Dr Horrible

You guys, this is totally off-topic, but fairly entertaining...

Yesterday the first of three web-isodes was released on doctorhorrible.net.

Particularly for the closet Serenity fans, it's a fun laugh. I dunno if this is anybody's style, but I think it's pretty darn fun and wanted to share.

The next episode releases tomorrow and they're only free on the site until Sunday night. Sorry in advance to any interested down at North Creek who'll miss it.

Indian Jones

Let me begin by saying that I will not give anything away, so if you have not yet seen the new Indiana Jones movie, it is safe to continue reading this! May I begin by saying that I went into the theater expecting utter crap. This was my way of taking 311's advice "You can't be let down if you don't expect the world." I love the first three movies (well, I at least consider the second one a good 'Indy on vacation' type flick), and really was skeptical of the making of a fourth, a ridiculous 19 years after the last one.
My biggest concerns were as follows: Harrison Ford is old and, therefore, Indy will be old; Shia LaBeouf (who I think had his best role and did his best acting in Holes, and honestly just annoys me) was not only to play Indy's son but his greaser son; Sean Connery, who nearly eight years ago when talks were in full swing for this fourth installment was involved, is not back for this flick.
All I have to say after viewing the film last night is that each of those possible problems was handled extremely well and should have been the very least of my concerns! (The following is the closest I will get to a spoiler, just in case any of you really want to have no idea about the movie). All I will say is that during the first 1/2 or 3/4 of the movie I was pleasantly surprised and then I had to pinch myself b/c I thought I was back in Idaho with Aaron and Lane watching the 2 hour SciFi network "documentary" on the crystal skulls.

It's over.

Just wanted to announce the successful completion of my comprehensive exams. It really was an endurance test, and the oral defense proved to me that I can sweat from places on my body that I did not deem possible before. Minnis really gave it to me, and it made me have Clark flashbacks, minus the flying chalkboard erasers or karate kicks to the back of my chair. Hope you all finished up well. Lay-tar.


mike

Irrigation Agriculture and Fieldhouses?

I've finished a draft of the presentation I gave on campus earlier this semester. If anyone wants to read it and comment, I'd be glad to send it along.

AGRICULTURAL LABOR AMONG SMALL-SCALE IRRIGATION AGRICULTURALISTS:
INVESTIGATING FIELD HOUSE OCCUPATION IN THE PHOENIX BASIN HOHOKAM

Abstract

While Hohokam researchers have been primarily interested in large village sites, investigations have periodically been undertaken at field house and farmstead sites asking why the Hohokam built field houses when large villages were located nearby. We propose four possible answers to this question; households holding tenure to the land from adjacent villages were marking ownership of the land, pioneers lived in field houses prior to the establishment of more permanent villages, migratory laborers from outside the canal system lived in the structures seasonally, and field houses were utilized by land inheritors who held a primary residence in a distant village on the same canal system. These hypotheses are evaluated for two recently excavated field houses. Evidence is given supporting the idea that some Hohokam field houses were occupied by migrant laborers. We conclude with a discussion of agricultural labor among the Hohokam and the implications for small-scale irrigation agriculture.

If only he had the beard....

What the .....? Oh yeah, I just blew your mind.

Building Stonehenge

So I found this YouTube video pretty interesting-even though it relates to Old World stuff. Basically, a former construction worker from Michigan has figured out a few ways to move multi-ton blocks without using any modern technology-not even pullies or metal levers. And here's the interesting part-it only takes one person! Personally, I love when "complex" processes can be explained in an incredibly simple manner, so I thought I'd share it.
Enjoy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0

Luminescence Poster

You can follow this link to a pdf of my SAA poster. I think that Luminescence dating has a bright future in archaeology, despite the somewhat rocky result for these projects.

Fremont-Hopi lecture

Well, maybe there is somebody else out there that sees the connection between the Fremont and the rest of the southwest.....

