Haiku Lament

What was I thinking?
Spread much too thin, now too late
Long days, longer nights

Hi,

Hi Chris, Folsom8k, and others…
First of all thanks for letting me join the Blog, it seems to be a good group of people that are passionate about archaeology. As was requested here’s little about myself; as of now I am looking for work in archeology, having applied to various CRM firms and BLM offices. I want to gain more practical experience in archaeology. I am also applying to grad school, with the goal of entering in the fall of 2007.
All the work I have been doing recently in archeology has been of my own interest. I have been working on sourcing materials such as obsidian and clays. In October I spent two weeks collecting samples from obsidian locations, which were submitted for xrf analysis. However my main interest has been sourcing the clay materials for SVG ceramics. I have spent three weeks hiking around Parowan valley analyzing the geology and collecting samples. I have done this work so far, keeping in mind all the issues presented in the paper by,
Dean E. Arnold, Hector Neff, Ronald L. Bishop.
“Compositional Analysis and “Sources” of pottery: An Ethnoarcheological Approach” 1991
This topic has interested me, mainly because I love ceramics, archeology and the Great Basin, and working with these ceramics is a combination of all three. I was first introduced to Fremont archaeology in the Eagle Valley field school hosted by Uc Davis. Since then I have been working with Clint, and developing various project ideas.

Abbreviated Thesis

I've managed to cut the main point of my thesis down to about 35 pages in preparation for publication. This is probably much more readable than the full text. I have a pdf of the draft if anyone would care to look at it. I would appreciate comments before submitting it for publication.

Cady has a copy of the pdf the Provo folks could get, otherwise email me (watkins.chris@gmail .com) for a copy.

Watkins thesis on-line

https://etd.lib.byu.edu/ETD/Student/Files/cnw5/1193/etd1193.pdf

FYI...

Fremont Foragers?

In response to Jenny:

I think I did a pretty good job of starting to deconstruct the concept of Fremont foragers in my thesis. Essentially, the only "evidence" for a Fremont foraging strategy is found in the west desert and Great Salt Lake Marshes, unless you count Madsen's cattail extravaganza at Backhoe (and I for one don't, I'd bet the farm that there were mats on those pithouse floors).

In my thesis, I argue that in places where Fremont territory abuts foragers, there is a fuzzy border. Conversely, to the south where they are butting up against other farmers, there is a clear social boundary. We see this in the pottery. It all depends on what you want to call Fremont. I call the foragers cozying up to the Fremont farmers butt-kissers who are trying to get their hands on corn. They're either marginalized former Fremont, or people coming in from other foraging groups who are trying to cash in on corn and a higher prestige lifeway.

I have yet to see any believable evidence for a true Fremont forager from an area that is not a borderland. The whole argument is based on cattail at Backhoe and evidence from areas without a clear social boundary. It has no legs to stand on.

Chirping Crickets...

Hopefully now that the comps are over, we will see a flurry of activity.

Here's an update from the BYU neck of the woods...

(and not just my neck! HA!...lame...stupid...sorry)

Anyway, all of the first year grads are now breathing a sigh of relief since the comps are done. Now, we can only hope to pass.

The fieldschool is quickly approaching. It has been interesting to see the difference in expectations from Jim Allison. Many of the "vital" things that were field school necessities in the past (according to Joel) are being done away with. Elimination of the "Brother Love Revival Tents" and the Van Pelt Trailer have been discussed. Also, we have had several students drop out and now only have 16 (Jenny, correct me if I'm off numerically)

Jim has drafted the research design, and if I (or Jenny) have time, I'd like to post the key elements of it on FoF. It would be great to see some of your input.

The Fulton Research thing is coming up, in which we all kiss Ira's millionare derriere and get a free lunch. Chris, I thought about a repisal submission for our "Obsdidian" poster, but decided against it. Instead, I will be doing a poster on "Spottsen Cove". I think that mispelling all of my posters could become a signature trademark.

Also, we should be thinking about the GBAC and some of us (ex. arch session participants) should be thinking about sending me some abstracts. I will be drafting a proposal, my own abstract, and sending out a few e-mails, so be on the lookout. I also need to talk to JEC soon.

