In Small Things Found

Weird Archaeology 101: Dowsing for Graves

2012-01-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've heard in the past of dowsers or other "psychic archaeologists" being used by institutions that didn't want to pay for the more expensive scientific archaeology required to protect cultural patrimony and heritage. But I've never heard of dowsers being brought in because archaeologists weren't considered sufficient enough.

Until now. Check out these links. (h/t Boing Boing)

Buried Secrets

A Grave Matter

I could try to summarize the story, but really I think one needs to read it to really get all the forces at play. Note: While one of the archaeologists involved is from Tulane University, his entry into their program postdates my graduation, I don't know him.

Weird Archaeology 101: Update on Glenn Beck's Archaeology Lessons

2010-12-29T18:34:00.000-08:00

Wesley Lowery of The Columbus Dispatch brings us the behind the scenes of a DVD touted by Beck back in August, and how six archaeologists interviewed for the production feel "the documentary advances unsubstantiated claims, uses their words out of context and highlights artifacts that have proved to be fraudulent to advance a "fringe" archaeological belief."

Here's a trailer.

I have to say, I'm surprised at some of the names who were interviewed for this, and didn't see it coming. Though I've heard more than enough examples of such projects going south, including some projects purposely hiding the nature of the film being made (though I've heard no such allegations about this project).

Weird Archaeology 101: Why Cthulhu Isn't On that Gravestone

2010-11-28T14:14:00.001-08:00

Cross posted from my other blog, Miskatonic Museum, where I conduct a touch of tongue-in-cheek alternative science and archaeology blogging about the cosmic horrors that are the true masters of this planet, as chronicled by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Posted here because of the potential relevance for how to deal with more obviously "authentic" pseudoarchaeology.

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Here at Miskatonic Museum, we curate and display objects and cases where the real world parallels or at least calls to mind the works of H. P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos. So we were amused when io9's Jess Nevins recently pointed out a tombstone from Duxbury, Massachusetts that to his eye resembled one of the common icons for Cthulhu. This is very much up our alley, and is comparable with our most famous piece, the Moche Headdress, possibly from La Mina, Peru, which may provide additional insight into the Cthulhu Cult.

But as with our Red Rain of Kerala exhibit, examined through the lens of "The Colour Out of Space," we do try to also educate our visitors regarding more mainstream interpretations of these objects. In the case of the Duxbury Stone, there seemed to be more that might be said in this regard.

One of the comments on the io9 article, by greenivygrey, notes that the border is a gourd and floral design, and points to similar iconography on a 1695 tombstone. Another example, from 1697 was photographed by jlbriggs in Newport, Rhode Island. This design is also known as "fig and pumpkin" and in these examples this is more obvious than on the Duxbury Stone (which includes the figs, but not the pumpkin). Another example from 1705 Ipswich can be seen here. PrimaryResearch has a visual glossary of colonial-era headstone elements which you can view. If you are a student of these designs, please feel free to add further information or corrections in the comments.

You may notice that all of these examples cluster together. This brings us to the Death's Head design on the Duxbury Stone, and the work of archaeologist James Deetz. James Deetz was a pioneering historical archaeologist, author of, amongst other works the book In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life. Deetz's most famous work may be his seriation, conducted with Edwin S. Dethlefsen, of New England headstone iconography. You can read the article here. This seriation did not directly address border designs such as the fig and pumpkin, but is a classic case study on seriation of material culture. The article tracks the waxing and waning in popularity of three basic headstone designs, and then goes into detail into the specifics of the evolution of these designs, and how demographics, settlement pattern, religious beliefs, and economics affected this evolution. This article has led to other projects, including those utilizing the study to educate children in history and how to conduct research, such as Dean Eastman's "Tiptoeing Through the Tombstones" which has another illustration of the fig and pumpkin motif.

Seriation is a technique developed over a century ago that is in many ways the backbone of everyday archaeological chronology (anchored in time with absolute dating techniques such as radiocarbon). The style of material objects generally changes through time, and in most cases, it changes in a relatively predictable and common sense way. Elements of style or whole styles are innovated or introduced, they become popular and widespread, and then they drop off as another new fad or trend emerges. The sequence of these changes can be compiled and used to date when an object was probably made. We do this all the time, recognizing that a car or a pair of pants or a building is from a particular decade or century based on other examples we know from that time. We know that Mad Men takes place in the early 1960s not from seeing a calendar, but from the clothes, and we recognize the show's advance through time as the clothes change. And when we see something we believe to be out of place, even if it is not, we find it jarring, as in the recent meme of finding "time travelers" in old photos or video clips.