Monday, April 14, 7:00PM
"Behind Smoking Mirror Pendants and Powamu: Fremont-Hopi Cultural
Affiliation".
Dr. Lynda McNeil
Within the context of ongoing debates about the relationship between archaeology and oral history, this presentation uses linguistic, archaeological, and rock art evidence to corroborate Hopi oral accounts of migration and ceremonial traditions "from the south". The wealth of evidence will be reviewed showing how Basketmaker II to Fremont settlement locations, design, and rock art are logistically, thematically and uniquely related to Hopi Powamu ceremony, artifacts, and ideology, Museum of the American West/Autry Museum.
http://www.mesoamericanet.com/


By the way, for those who haven't heard, we're having another baby. Soco power! Just in time for dissertation research. I guess we found out who's in control here. Gotta love it. We couldn't be more excited.

Lay-tar.

FoF: Almost Three Years!

I was just looking at the blog archive and realized that we haven't made much ado of the long life of this beloved blog. Almost three years! This blog has served many purposes, and I think it has proved fun and useful throughout its life.

As we near the three year mark, I wonder if the blog warrants any special posts commemorating it, the current status (research, life, etc) of its contributors, or a discussion of the benefits of this blog.

Chris, I know FoF is your baby and I don't mean to step on toes, but with all of the failed blogs out there (my experimental archaeology blog included), I think we have reached a milestone.

What do you all think? Are some special edition posts in order? Personally, I'd like to see general updates on everyone, and what they are doing with research and whatever other details each contributor would like to include.

Fremont Bird Effigy

Hey all,

I was going through the PVAP photos, here's a particularly interesting one from Summit. Thought you'd all enjoy it.

NSF, meet DTY

Oh yes my friends. I just found out two days ago that I will receive funding for my NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant! Oh happy day! I am so relieved, as now I have money for C14 dates and travel. Without which there was no way I could do my research. This was a resubmission, and this time I got 5 excellents out of 5. All the reviews were glowing, which, after having got trashed by one of the reviewers last time was nice. Anyway, thought I would let you all know.

And if you ever do an 11 hour survey day on a burned out middle of nowhere section of Utah, make sure on the way home you do not get a flat tire, and then have problems with the spare and the jack. You will have a bunch of tired, sunburned, hungry archaeologists. But if you do, pop open a luke warm Fresca and enjoy the show!

Large Congratulations to the Hollster!

I know that most of the local group was there and can affirm this, but for all who weren't, I offer a big congratulations to Holly for a well presented Thesis Defense. Why, she even made the old world look down right interestin'! I really enjoyed the presentation, though, and was glad to have another preview of what many of the rest of us are in for!

Holly, when you surface from your frantic week of edits, take a break! Congrats!!!!

Super Yoder II, summary

I accordance with Chris' wishes, I'll give my take on Dave's presentation. I was not the only FoF there though, and I encourage Brad, Molly, or Scott to throw in their observations as well. Also, if I'm way off base with my summary Dave, please correct me.

Also, I need to mention that I was not at Dave's lecture to the Anthro. 110 class, so this summary only covers what was said at the faculty/grad student presentation.

Dave's presentation covered a wide selection of his projects. As Dave himself said, he likes to keep his fingers in many pies.

First, he discussed his soft radiography research, showing several interesting x-rays of Anasazi sandals and other perishable items. I am still impressed at the innovation behind this idea. Dave has made some significant strides in perishable analysis. In addition to his discussion on the benefits of radiography, Dave talked about the cultural implications for different weaving patterns. He discussed the application of this data for his dissertation, the main hypothesis being that different groups can be identified with different weaving patterns on their sandals.

I found his discussions on active and passive style very interesting and beneficial to my interests in Parowan Valley.

After the sandals, Dave moved on to other research projects including North Creek Shelter.
His discussion of North Creek was straight forward, and since most of us already know a lot about the site, I'll avoid further discussion. Dave's discussion on North Creek demonstrated to the faculty that he is capable of working with students and other faculty in a multi-year project similar to a field school. In my opinion, this is a skill set that every faculty member should possess.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the presentation. I could tell that Dave struggled to create a concise presentation and that several of his other research interests had to be culled in the interest of time, but the content he did present was very informative.