I know there is more, but I'll let the rest of you tack it on in the comments or other posts.

GIS Class

I know this really only applies to those still at BYU, but I thought I'd let you know that the GIS class (Geog 503) has expanded to 14 seats...looks like we will be able to weasel our way into it after all!

NSF and Curation Crisis

NSF reviewers can bite me. As some of you may know I applied for an NSF dissertation improvement grant a little while ago. I received notification from the project director (John Yellen) that I would not be receiving funds. Yellen was way cool and offered to discuss any of the reviews I wanted to go over. Seems like a helpful guy. One of the reviews was “Very Good”, the other two reviews were “Fair”. By the NSF rules if you have even one “fair” you’re out. The two reviewers who gave me fair had some good points. Basically they both said that I need to discuss my specific hypotheses more and my methodology. Which is fine. I had kept me proposal kinda general because I wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted. Both “fair” reviewers said they would like to see my project funded, I just have to make those changes. Fortunately, you can re-apply when ever you want with the dissertation grant. So I’ll be fixing the problems and sending it back in….hopefully in a month or two. They were fast at reviewing it, only a month. So for any of you who will be applying for an NSG Dissertation Improvement Grant, there is a lesson for you. When I rewrite and get accepted (which I will!) if any of you are interested in getting a copy so you can see the format and what they are looking for just let me know. Or if you have questions about the process....because “Fastlane” was freaking confusing at first.

As some of you may know, on the side I’m interested in the “Curation Crisis” (the YAR will live one day!). Lately, I’ve been curious as to the percentage of MA’s or PhD’s that are completed using new archaeological data vs. those based on curated collections. I’ve been sending out a survey to archaeology faculty all over the country to help get this info. I’m hoping to write up a little article on it. My main bone to pick right now is that professors don’t really push collections at the MA level. I mean many suggest it, but I think departments should make a concerted effort to have their MA’s use unanalyzed collections. This would really help with getting this information off of the dusty useless shelves and into the literature. Yeah for Cady. So if you overhear any of the faculty at your school saying “Did you get this damned survey from some kid named Yoder at UNLV?!”, politely suggest that completion of the survey shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes and the gods of archaeology will bless them with cosmic karma. May all the weather on your excavations be 65 degrees with sunny skies.

Kana-a Wha?!?!...

When I came to ASU, I never thought that in a room of archaeologists, I would have the most experience with Tusayan Whitewares. Today as I was analyzing a Colonial Hohokam assemblage, I pulled a whiteware out of the bag. Nobody in the lab could ID it, so I went over to the type collection and called it Kana-a Black-on-white.

Who knew how far the 30 minute lesson Jim gave us in the SW seminar would go?

Thesis Done...

My thesis is finally complete. If anyone would like a copy before it is posted on-line, let me know and I'll email you a pdf. It's only 2.8 MB.

30th GBAC in Vegas!

As I'm sure you all know the 30th GBAC is in Vegas this year. I figure you're all already aware but they issued a call for papers. The website is http://www.gbac.whsites.net/32.html so check it out! While its still early I thought I'd post the idea of the group getting together one night of the conference and do some catching up. I'm offering my house as the place. We could have a barbecue or pizza or something. Dave only lives a few blocks away from me and we're both close to the strip (abt. 15 mins) so it would be a good location for everyone. Let me know what you think.

Defining the Fremont on Wikipedia

Some of you may be familiar with the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

I looked up the Fremont today and noticed that there was very little devoted to them. In fact, the Fremont page is nothing more than a "stub". Wikipedia allows various people to expand stubs with more information, making the entry better.

It would be cool to throw together a basic overview of the Fremont and submit it to Wikipedia.

This would accomplish two goals:

1. People could be more informed about the Fremont
2. We could spin it to fit our theories.

Then, when O'Connel, Ugan, or Hey-sus stumble across the Wikipedia page, they will be shocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_people

Annual UPAC Presentations

Today was the annual UPAC meeting up at State History. Presentations all morning and then they did the business stuff after we all cut out to head back down to Provo. All told there were four presentations from BYU, including Jim Allison, Rachel Pollock and Mark Bodily, Brad, and I. Topics varied, I'd say Brad's North Creek junk is top list, but I'm still having nightmares from J-in-the-cliff...shudder...

