Is anyone among the BYU crew planning on attending one of the ETD Library classes that Joel forwarded to us this week? I'll be out of town the whole week, but would love to still get this information! I'll pay the note-taker in evil holiday goodies, if that's any motivation... =)
Thanks!
As an apology to those for whom this has no application, I present the latest findings at Hierakonpolis, courtesy of the Forest Service's own Tom Flanigan. Don't nobody say that ye weren't warned!
Hope everyone enjoyed their turkey!
Friday, November 23, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
A Lesson from Virgin Ceramicists
This weekend I attended the Virgin ceramics conference with Dr Allison at the Museum of Northern Arizona. It was pretty interesting to see archaeological decision-making that was actually productive (as opposed to arguments that persist through decades in article form). The ultimate goal of the conference was to produce a ceramics field manual for the Virgin area (or North and West of the Colorado River, as Margaret Lyneis prefers) that could also work as a guide back in the lab.
The general format of the conference was as follows:
A panel sat at the front of the room and a ware (lower case "w") was brought up as the topic (gray wares, white wares, red wares). Then the panel and audience discussed the various Wares (capital "W") and defined them as far as their paste and temper were concerned. Then, topics were brought up such as whether or not a certain brown ware was a just misfired gray ware, etc. and decisions were actually made! They were crossing out Wares and Types left and right! The most impressive part of the conference (at least to cynics like me) was when the panel and audience could not reach a consensus (usually because the data was sparse), they assigned four or five people to a subgroup who will be reporting back with more data and a recommended conclusion in less than a year.
As I sat and watched all of this, I couldn't help but think about how this needs to be done with projectile point typologies (I know you are all laughing right now thinking, "Yeah, right," but so was I when I heard about this conference, and surprisingly it is possible to get these professionals to agree on things when the end goal is mutually desired). The two additional problems that would exist with a proj point conference that didn't with this conference is that (1) the projectile points cover a much larger geographical area-and, therefore, would include many more professionals; and (2) that years ago Colton set up the MNA to be an arbitrator for such discussions and no equivalent institution exists to regulate or house such a conference.
I just wanted to let you all know about the conference this weekend and also see what you all thought about it.
The general format of the conference was as follows:
A panel sat at the front of the room and a ware (lower case "w") was brought up as the topic (gray wares, white wares, red wares). Then the panel and audience discussed the various Wares (capital "W") and defined them as far as their paste and temper were concerned. Then, topics were brought up such as whether or not a certain brown ware was a just misfired gray ware, etc. and decisions were actually made! They were crossing out Wares and Types left and right! The most impressive part of the conference (at least to cynics like me) was when the panel and audience could not reach a consensus (usually because the data was sparse), they assigned four or five people to a subgroup who will be reporting back with more data and a recommended conclusion in less than a year.
As I sat and watched all of this, I couldn't help but think about how this needs to be done with projectile point typologies (I know you are all laughing right now thinking, "Yeah, right," but so was I when I heard about this conference, and surprisingly it is possible to get these professionals to agree on things when the end goal is mutually desired). The two additional problems that would exist with a proj point conference that didn't with this conference is that (1) the projectile points cover a much larger geographical area-and, therefore, would include many more professionals; and (2) that years ago Colton set up the MNA to be an arbitrator for such discussions and no equivalent institution exists to regulate or house such a conference.
I just wanted to let you all know about the conference this weekend and also see what you all thought about it.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Book of Mormon Stories
Hey all,
I was reading in the Daily Herald and came across this article.
To me, it feels a little like vindication for all those times I've had to tell people that Lehi and Co. could not have populated all of the Americas, and that there were other people that arrived much earlier.
Of course, we can expect a significant backlash from the Antis, but I think it's a great change.
I was reading in the Daily Herald and came across this article.
To me, it feels a little like vindication for all those times I've had to tell people that Lehi and Co. could not have populated all of the Americas, and that there were other people that arrived much earlier.
Of course, we can expect a significant backlash from the Antis, but I think it's a great change.
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