nightmare

__________________________

Survey of Nellis
Baskets, alcoves, seeds, oh my
But no aliens

*Disclaimer: for those that are unaware, Area 51 is right in the middle of Nellis Air Force base.

__________________________

Crazy Kansas Man
Thought Bones was a great target
Kicked out on his a**!

Here is to another year

Sorry I didnt get these out yesterday, but here they are, and long live FOF:

Tropic, Moab, Price
Escalante is so nice
and Green River too
_____

Living on the road
eating from old AP2
Life with OPA...
_____

Drink sweet, sweet, Fresca
Nectar of the desert gods,
can you have too much?
_____

Friends of the Fremont.
Defenders of the lost ones.
They will rise again.
_____

Silicon and dust
Techno-Archaeology,
Future meets the past.
_____

Flakes and Stone Tools;
Manos and Metates too.
Love the stones and bones.

Odes to Field Schools

As I sit here guilty,
Thinking on the tents to check
And equipment needs:

First Escalante-
Not like later and Club Sean,
Stories now depress.

First Santa Clara-
Research design looks groovy,
Will we have a cook?

Field trip to first camp-
These kids will be spoiled rotten
Flush toilets, showers!

Now and then

They did what! No way
I’m offended, oh my heck
Daily Universe

Molly Mormon who?
Contacting book store, uh oh
Shouts of anger

Jewel and peasant quest?!
What about Capital Reef?
After level four

Unshaven, unkempt
No problem at library
Unspoken delight

Lapdances….5 bucks!
Vegas filth, wretched hive
Bad as Mos Eisley

Provo Nostalgia

High profile campus.

Pillar of academics!

I miss Rich and Lane...

In-N-Out Burger

I can eat the Jumbo Jack

J-Dawgs they are not

Zelda on bootleg

"Rosemary, heaven restores..."

Cut it! Here comes Joel!!

Oh crap, what the H?

(Yada-yada-yada) State!

Finger for Holly

Polar Bear Mudbath

We hitched a ride with a Swede

They heat-treated wha?!

Celebration Haikus

Tribute to the Blog:

A brilliant blog
Established in great wisdom
Idea exchange

ASU, OU
UNLV, BYU
Interscholastic!

Tribute to the Fremont

Long lost farming friends
Defamed, slandered...Foragers?
Peripheral pals.

Five Finger Ridge site
Important Contribution
Ignored by Utah

A constant culture
Or variable Sevier?
I vote for constant

Tribute (or lament) to the MPC

Plum blossoms outside
Cool breeze, light April showers
Stuffy in this place


Will we get AC?
Only April, sweltering
Can't wait for July

April 6th -- One year of FOF

I just noticed that Thursday will mark the 1 year anniversary of Friends of the Fremont. Any ideas on how to celebrate? Perhaps we should all submit a haiku in commemoration...

Haiku Lament

What was I thinking?
Spread much too thin, now too late
Long days, longer nights

Hi,

Hi Chris, Folsom8k, and others…
First of all thanks for letting me join the Blog, it seems to be a good group of people that are passionate about archaeology. As was requested here’s little about myself; as of now I am looking for work in archeology, having applied to various CRM firms and BLM offices. I want to gain more practical experience in archaeology. I am also applying to grad school, with the goal of entering in the fall of 2007.
All the work I have been doing recently in archeology has been of my own interest. I have been working on sourcing materials such as obsidian and clays. In October I spent two weeks collecting samples from obsidian locations, which were submitted for xrf analysis. However my main interest has been sourcing the clay materials for SVG ceramics. I have spent three weeks hiking around Parowan valley analyzing the geology and collecting samples. I have done this work so far, keeping in mind all the issues presented in the paper by,
Dean E. Arnold, Hector Neff, Ronald L. Bishop.
“Compositional Analysis and “Sources” of pottery: An Ethnoarcheological Approach” 1991
This topic has interested me, mainly because I love ceramics, archeology and the Great Basin, and working with these ceramics is a combination of all three. I was first introduced to Fremont archaeology in the Eagle Valley field school hosted by Uc Davis. Since then I have been working with Clint, and developing various project ideas.