Anyway, one presentation, which I unfortunately didn't really take notes on, was done by a UofU Doctoral student. I'd say it was the most interesting to me, so I wanted to throw out a bit of what I remember for you all.

It dealt with a mass burial in Moab. Six individuals, all male and all between 13-25 years old. Dentition and bone condition suggest that they were all in good health when they died. Three showed similar healed cranial injuries including a segment of bone/incised trauma above the right eye and several blunt trauma episodes to parietal and occipital lobes. Etc, etc, interesting stuff about the bones, but the really intriguing bit is the way the bodies were laid out in the mass grave. Unfortunately I have sucky MS Paint and that's it for graphic edits so I can't crop and rotate this correctly, but it gives you the basic idea:




Each burial was placed face down, with layered bodies having heads placed over the thoracic trunk and down. So they're actually at an angle, which I can't do in Paint, such that the six piled up a bit and then sloped back off.

Has anyone seen anything like this? It's really a bizarre bit of activity.

She didn't say anything about grave goods. She did note that the two common skull shapes for Utah burials (one more spherical/robust typically associated with Fremont/Anasazi culture and one more elongated not consistently identified to any specific culture) were represented in the grave, a good indication that cranial morphology shouldn't be standing alone in our cultural affiliation calls.

Anyway, interesting bit. Wish I had her graphic or better technology on my lappy...but anybody got any thoughts?

Image J - Free visual analysis software

Some of us have been messing around with Image J, a piece of freeware that will analyze digital photographs. Cady, Scott, and myself are trying to get a paper together where we will try to see if we can tell if Boulder Jasper has been heat treated by analyzing the level of light refraction and color of samples before and after heat treating.

There are many, many plug-ins and many, many possible applications of this technology. Everybody check it out. Best of all, it's free...

Hutchings Museum and Renee Barlow

Last night, several of us (Molly, Holly, Cady, Jenny, and I) went to the USAS meeting at the Hutchings museum in Lehi, Utah.

Renee Barlow was the guest and talked about....you'll never guess....Range Creek. During her lecture she said several things that seemed like "red flags". One of the red flags was her use of the term "Pithouse Village". After being asked what her definition of a pithouse village was, she suggested that a pithouse village in Range Creek could have as few as 3 pithouses and as many as 15.

Has she read Five Finger, or Clear Creek? Is she aware of Parowan Valley?

To her credit, Barlow did say somethings that sounded like a small shift in research bias, but I'll let Cady talk about those.

Also, The Hutchings museum has an amazing collection of chipped stone artifacts, perishables, and all sorts of eccentrics (figurines, incised stones, and other oddities) that we rarely get to see.

The collection was so amazing that our very own Old-Worlder,Holly A. Raymond, expressed her admiration for the material culture of the Fremont. Holly, I'll let you elaborate.

Something about doing a thesis on the Fremont instead....

I'm sure I left a few things out, everyone else who was there should throw in your summaries or impressions.

AP2 in trouble?

AP2, our archaeological chariot, is currently in the shop for an assessment to determine if she can continue for ten thousand more miles.

Thoughts and prayers are welcome.

If she does not survive, might I suggest a memorial order. Perhaps, "The Order of the Yukon".

This order would honor those who have shown excellence in the field, research, off-driving skills or whatever else.

Just a way to remember the vehicle most of us has eaten in, slept in, and traveled in for the majority of our burgeoning careers.

A Moving Chronological Southwestern Map

I've been thinking lately about the different fluctuations in the population of Southwestern traditions. Lekson has his opinions on major migrations of people through time (See Chaco Meridian). Most agree that at one point or another there were also migrations from the Western Anasazi area to the East (Rio Grande Valley). I feel that mobility was very common, but studies on interaction between groups are limited to discussions about trade or design similarities. There must have been more people moving around that area than we think. These people had to have been used to tramping around for weeks, covering many miles of terrain. It also seems logical that there may have been a ton of interaction between different contemporaneous groups.