Deetz and Dethlefsen seriated these grave markers not just to study them in particular, but as a larger test of seriation. The article was published in 1967, an era when explicit testing of the rigor of archaeological methods had reached a fever pitch in what historians of archaeological theory call "The New Archaeology" or processual archaeology, contrasting it with "culture historical" archaeology that had preceded it. The headstones are dated, and some of the carvers are known from the historical record. It was an ideal case to determine whether seriation, regularly applied to prehistoric artifact populations, actually worked like everyone thought it did. Below is a video of archaeologist Dave Wheelock carving an 18th century style headstone for the late Deetz.

This headstone may feature pumpkins and figs rather than Cthulhu, but I suspect HPL would have appreciated what has been learned about these tombstones in the intervening decades. He wrote extensively about changes of style and elements of architecture, both in his letters and in some travelogues, unpublished during his lifetime with an antiquarian bent (most famously his purposely archaic "Quebeck" study). He wrote about small bits of old Dutch material culture in New England, liked the idea of a museum of folkways, and went on in an amateur fashion about regional English-language dialects in America.

Just as a side note on the io9 article, while Innsmouth does indeed have some elements of Ipswich and Gloucester in it as Mr. Nevins notes, much of it was openly based on Newburyport. Like Arkham, which is a mix of Salem and Providence (especially Brown University), it has several components.

Margaret Murray, Wicca, and the Cthulhu Cult: The Power of Anthropological Writing

2010-10-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from my other blog Miskatonic Museum, a little Halloween night piece on how one archaeologist's side-project was instrumental in the formation of a religion and the creation of an enduring fictional mythology.

Wytches - Inkubbus Sukkubus

Wicca and the Cthulhu Mythos largely spring from one source: Margaret Murray’s 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. This is not meant as any offense to Wiccans or other neopagans, but instead of two diverging cases stemming from one source, and the power that a scholar’s writings might have, whether intended or not.

Margaret Murray and the Witch-Cult

Margaret Murray was born in Calcutta on July 13, 1863. An odd coincidence, her family included Phillips’, as did Lovecraft’s, but I do not know if there was any relation. She grew up in England near the White Horse, the Dragon Mount, and other points of both antiquarian and folkloric interest, likely influencing the course her life took (Murray 1963: 11 – 29, 62, 207).

Rather than train to study Britain, Murray went to study with the pioneering Egyptologist, Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie of University College, London. Murray excavated with Petrie’s team in the early years of the 20th century, and published several books on those excavations as well as the grammar of Egyptian and Coptic (Murray 1963: 207 – 208). In 1920, during her times with the Copts, Murray was the subject of a cleansing ritual against rabies after being bitten by a dog (Murray 1963: 143 – 147). But other than a few years working with Petrie in Egypt (and then work in Palestine and Jordan in the 1930s, including at the world-famous site of Petra), Murray was often stuck teaching Petrie’s students while he was out of country (Drower 2004: 115, 128 – 129). She was also active in promoting the importance of anthropology to the training of imperial administrators and colonists overseas (Murray 1963: 96 – 97).

But probably her most influential work concerns Europe. Her work interrupted by the Great War (including a brief stint as a nurse), Murray turned her attention more to European prehistory and folklore. In 1915 she took vacation to Glastonbury where she saw Egyptian elements in the stories of Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail (Murray 1963: 104). She excavated in Malta and Minorca in the 1920s and early 1930s, with a focus on megalithic sites, as well as excavation of a medieval site in England. The medieval excavation in Whomerle Wood was never published, leaving notes only in a local volunteer society, but at least one Murray biographer wonders if Murray’s new interest in medieval witch cases may have been behind the excavation (Drower 2004: 123 – 124). On Malta, she also investigated local folklore of spirits, buried treasure, and other topics, and became a member of the Folk-lore Society during this time, eventually becoming its president in 1953 (Murray 1963: 131 – 132, 207 – 208).

This turn to legends and the hidden spirit world manifested most prominently in her research and belief that medieval witch accusations and trial documents were not made up out of whole cloth, but instead were proof that medieval and early modern inquisitors had uncovered and worked to exterminate an ancient religion, one involving not the Devil, but a man costumed as a pre-Christian god. She condemned archaeological treatment of religion due to its Judeo-Christian bias, arguing that religion has evolved into different forms or methods to understand and influence the unknown spiritual power of the universe. She particularly notes that Goddess preceded God as women produce children and food, the basic stuff of life (Murray 1963: 196 – 198).