Abbreviated Thesis

I've managed to cut the main point of my thesis down to about 35 pages in preparation for publication. This is probably much more readable than the full text. I have a pdf of the draft if anyone would care to look at it. I would appreciate comments before submitting it for publication.

Cady has a copy of the pdf the Provo folks could get, otherwise email me (watkins.chris@gmail .com) for a copy.

Watkins thesis on-line

https://etd.lib.byu.edu/ETD/Student/Files/cnw5/1193/etd1193.pdf

FYI...

Fremont Foragers?

In response to Jenny:

I think I did a pretty good job of starting to deconstruct the concept of Fremont foragers in my thesis. Essentially, the only "evidence" for a Fremont foraging strategy is found in the west desert and Great Salt Lake Marshes, unless you count Madsen's cattail extravaganza at Backhoe (and I for one don't, I'd bet the farm that there were mats on those pithouse floors).

In my thesis, I argue that in places where Fremont territory abuts foragers, there is a fuzzy border. Conversely, to the south where they are butting up against other farmers, there is a clear social boundary. We see this in the pottery. It all depends on what you want to call Fremont. I call the foragers cozying up to the Fremont farmers butt-kissers who are trying to get their hands on corn. They're either marginalized former Fremont, or people coming in from other foraging groups who are trying to cash in on corn and a higher prestige lifeway.

I have yet to see any believable evidence for a true Fremont forager from an area that is not a borderland. The whole argument is based on cattail at Backhoe and evidence from areas without a clear social boundary. It has no legs to stand on.

Chirping Crickets...

Hopefully now that the comps are over, we will see a flurry of activity.

Here's an update from the BYU neck of the woods...

(and not just my neck! HA!...lame...stupid...sorry)

Anyway, all of the first year grads are now breathing a sigh of relief since the comps are done. Now, we can only hope to pass.

The fieldschool is quickly approaching. It has been interesting to see the difference in expectations from Jim Allison. Many of the "vital" things that were field school necessities in the past (according to Joel) are being done away with. Elimination of the "Brother Love Revival Tents" and the Van Pelt Trailer have been discussed. Also, we have had several students drop out and now only have 16 (Jenny, correct me if I'm off numerically)

Jim has drafted the research design, and if I (or Jenny) have time, I'd like to post the key elements of it on FoF. It would be great to see some of your input.

The Fulton Research thing is coming up, in which we all kiss Ira's millionare derriere and get a free lunch. Chris, I thought about a repisal submission for our "Obsdidian" poster, but decided against it. Instead, I will be doing a poster on "Spottsen Cove". I think that mispelling all of my posters could become a signature trademark.

Also, we should be thinking about the GBAC and some of us (ex. arch session participants) should be thinking about sending me some abstracts. I will be drafting a proposal, my own abstract, and sending out a few e-mails, so be on the lookout. I also need to talk to JEC soon.

I know there is more, but I'll let the rest of you tack it on in the comments or other posts.

GIS Class

I know this really only applies to those still at BYU, but I thought I'd let you know that the GIS class (Geog 503) has expanded to 14 seats...looks like we will be able to weasel our way into it after all!

NSF and Curation Crisis

NSF reviewers can bite me. As some of you may know I applied for an NSF dissertation improvement grant a little while ago. I received notification from the project director (John Yellen) that I would not be receiving funds. Yellen was way cool and offered to discuss any of the reviews I wanted to go over. Seems like a helpful guy. One of the reviews was “Very Good”, the other two reviews were “Fair”. By the NSF rules if you have even one “fair” you’re out. The two reviewers who gave me fair had some good points. Basically they both said that I need to discuss my specific hypotheses more and my methodology. Which is fine. I had kept me proposal kinda general because I wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted. Both “fair” reviewers said they would like to see my project funded, I just have to make those changes. Fortunately, you can re-apply when ever you want with the dissertation grant. So I’ll be fixing the problems and sending it back in….hopefully in a month or two. They were fast at reviewing it, only a month. So for any of you who will be applying for an NSG Dissertation Improvement Grant, there is a lesson for you. When I rewrite and get accepted (which I will!) if any of you are interested in getting a copy so you can see the format and what they are looking for just let me know. Or if you have questions about the process....because “Fastlane” was freaking confusing at first.