For me, it is hard to visualize what groups (or areas of the SW) were in "full-swing" at particular times. It seems that the groups who were contemporaneous, especially while sustaining large populations, most likely had contact with groups in similar situations. For example, there was an increase in population at Chaco Canyon during its Pueblo II phase and peaking out with the completed construction of Pueblo Bonito during the Classic Bonito phase. Hohokam Snaketown, during its Sedentary period/phase also reached its greatest size around the same time. These plateaus in population size (if you attribute largest population size to maximum number of structures or largest building phases of structures) both occurred roughly between 920-1150. If we succumb to the discussions of population stress and the like, it would seem likely that groups would be venturing out to find more arable land to farm and less stressed food sources (game, wild plants, etc.). In the process, there would be interaction between and among groups.

So, here is my idea. Like I said earlier, I have a hard time visualizing which groups were at their population peak at which times. I've been thinking of building a moving map of the Southwest in Adobe AfterEffects or Flash that shows how these major centers of activity grew and shrank over time. By doing so, we get a better idea of how and when these groups might have interacted or when divisions and migrations may have occurred due to ecological stress. It seems ominous to collect all of the information on this, but would prove useful, maybe only on a teaching level, showing how these groups emerged, blossomed, and later abandoned their homes. Let me know what you guys think.

OPA, FOF, GB all stars? On a stamp?

Not to detract from Jenny's recent post about lithic scatters (I will comment soon), but I found a really cool website that allows you to make USPS approved stamps using your own photos.

I think this would be a great way to get some fun images circulating through the nation. Imagine- a "tribute to trowels". Imagine--a FoF stamp or an "OPA-Nouveau" stamp designed Mr. Ure! Finally, imagine a "Great Basin All Stars" series. Once every few months we could get a new one.

The possibilities are endless. A little more expensive, but endless.

Here is the link:

Photostamps.com

On the Ground

I’ve got a question for the general audience relating somewhat to fire issues, more to obsidian dating:

I work a lot out in southern Tooele County on the Vernon parcel of the Forest (ok, as if most of you haven’t heard me compulsively raving about the joys of Vernon…). Long story short, we see tons of little non-descript lithic scatters, mostly Fremont in my book, but quite a few have Archaic points. Most sites have at least a few little bits of obsidian, though I’d say the points are more often chert. There are typically no associated features and very few ceramics, but a lot of these suckers are huge (most of the sites are strung out along the creek beds and can be as long as a mile or more).

Now here’s the issue. For years, my boss has put off making an eligibility statement on any of them because she and Dykmann have gone back and forth about the whole potential to contribute scientific information. There is a distant possibility that they may have buried deposits, but not even enough evidence to justify a test pit (though we’ve put a few in over the years and generally don’t see anything besides lithics in the first 10 cm—to complicate it more, most of the area has been cultivated or chained, or both!). Dykmann’s primary argument, though, is that we can’t call them Unknown Aboriginal and Not Eligible simply because, in his book, we could technically do obsidian hydration on every site. I guess he wants them all Eligible. Problem is, we’ve got documentation of burns over almost the entire Vernon unit, and no doubt, of course, that there have been fires prehistorically as well.

So what do you think? I’m not hugely familiar with obsidian dating, but I know fire can reset the clock. If we don’t have buried deposits (particularly because things have been so disturbed historically) deep enough that the obsidian has been protected, could we ever really trust hydration dates? And is it even remotely worth dating little scatters that don’t even have diagnostic points? Obviously, part of the issue has been solved with Dykmann’s retirement, although maybe Seddon will have a problem, too, but I’m looking to finish up these forms and write an article or two on the prehistory of Rush Valley one of these days and it’d help to have a solid grounding on eligibility. It’s a neat little microcosmic world out there, with some cool patterns, so the report really deserves to be published.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Apologies to any anti-CRM among us who take horror at the thought of being reduced to discussing National Register status. =)

Wow, more secret messages

For those of you who did not notice, the word "hell" in Holly's post "An Open Letter" is a link. Scroll down and check it out. What were you trying to say, Holly?