Murray’s view of archaeology and the occult was much closer to the conventional view, that they are intertwined, than is typically found amongst members of the profession. In the thirteen chapters of her autobiography, one concerns the methods and nature of archaeology, the other, an exploration of the occult. In the occult chapter, she states. “I find that all good archaeologists are expected to have had at least one occult experience either personal or of somebody that he knows.” Many of these tales, Murray notes, fall apart upon examination, especially those of Egyptian curses. Nevertheless, she advocated study of telepathy and ghosts, suggesting that ghosts were not disembodied spirits so much as some kind of light record of old events that manifested in moist or humid air such as Scotland or India (and come to think of it, the American South) (Murray 1963: 175 – 183).

Murray presented her Old Religion findings in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in 1921. These ideas met mixed to negative criticism, and her second book on the topic, The God of the Witches in 1933, was ignored until after WWII. With the renewed recognition, Murray published The Divine King in England in 1954. This same year, Gerald Gardner published Witchcraft Today, arguably the text that founds an open Wiccan paganism in Britain, cementing the idea of a prehistoric surviving pagan Old Religion into the popular consciousness. Margaret Murray wrote the forward to Witchcraft Today, and is considered the “godmother” of the witches. Margot Adler (1986: 549), author of the classic Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America, points to Murray as the real beginning of the Wicca revival, and supports at least some of the elder scholar’s findings.

The nature and extent of the religion was modified as Murray continued to write. At its core, Murray described the witch-cult as a pre-agricultural, pre-Indo-European religion. Memories of some of the people of pre-IE Europe are carried down, according to Murray, as stories of fairies and elves who faded into obscurity and extinction (with perhaps the exception of groups like the Lapps or Basques) as agriculturalists moved in. This concept of fairy folklore as a reflection of migrations and of a lost Neolithic or older people was not invented by Murray, and was more popular in the later Victorian era. The Old Religion was then adopted by later invaders, transforming it into Diana worship, prompting Murray to call the religion Dianic regardless of the period in question. As “described,” according to Murray, in the later witch-trials, it was a matriarchal society, but later she viewed it as a duality, incorporating a horned male deity that can be traced to Paleolithic cave paintings. The modern stereotype of witches organized into covens of 13 is largely due to Murray. They had holy days on May Eve, Halloween, Candlemas, Beltane, Yule, and Lammas, as well as weekly ceremonies Murray coined as “esbats.” Following the medieval horror story testimonies, Murray believed that the cult sacrificed and cannibalized their own children, an element of the Old Religion which was minimized in Murray’s later writings and has not been very popular in the decades since (Waugh 1994: 4 – 5). In her later works, Murray’s witch-cult begins to resemble conspiracy theory as much as anthropology, with the British royals and other famous figures in European history as part of the cult, and many of their deaths secretly ritual murders, the killing of the king so important to both Murray’s work and Frazier’s The Golden Bough (Adler 1986: 47 – 48).

The concept of a Dianic witch-cult was not invented by Murray. Notions of pagan survivals had sporadically appeared in the nineteenth-century investigations of European folklore. Murray drew on these concepts, including Jules Michelet’s La Sorciere, and anthropologist Karl Pearson’s claim that Joan of Arc was part of a Goddess cult, a claim that appears in Murray’s God of the Witches (Hutton 1999: 31 – 33). Probably the most direct ancestor of Murray’s ideas would be Charles Leland’s work at the turn of the century. Leland was something of a cultural, intellectual, and political rebel. In addition to studying Native American and Roma (gypsy) folklore, Leland claimed that he was given a book by a surviving member of a hereditary witch family in Italy, whose practices had descended from the Etruscans. He published this as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches in 1899 (Adler 1986: 56 – 57). While Murray’s work has been heavily criticized as misunderstanding the nature and context of the witch-trial testimonies, some pagan survival does seem to have occurred, such as the benandanti of Italy studied by Carlo Ginzburg in The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries. Ginzburg also trial and other historical documents, but to general scholarly acceptance, to chronicle a secret society that fought anti-Christian witches with their own magic and sabbat-like meetings. But these folk religions are not considered synonymous in scale nor specifics with Murray’s witch-cult.

And perhaps most importantly for our current discussion, ideas of witchcraft and prehistoric races surviving in fairy lore in the British Isles was a theme in the fiction of Arthur Machen. A theme very much enjoyed by the creator of the Cthulhu Cult.