As some of you may know, on the side I’m interested in the “Curation Crisis” (the YAR will live one day!). Lately, I’ve been curious as to the percentage of MA’s or PhD’s that are completed using new archaeological data vs. those based on curated collections. I’ve been sending out a survey to archaeology faculty all over the country to help get this info. I’m hoping to write up a little article on it. My main bone to pick right now is that professors don’t really push collections at the MA level. I mean many suggest it, but I think departments should make a concerted effort to have their MA’s use unanalyzed collections. This would really help with getting this information off of the dusty useless shelves and into the literature. Yeah for Cady. So if you overhear any of the faculty at your school saying “Did you get this damned survey from some kid named Yoder at UNLV?!”, politely suggest that completion of the survey shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes and the gods of archaeology will bless them with cosmic karma. May all the weather on your excavations be 65 degrees with sunny skies.

Kana-a Wha?!?!...

When I came to ASU, I never thought that in a room of archaeologists, I would have the most experience with Tusayan Whitewares. Today as I was analyzing a Colonial Hohokam assemblage, I pulled a whiteware out of the bag. Nobody in the lab could ID it, so I went over to the type collection and called it Kana-a Black-on-white.

Who knew how far the 30 minute lesson Jim gave us in the SW seminar would go?

Thesis Done...

My thesis is finally complete. If anyone would like a copy before it is posted on-line, let me know and I'll email you a pdf. It's only 2.8 MB.

30th GBAC in Vegas!

As I'm sure you all know the 30th GBAC is in Vegas this year. I figure you're all already aware but they issued a call for papers. The website is http://www.gbac.whsites.net/32.html so check it out! While its still early I thought I'd post the idea of the group getting together one night of the conference and do some catching up. I'm offering my house as the place. We could have a barbecue or pizza or something. Dave only lives a few blocks away from me and we're both close to the strip (abt. 15 mins) so it would be a good location for everyone. Let me know what you think.

Defining the Fremont on Wikipedia

Some of you may be familiar with the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

I looked up the Fremont today and noticed that there was very little devoted to them. In fact, the Fremont page is nothing more than a "stub". Wikipedia allows various people to expand stubs with more information, making the entry better.

It would be cool to throw together a basic overview of the Fremont and submit it to Wikipedia.

This would accomplish two goals:

1. People could be more informed about the Fremont
2. We could spin it to fit our theories.

Then, when O'Connel, Ugan, or Hey-sus stumble across the Wikipedia page, they will be shocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_people

Annual UPAC Presentations

Today was the annual UPAC meeting up at State History. Presentations all morning and then they did the business stuff after we all cut out to head back down to Provo. All told there were four presentations from BYU, including Jim Allison, Rachel Pollock and Mark Bodily, Brad, and I. Topics varied, I'd say Brad's North Creek junk is top list, but I'm still having nightmares from J-in-the-cliff...shudder...

Anyway, one presentation, which I unfortunately didn't really take notes on, was done by a UofU Doctoral student. I'd say it was the most interesting to me, so I wanted to throw out a bit of what I remember for you all.

It dealt with a mass burial in Moab. Six individuals, all male and all between 13-25 years old. Dentition and bone condition suggest that they were all in good health when they died. Three showed similar healed cranial injuries including a segment of bone/incised trauma above the right eye and several blunt trauma episodes to parietal and occipital lobes. Etc, etc, interesting stuff about the bones, but the really intriguing bit is the way the bodies were laid out in the mass grave. Unfortunately I have sucky MS Paint and that's it for graphic edits so I can't crop and rotate this correctly, but it gives you the basic idea:




Each burial was placed face down, with layered bodies having heads placed over the thoracic trunk and down. So they're actually at an angle, which I can't do in Paint, such that the six piled up a bit and then sloped back off.

Has anyone seen anything like this? It's really a bizarre bit of activity.

