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.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
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.
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?
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?
Saturday, May 13, 2006
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).
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.
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.
Friday, May 05, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
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.
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.
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