Lovecraft and the Witch-Cult

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was largely an auto-didact. In his avocation of astronomy, and his passion for the Classics and Roman history, this self-learning was largely sufficient. But when it came to anthropology (especially race), prehistory, and non-Classical or English history, topics of great interest to Lovecraft and prominent in his fiction, his self-learning often fell flat. He often relied on texts from his youth, texts already outdated at times by decades. This pattern contributed to a tendency to pick and choose knowledge based on how much it conformed to Lovecraft’s preconceived notions (at the same time that Lovecraft strenuously argued for rational materialist atheism in the face of others preconceived notions). Or as in the case of the witch-cult, how much it tickled his fancy for the weird and mysterious. Lovecraft became obsessed with the witch-cult. As Donald Waugh (1994: 4) has argued, Murray’s book inspired Lovecraft in understanding myth as residue of history, and in supporting the worldview Lovecraft had already developed.

Conflicting reports, including Lovecraft’s letters, suggest he read Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in either 1923 or 1924, but 1923 seems more likely based on internal evidence from his commonplace book and the story “The Festival.” Murray’s witch-cult informs that story of a hidden ancestral occult sect. And the witch-cult combined with stereotypes and outright slurs against the Yezidi of Iraq as Satanists, forms the core of “The Horror at Red Hook.” These stories demonstrate Lovecraft’s fondness for the idea, a fondness he also demonstrated in private letters. In 1930, Lovecraft wrote two multi-page essay-letters to Robert E. Howard, expounding upon the cult at length. Unlike Theosophy, which HPL utilized as a source for his fiction but chalked up as soft-headed myth, he presents the witch-cult as historical and anthropological fact. Published in Selected Letters, a few snippets give the general flavor.

“ … the fact, now widely emphasized by by anthropologists, that the traditional features of witch-practice and Sabbat-orgies were by no means mythical … Something actual was going on under the surface”

“scholars now recognise that all through history a secret cult of degenerate orgiastic nature-worshippers, furtively recruited from the peasantry and sometimes from decadent characters of more select origin, has existed throughout northwestern Europe … It has no inclusive name recognised by its own adherents, but is customarily called simply “witch-cult” by modern anthropologists. Evidences of its persistent existence and unvarying practices are revealed by multitudes of trials, legends, and historic incidents; and by piecing these together we have today a very fair idea of its nature and workings.”

There is far, far more in this letter, describing Lovecraft’s mix of racial and cultural history in Europe, viewing the witch-cult as the religion of “prehistoric Mongoloids” and then infiltrating the Romans. The cult was nearly exterminated by Christianity, which was shocked by its erotic elements, but after the Black Death it was revived by those despairing of the world. The cult is blended at this time with Satan, and becomes a more open force in late medieval Europe, resulting in a backlash of both vigilantism (which HPL compares to the Ku Klux Klan active at its peak in the US at that time) and the more organized witch hunting that finally wipes the cult out (HPL letter to Robert E. Howard, October 4, 1930, Published in Lovecraft 1971: 178 – 181, Letter 428). In an earlier letter, Lovecraft dwells obsessively on the racial components of this faulty history, with more of an emphasis in the racial-cultural history of Europe in response to Howard’s tales of fantasized prehistory (HPL letter to Robert E. Howard, July 20, 1930, Published in Lovecraft 1971: 161 – 163, Letter 419).

Donald Waugh goes into greater detail of some of the specifics of Lovecraft's writings in relation to the witch-cult. But I think it most be emphasized how crucial Murray's book is to the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, and Lovecraft's sea change in, as Waugh puts it, perspective. Even more striking is that this appears to be the one bit of non-mainstream knowledge Lovecraft really went for. His racism was disputed by some anthropological authorities and was somewhat outdated, but it wasn't that hard in the 1920s to find experts to back up scientific racism (see Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man for an excellent overview of scientific racism). And Lovecraft did hold out some support for trans-Pacific contacts with the Americas, and perhaps a sunken continent (he was also famously an early adopter of the then-discredited theory of continental drift). None of these would put Lovecraft out on a limb intellectually as would his acceptance of Murray's ideas and their importance as a framework for prehistory. And none would have such a direct impact on his stories, starting with "The Festival" and "The Horror at Red Hook."

