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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?