I think that his presentation was well received by the faculty, but some of the questions coming from David Crandall were frustrating. Especially when Crandall asked Dave to define stratigraphy and to interpret a basic profile drawing. It seems unfair that anthropology doesn't go both ways. In other words, why do Socos like Crandall and Hawkins beat their drums of sexual innuendo and kinship, while knowing nothing of basic archaeological concepts? How can they refer to themselves as anthropologists if they have no understanding of how the human past is investigated?

I digress. Sorry.

Dave, it was a great presentation. I continue to be amazed at your work ethic and the important research you are doing.

Super Yoder

Best of luck to Dave today presenting to the BYU faculty. I'm sure it will be great. Somebody post a review/summary when they have a chance.

Good Times

I just wanted to say that it was good to see the crew during my recent trip to Provo. It was good times, really good times...

Also, I wanted to solicit some feedback on the trip. Do you think it went well? Specifically, what did people think about the research I presented and my stand up material in 110 or the grad lunch.

ETD Tips

After such ground-breaking BoM proofs have been revealed and more than one faithful truth-seeker has been so uplifted, I feel very useless sitting here with my porcelain fragments and barrel straps...

None the less, I just went to the library's little ETD training class and since I don't get to talk to most of you in person very often and don't have a clue where most of you are at in the process, I thought I'd share this in the hopes of being useful...This is the gist of the class and it’s all you’ll get going to the library class, so I wouldn’t bother going.

So here we go…

1. In Word, set your personal styles as you’re going for Chapter, Sub-chapter, Table, etc (all needed to show up in bookmarks). This is only useful if you do it as you write, rather than after it’s all done. If you’ve already got a near-finished typed-up product, the trainer says to just create a pdf and make the bookmarks there. Styles in Word will only save time if you do them as you go for most of your document.
2. Create a pdf (in Windows 2007, use PDFMaker and go to Preferences to choose which styles to import as bookmarks and set the level of priority.
3. Check bookmarks reference to the correct location.
   
1. If not, got to set destination and click the actual place it belongs for each incorrect bookmark. The multi-media lab has Acrobat Professional, which is what you need, but it has a bug where it tends to make the wrong destination, so be sure and check.
4. To Create Another Bookmark within the PDF, highlight the text for the bookmark and click create. To change order of bookmarks, drag around in bookmark tab. Also can nest (so all Chapter 1 subheadings are nested within Chapter 1 bookmark) by dragging to icon or to text.
5. Before saving, go to File Properties and select that it show page and bookmark tab when opened initially. The Library just prefers that.
6. If you want to import several pdfs into a single pdf document, choose Create From Multiple Files. Choose all you want, put them in the desired order and create.
7. If you’ve created your pdf and then you find an error, go into your original Word Document, fix it and not which pages are changed. Make this a new pdf. Go to the pages tab in your pdf, right click and choose replace with page from new pdf. Choose which pages from old and new documents to change out and click ok.

*If you have questions, the multimedia lab in the No Shhh Zone of the library is the best place to find answers on the pdf process. That’s also the main place on campus where you’ll get access to Acrobat Professional, which you’ll have to use.

Additional Resources:

As a reminder, there are templates, examples, and lists of requirements on the Grad Studies website (they’re forms ADV 11 and 12, various parts).

BYU’s Online Tutorial for Creating an ETD ready pdf—really slow and boring, though!

Download a free trial of Acrobat Professional

Microsoft’s Walk-Through on Creating Quick Styles in Word 2007

The Land of King Lamoni Discovered

While at work on Monday, I made what I feel is a significant discovery regarding BoM archaeology. Normally, I would reveal my discovery in a more appropriate venue, but since word has made it around the OPA office so quickly, I thought I would reveal the discovery here on FOF.
While sifting through notes of PVAP architecture, there was a pithouse at Paragonah which was listed as having one burial and 15 additional human arms. Fifteen is certainly "not a few" as we read in Alma 17:38. After a brief consultation with Lane, I learned that on the Sand Hollow survey, OPA workers identified King Lamoni's throne. Therefore, I surmise that King Lamoni's land stretched as far north as the Parowan Valley and nearly to the Saint George Basin (or farther) to the south-I also have an inkling that the route on which King Lamoni and Ammon were when they ran into King Lamoni's father was likely the I-15 corridor.
This will certainly alter the PVAP research design and possibly my thesis focus. If any of you PVAPers (current or former) have noticed any other connections between the PV and BoM, please let me know and we can discuss publication.
(Perhaps now the Parowan Valley Archaeological Project will finally gain long-deserved respect among BYU bigwigs.)