The Witch-Cult and the Cthulhu Mythos

In these early tales, Lovecraft has difficulty making the witch-cult cosmic. “The Festival” has dream-like and cosmic aspects to it, most famously the byakhee. But “Red Hook” is a straight Manichaean tale of good vs. evil, Satanists vs. the wholesome. And it’s pretty terrible. But when he figured out how to marry the witch-cult to the cosmic, Lovecraft not only wrote his most famous work, he created the basic outline of his Mythos, and as argued by Jason Colavito and others, invented the idea of the ancient astronaut. The witch-cult is the direct inspiration for the Cthulhu Cult.

In “The Call of Cthulhu,” Professor Angell’s notes assure us that the the Cthulhu cult is not the witch-cult.

“Of the cult, he said that he thought the centre lay amid the pathless deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. It was not allied to the European witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its members.”

But HPL protests too much. The evidence is plain in his “Commonplace Book,” a scratch book Lovecraft used to jot down ideas for later use in fiction. Amongst the 1923 entries are the following.

101 Hideous secret society—widespread—horrible rites in caverns under familiar scenes—one’s own neighbour may belong. [x]
109 Ancient negro voodoo wizard in cabin in swamp—possesses white man.
110 Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.
111 Ancient ruin in Alabama swamp—voodoo.

Items 101 is arguably “The Festival,” and perhaps “Red Hook. But items 109, 110, and 111 are clearly early hints of “The Call of Cthulhu.” No one is possessed in “Cthulhu” but a swamp wizard seems a likely prototype for Old Castro. The voodoo scene is moved from Alabama to Louisiana. And there is no mistaking the antediluvian-cyclopean ruins in the Pacific as anything other than R’lyeh. And it is the center of a world-wide “witch cult.” We should not be surprised that Lovecraft would mix voodoo in with the witch cult. Donald Waugh has explored some of Lovecraft’s ideas about the witch-cult, which he identified (more than Murray) with obsolete notions of a squat-dark-skinned race in European prehistory. Lovecraft differentiates between cults in “The Call of Cthulhu,” but the ideas about voodoo and witch cults were blending together in his mind.

Another source for the voodoo-witchcraft connection in Lovecraft’s mind may have been the Salem witch trials. They appear numerous times in Lovecraft’s stories, and are the direct inspiration for Arkham. Arkham is basically Salem with Brown University thrown into it. In his antiquarian ramblings, HPL fixated on Salem, visiting several times, and seeking out the farmhouse and grave of the condemned Rebecca Nurse. He also visited the grave of Nathaniel Mather, who went to the grave feeling guilt over the events of 1692. Lovecraft blamed the witch-panic on Tituba, an enslaved West Indian woman central to early parts of the panic in Salem (HPL letter to Frank Belknap Long and Alfred Galpin, May 1, 1923, Published in Lovecraft 1965: 221, Letter 127; HPL letter to Robert E. Howard, October 4, 1930, Published in Lovecraft 1971: 176, Letter 428; HPL letter to Robert H. Barlow, March 19, 1934. Published in Lovecraft 1976a: 392 – 393, Letter 692).

While he chalks up much of the Salem panic to false accusations, he tells R. E. Howard that it sits atop the reality of the witch-cult. Lovecraft even followed in the footsteps of Charles Leland. After he had written “The Dunwich Horror,” Lovecraft was contacted by a woman claiming to be the descendant of Mary Easty, sister of Rebecca Nurse and another one of the women hanged at Salem. She hinted that there were indeed family secrets, and that her family was both derived from the murderous Borgias of Italy, and knew other witches in Marblehead. Yet she asks HPL if he knew more of secret witch-lore in New England, and whether Dunwich and Arkham were real places. The possibility of learning these secrets (shades of Aradia) thrilled Lovecraft, but we learn no more of this beyond a few letters (HPL letter to Clark Ashton Smith, March 22, 1929, Published in Lovecraft 1968: 327, Letter 350; HPL letter to Clark Ashton Smith, April 14, 1929, Published in Lovecraft 1968: 328, Letter 351; HPL letter to Robert H. Barlow, March 19, 1934. Published in Lovecraft 1976a: 392 – 393, Letter 692).

The Cthulhu Cult is a hidden ancient religion, surviving on the fringes of civilized society, and only detectable through diligent scholarly study. Just like Murray’s discovery of the witch cult through tying together scraps of archaeology and history with her study of witch trial testimonies. The two are not identical, but they clearly are close kin. This concept of a hidden occult undergirding to everyday reality becomes one of the most important hallmarks of the Cthulhu Mythos, alongside the cosmic horror powered by both Lovecraft’s emotional outlook and his interests in science. Cthulhu Mythos stories involve hidden occulted religions and knowledge only detectable to diligent scholars, but the joke is on everyone as the “god” of the cult turns out to be humanity’s insignificance and doom.

