Likes:
1. There were tons of opportunities to network with potential employers. I think I have a job in Chihuahua, Mexico for the summer and was offered work at two other locations.
2. Stephen Lekson's "History of Archaeological History in the Southwest." He made a comment that some Mexicans are claiming they should have automatic residency in the US because their ancestors were originally from the American Southwest. This is the concept of "Aztlan" as the motherland. The Aztecs claimed that their ancestors originally lived in Aztlan, a land to the north of Central Mexico. I liked his twist on this concept and he gave props out to Riley who recently wrote a good book called "Becoming Aztlan", if anyone is interested.
3. There were a number of papers that talked about prehistoric and historic trails. This was facinating to me just because these are still around. I guess nothing really grows in the desert to disturb them. The "Camino Real" paper was particularly interseting. The guy talked about a road that stretched from Tenochtitlan all the way to Santa Fe, NM. Parts of this road still exist.
4. Carnitas - these were mentioned in Aaron's comment. They are God's gift to mankind. Small cuts of tender, delicious pork - nuf said.
Dislikes:
1. Although I tend to lean towards post-processual theory and ideas, the subject matter on landscapes was a little too ephemeral. There were a lot of comments based on bad interpretations of data. I'm getting more and more skeptical of archaeologist's interpretations, especially those who resort to narratives. Give me a break people.
2. It was refreshing to see a film at the symposium. It was on structural burning (already mentioned by Aaron). Unfortunately it was shown at lunch time and nobody came. I was dissappointed that the presenters the next day did not use the film in their presentations. I know they are only alloted 15 minutes, but 2 minutes of film would have made a big difference. Also, the presenter from U. of AZ who did the experiment built (in my opinion) a poor representation of a room block house. Not only did she not include plaster on the walls, but the roof, which is where people would typically enter, could not even be walked on. During one of her burnings, the roof collapsed when she didn't expect it to. Well, all I could think was "if you are going to build a shotty roof that can't even be walked on, then what did you expect?" Experimental archaeology can tell us a lot when it somewhat accurately represents prehistoric conditions.
3. Historic archaeology still makes me sleep. Just ask some of my fellow students here at OU. They were about to buy me a neck brace because my head was bobbing pretty violently during some of the historic paper presentations.
Overall, it was a good experience. Good to see the BYUers. Take care all.
1 comment:
Yea for films! It is to bad that there aren't more archaeology films made. Seeing the site, artifacts, procedure, person, etc in action can be SO much more effective than just talking about it.
At the 3 corners conference they had here a couple of months ago one of the papers was on aboriginal trails. I only caught the tail end but it sounded like what the folks you heard were talking about. This guy had some interesting ideas on how to incorporate these trails into research. But I would think unless they led from site A to procurement location B or something of that origin, it may be hard to show that they aren't historic or old game trails or something. But interesting.
And it's a real shame the group doing the pueblo burning didn't really do a good job, that sounded like a cool project. If you interested Mark Varien's thesis (or maybe dissertation, I'll have to check) was one a related subject. He built a pithouse to measure its costs and then also burned it down. Some other guy built a small pueblo room to measure costs as well, and may have burned that down too. I'll have to check. This was maybe 20 years ago. Thanks Mike, Aaron, and Rustlover for the reviews. I felt like I got all the goods without the nasty drive. Except of course the Carnitas!
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