Back on Campus

As most of you probably know, I will be on-campus this week giving some research presentations in anticipation of Joel's retirement. I thought I'd put up the tentative schedule as well as some descriptions of the research I am going to be presenting.

Wednesday February 20

6:00 PM -- Arrive Salt Lake Airport
6:00-8:00 PM -- Dinner with Grandparents in SLC
8:00 PM -- Bum a ride from someone from SLC to Provo (any takers?)

Thursday February 21

Pre 11:00 AM -- Either hanging out at OPA or feverishly finishing presentation
11:00 AM -- Research Lecture 919 SWKT My Thursday presentation is entitled "Agricultural Labor, Class, and Population Circulation among the Phoenix Basin Hohokam," in which I argue for the presence of a landless class of attached laborers that contributed to the operation of an extremely productive canal-based agricultural system in a small-scale society in the American Southwest, along with an attendant theoretical discussion.
12:00-? -- Lunch with faculty
?-5:00 PM -- Hanging out at OPA/feverishly finishing lecture for following day
5:00-? PM -- Dinner with Joel

Friday February 22

Pre-10:00 AM -- OPA or feverishly finishing lecture
10:00 AM-11:00 AM -- Lecture to 110 class in B-190 JSFB based on my dissertation research, which is currently entitled "In Search of Alliance: The Organization of Production and Exchange in 14th Century Central Arizona." In this research, I am investigating the conditions under which higher-order political alliances emerge (or do not emerge) in small-scale agricultural societies using data I have gathered on the production and exchange of ceramic vessels. In addition to presenting my own research, I intend to discuss archaeological models, the problem of equifinality in archaeological interpretations, and issues pertaining to my specific analytical methodology.
11:00 AM-12:00 PM -- Great Basin Seminar
12:00 PM-1:00 PM -- Lunch with Grad Students
1:00-3:30ish -- Bum ride to Airport (I think Evie said she would pay someone to take me)
3:30ish -- Arrive SLC
4:40 -- Depart SLC

Looking forward to seeing the crew.

UPAC and Utah Arch

A most of you know, Chris and I are attempting to become the new Utah Archaeology editors. At the business portion of the UPAC meetings we discussed the issue and some have asked that I do a post explaining where the issue sits. At the meeting we discussed how Utah Arch needs to get back up and running and that it should have institutional support if at all possible. Although no one with institutional support is willing to step up. Most agree that there should be some type of editorial board headed by an editor(s). The board would be made up of specialists and when an article was sent to Utah Arch the primary editor(s) would send it to the specialist who would then pick out a couple of reviewers and take care of the reviewing and revision process and then send it to the editor when it was ready to go. The editor would then put the issue together. Lori H. (the president of UPAC) had me stand and talk for a bit about Chris and I being willing to be co-editors. In the end nothing was decided and Lori said we should continue the discussion on a message board. After the meeting Dr. J and I talked with Lori and she committed to send us everything Jason Bright had for the next issue (2005) which is supposedly almost ready to be printed. But I have yet to hear from Lori (despite an email to her on Tuesday) and am doubtful about how 'close' the next issue really is. All of this in my mind epitomizes the problems with using a board, put a lot of people in charge of doing something and nothing ever really gets done, or it gets done very slowly. Anyway, we'll see how it turns out, but I don't have too much faith that it will be resolved anytime in the near future. C'est la vie.

Sweet sweet ABD

Ah yes my friends......it cometh. I just found out yesterday that I passed my Comprehensive Exams. Yea! For those of you who don't know I took my exams in the beginning of Dec, passed two of my questions but failed one. My committee allowed me to rewrite the one I had a problem with and this time I passed. I'm not officially ABD yet as I have to defend my proposal, but I'll be doing that sometime in February. This puts me one step closer to graduating and buying that double-wide I always promise Sally!