The success of marrying the witch-cult to the cosmic in “Cthulhu” continues in virtually all that follows. Murray’s book is specifically name-dropped in “The Horror at Red Hook,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” and “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Hints of the cult show up in later fiction, but never cleaving so closely to Murray’s hidden religion as the Cthulhu Cult. Witches or similar folk, part of dark and terrible magical lineages, appear in “Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Dunwich Horror,” and perhaps “The Thing on the Doorstep.” There are hints of this connection for “Dunwich” again in the Commonplace book, this time from 1925

130 N.E. region call’d “Witches’ Hollow”—along course of a river. Rumours of witches’ sabbaths and Indian powwows on a broad mound rising out of the level where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove or daemon-temple. Legends hard to account for. Holmes—Guardian Angel.
134 Witches’ Hollow novel? Man hired as teacher in private school misses road on first trip—encounters dark hollow with unnaturally swollen trees and small cottage (light in window?). Reaches school and hears that boys are forbidden to visit hollow. One boy is strange—teacher sees him visit hollow—odd doings—mysterious disappearance or hideous fate.

Arguably the most direct appearance of the cult was not on the printed page, but in Lovecraft’s dreams. On Halloween Night 1927, Lovecraft had an intensely immersive and detailed dream in which he was a Roman military commander leading troops against an ancient and evil cult of the Miri Nigri, the squat dark people of Lovecraft’s take on the cult (HPL letter to Frank Belknap Long, December, 1927, Published in Lovecraft 1968: 202 – 203, Letter 308). This cult took human sacrifices on the traditional pagan holy nights, and strikes terror into the local citizenry. If this sounds something like Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead/The 13th Warrior, don’t be surprised. The dream was discussed in HPL’s letters, which had been published a few years before Crichton wrote his story. It was incorporated in Frank Belknap Long’s “The Horror from the Hills” nearly verbatim. And Crichton cites Al Azif (the Necronomicon) in the faux bibliography of Eaters.

Murray’s ideas, part of a larger cultural meme of ancient survivals, secret societies, and pagan dreams and nightmares, birthed both a real religion of a healthy life of balance, and a pseudomythology of cosmic dread, both of which have thrived.

Works Cited

Adler, Margot
1986 Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America. Revised and Expanded Edition. Beacon Press, Boston.

Drower, Margaret S.
2004 Margaret Alice Murray, 1863 – 1963. In Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists, edited by Getzel M. Cohen and Martha Sharp Joukowsky, pp. 109 – 141.

Hutton, Ronald
1999 Modern Pagan Witchcraft. In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 6: The Twentieth Century (v. 5), pp. 1 – 79, edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark. In the series Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, series editors Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

Lovecraft, Howard Phillips
1926 The Call of Cthulhu. Reprinted in H. P. Lovecraft: The Fiction, Complete and Unabridged, pp. 355 – 379. Barnes & Noble, New York.
1965 Selected Letters: 1911 – 1924. Volume I. Edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
1971 Selected Letters: 1929-1931. Edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Volume III. Edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
1976a Selected Letters: 1932-1934". Volume IV. Edited by August Derleth and James Turner. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin

Murray, Margaret
1963 My first hundred years". William Kimber, London.

Waugh, Robert H.
1994 Dr. Margaret Murray and H. P. Lovecraft: The Witch-Cult in New England. Lovecraft Studies 31: 2 – 10

Book Review - Chris Caple's "Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past"

2010-10-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

A little something I wrote for Museum Anthropology Review

Issue Table of Contents

Review

House A.D. - Could Archaeology Help Cure Cancer?

2010-10-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Exactly how old is lupus?

Not just archaeologists. Biological anthropologists, historians, and others. But it felt good to say.

Researchers from the University of Manchester have identified the first evidence of cancer from an Egyptian mummy. Rather than suggesting that cancer is older than was thought, the lack of other signs of cancer in the many mummies examined over the decades suggests that cancer was quite rare. Likewise, they found that historical records only begin to describe cancer in the 17th century. Though not claiming that the disease is new, they are suggesting that it was rare in antiquity, and has become common in industrial societies because of man-made carcinogenic environments and conditions. Similar findings are reported from analysis of a skeletal collection from Croatia. And some scholars even believe that ancient drinks and concoctions might have worked against cancer.