She didn't say anything about grave goods. She did note that the two common skull shapes for Utah burials (one more spherical/robust typically associated with Fremont/Anasazi culture and one more elongated not consistently identified to any specific culture) were represented in the grave, a good indication that cranial morphology shouldn't be standing alone in our cultural affiliation calls.

Anyway, interesting bit. Wish I had her graphic or better technology on my lappy...but anybody got any thoughts?

Image J - Free visual analysis software

Some of us have been messing around with Image J, a piece of freeware that will analyze digital photographs. Cady, Scott, and myself are trying to get a paper together where we will try to see if we can tell if Boulder Jasper has been heat treated by analyzing the level of light refraction and color of samples before and after heat treating.

There are many, many plug-ins and many, many possible applications of this technology. Everybody check it out. Best of all, it's free...

Hutchings Museum and Renee Barlow

Last night, several of us (Molly, Holly, Cady, Jenny, and I) went to the USAS meeting at the Hutchings museum in Lehi, Utah.

Renee Barlow was the guest and talked about....you'll never guess....Range Creek. During her lecture she said several things that seemed like "red flags". One of the red flags was her use of the term "Pithouse Village". After being asked what her definition of a pithouse village was, she suggested that a pithouse village in Range Creek could have as few as 3 pithouses and as many as 15.

Has she read Five Finger, or Clear Creek? Is she aware of Parowan Valley?

To her credit, Barlow did say somethings that sounded like a small shift in research bias, but I'll let Cady talk about those.

Also, The Hutchings museum has an amazing collection of chipped stone artifacts, perishables, and all sorts of eccentrics (figurines, incised stones, and other oddities) that we rarely get to see.

The collection was so amazing that our very own Old-Worlder,Holly A. Raymond, expressed her admiration for the material culture of the Fremont. Holly, I'll let you elaborate.

Something about doing a thesis on the Fremont instead....

I'm sure I left a few things out, everyone else who was there should throw in your summaries or impressions.

AP2 in trouble?

AP2, our archaeological chariot, is currently in the shop for an assessment to determine if she can continue for ten thousand more miles.

Thoughts and prayers are welcome.

If she does not survive, might I suggest a memorial order. Perhaps, "The Order of the Yukon".

This order would honor those who have shown excellence in the field, research, off-driving skills or whatever else.

Just a way to remember the vehicle most of us has eaten in, slept in, and traveled in for the majority of our burgeoning careers.

A Moving Chronological Southwestern Map

I've been thinking lately about the different fluctuations in the population of Southwestern traditions. Lekson has his opinions on major migrations of people through time (See Chaco Meridian). Most agree that at one point or another there were also migrations from the Western Anasazi area to the East (Rio Grande Valley). I feel that mobility was very common, but studies on interaction between groups are limited to discussions about trade or design similarities. There must have been more people moving around that area than we think. These people had to have been used to tramping around for weeks, covering many miles of terrain. It also seems logical that there may have been a ton of interaction between different contemporaneous groups.

For me, it is hard to visualize what groups (or areas of the SW) were in "full-swing" at particular times. It seems that the groups who were contemporaneous, especially while sustaining large populations, most likely had contact with groups in similar situations. For example, there was an increase in population at Chaco Canyon during its Pueblo II phase and peaking out with the completed construction of Pueblo Bonito during the Classic Bonito phase. Hohokam Snaketown, during its Sedentary period/phase also reached its greatest size around the same time. These plateaus in population size (if you attribute largest population size to maximum number of structures or largest building phases of structures) both occurred roughly between 920-1150. If we succumb to the discussions of population stress and the like, it would seem likely that groups would be venturing out to find more arable land to farm and less stressed food sources (game, wild plants, etc.). In the process, there would be interaction between and among groups.

So, here is my idea. Like I said earlier, I have a hard time visualizing which groups were at their population peak at which times. I've been thinking of building a moving map of the Southwest in Adobe AfterEffects or Flash that shows how these major centers of activity grew and shrank over time. By doing so, we get a better idea of how and when these groups might have interacted or when divisions and migrations may have occurred due to ecological stress. It seems ominous to collect all of the information on this, but would prove useful, maybe only on a teaching level, showing how these groups emerged, blossomed, and later abandoned their homes. Let me know what you guys think.