I am skeptical that cancer is purely recent. The authors of the Egyptian discovery suggest that cancer would survive taphonomic processes in mummies better than regular tissue, but I'll find that more likely if, after this publication there are not many more tumors found. Lower life expectancy probably accounts for some of the discrepancy (a rebuttal notes that virtually all the mummies in this study were under the age when most cancers occur), and despite the authors' faith in medical observation in the past, there is a shift in the importance of observation and especially recording starting right around the time they notice an upswing in recorded cases. And as for the idea that there is nothing in nature that causes cancers, surely this can't be meant to exclude skin cancer from sun-damaged skin?

But for the moment, let's put the accuracy of the findings aside. For the purposes of an intellectual exercise, let's assume that the findings are correct, and cancer was rare in antiquity, becoming more common in the 17th century and on. What changes around 1600 that might account for this? The obvious event to point to, from my biased perspective, is the re-uniting of the New and Old Worlds. Genes and species passed back and forth that had been largely separated for thousands of years. At least one famous carcinogen, tobacco, became popular throughout the world at this time.

What about technology and pollution? Industrialism does increase, but closer to the late 1700s and into the 1800s. And plenty of toxins and heavy metals were used in antiquity including lead and tin in drinking and liquid storage vessels and cosmetics. Lead from Classical Greek and Roman industries in the Mediterranean can be detected in Greenland ice cores (abstract, news article).

Regardless of the specifics of this study, utilizing history and anthropology to examine the history of current diseases in order to understand their origins and nature, is a one more way that scholarship often stereotyped as frivolous is contributing important information of practical use to people today.

Weird Archaeology 101 Pop Quiz: Ancient Shekel in Massachusetts?

2010-10-02T14:19:00.001-07:00

Good afternoon class,

We've had a few sessions, so I thought I'd give you a pop quiz.

A builder comes to you and says that during the the reconstruction of a wharf in Manchester, Massachusetts, he found a 2000-year old silver shekel of Tyre (Lebanon) in a hole in the nearby sand. He notes the irony in finding it on Holy Thursday, the day Christians commemorate the Last Supper, which is followed by Judas' betrayal of Jesus, for which he was paid in silver shekels. He takes it to the owner of the property. They take it to a numismatist, who determines it is authentic (dating from 126 BC - 66 AD), that it had been worn, and that there is evidence it had been submerged underwater for some time, though there is no formal paperwork to that effect.

The owner does not claim to know how the coin got there and suggests there are hundreds of possibilities. She has done some research on previous owners of the property, but has not found evidence of coin collectors. She also suggests both that an animal might have dropped it there from somewhere else (including possibly a seagull), or that the Phoenicians might have lost it during trade with Vikings in the area.

If this case was brought to your attention, what would your reaction be? Any suggested methods for the arrival of the coin? Possible courses of action?

Ancient Poetry and Texts in the Original Languages

2010-10-02T06:32:00.001-07:00

Martin Worthington at Cambridge is spearheading a project to bring together scholars and record for public listening various Babylonian texts, initially poetry, in the original Akkadian.

On the site, Dr. Worthington points to similar projects including Anglo-Saxon Aloud and the Odyssey in Ancient Greek.

Classification: Lumpers more accurate than Splitters? Some reflections on what dinosaurs can teach us about potsherds

2010-09-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

1915 Classification of Ceratopsidae by William Diller Matthew. (Wikicommons)

A recent study by paleontologist Michael Benton (University of Bristol) of the history of dinosaur taxonomy in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, discussed by Scientific American, argues that lumpers (those more willing to overlook minor differences when creating classifications) are more accurate than splitters (those who prefer to spin off more classificatory types based on minor differences).

Those who named more dinosaurs had a higher rate of those species later being absorbed into other species as it became clearer that the differences once used to define a "species" were minor, with typically 50 - 70% of "species" ultimately being rejected by the field. Those who named only a few dinosaurs, however, typically had about 40% of their discoveries rejected. Benton also argues that some of the more prolific dinosaur namers may have had financial or prestige motivations.

This issue has been particularly in the news lately, with the determination that the famous genus Triceratops is simply a juvenile version of the genus that had been called Torosaurus. Dinosaur fans need not worry, as Torosaurus was named later, so its genus will be erased and lumped in with Triceratops. No need to start another Pluto guerrilla war.

Any archaeologist will bristle at the idea that we dig up dinosaurs (go ahead, ask one). And unlike in the case of dinosaurs, where a press release goes out with a new taxonomic addition, no one really cares if you've named a new type, group, or even ware of pottery. But this does bring to mind some of the issues with archaeological classification. Pots or spear points are not species, and any first year grad student (at least of Americanist archaeology) can point to the iconic Ford vs. Spaulding debate over whether types are discovered or created by the archaeologist.

Reading this article, I started to think about how chaotic archaeological typologies really are. One problem I'm quite familiar with is the issue of the word colono or colonoware. In historical archaeology, the term has a wide at and at times nearly contradictory use, incorporating ideas of both continuity and blending. It has been used to refer to pottery from sites in the Caribbean, the United States Southeast, and nearby locations that are simply vessels not created by Europeans, plates and pitchers created by indigenous potters but incorporating European design concepts, bowls and jars created by Africans and African Americans in the style and symbolism of their pre-diaspora homeland, vessels like those of a pre-diaspora homeland but reflecting ethnogenesis involving people from various African cultural traditions, and vessels not associated with potters or consumers of a particular identity but instead reflecting the dynamic changes wrought by colonialism.

Thinking of this case I can't even imagine the idea of an orderly "rejection" of a type in the manner of the paleontologists. Again, a species isn't a type, and a type may well serve a research purpose more than be an actual discoverable "thing." But types aren't often treated in this manner. They get published, or sometimes are just propagated within a regional research community, and then they start to get used by other archaeologists for possibly very different research ends than those of the classifier. A type originally designed simply to clarify a deep stratigraphic sequence might get used for examining ethnic identity, trade routes, or status differences. Neverminding unusual cases like the colonoware one, there is no real way to check the production of new types, nor how useful they are, other than through the informal process of ignoring earlier works, a process that may get entangled with more practical than intellectual matters.

Personally, I have found that I feel like "splitting" feels proper, taking note of minor differences and then pointing your index finger in the air whilst shouting "A-ha!" in your best Sherlock Holmes imitation. But then, when it comes time to actually present taxonomy to the world, "lumping" instincts kick in out of caution. At least within my research materials. Lumping in with someone else's typology, that opens up whole new issues (is this really the same thing? Is there a regional variation?). And the cycle begins anew.

Lost Language Discovered on 17th Century Paper in Peruvian Archaeological Excavation

2010-09-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

Dr. Jeffrey Quilter of Harvard's Peabody Museum discusses the amazing discovery from Magdalena de Cao Viejo (also known from its also amazing prehispanic component, the Moche site El Brujo). This site is extremely dry, and has preserved actual documents, an astounding find from an archaeological site. Not only are these documents very rare, that they record extraordinary information about the number system of a little known language is almost unbelievable. As the video notes, this material has just been published in American Anthropologist (press release on the research can be read here). Here's the project website. I know several of the folks there, either through attending Tulane University with them, or through work on the upcoming hybrid material culture volume I'm editing.

Weird Archaeology 101 - Dinosaurs and Cosmic Monsters in Prehistoric (and not so Prehistoric) American Art

2010-08-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

I touched on this topic in the first Weird Archaeology 101 post, but lets go more in depth today. At the bottom of this post you will find video of a Creationist presentation on evidence for human interaction with dinosaurs in artwork from the late prehistoric Southwestern United States, several periods and cultures in the prehistoric Andes, and post-Roman Israel. But before the videos, some discussion on why dinosaurs are so important to Creationists.

Until recently, I think most mainstream scientists were not aware of the importance of cryptozoology and the idea of surviving dinosaurs to Creationists. Some people might joke that Creationists "believe the Flintstones was a documentary," but the ironic truth is that this is quite accurate. Just as moviemakers have known for 85 years Creationists have realized that dinosaurs, and especially dinosaurs interacting with humans, is an extremely appealing idea. This has been foregrounded in the various Creationist museums, but has been knocking around evangelical Christianity for some time.

What may escape some more secular observers is that the interest in dinosaurs is not just an attempt to support Young Earth Creationism (based on a divine Creation several thousand years ago), but also to incorporate specific bible elements, namely Leviathan and Behemoth. Leviathan is a sea monster and Behemoth a land monster in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish religious literature. Both of them will be killed and served as a feast for the righteous when the Messiah arrives. In fact, sea and other monsters are an overlooked element of the Hebrew Bible, with some controversial suggestions that they existed at the time of Creation. Both of these characters have been equated by Creationists with dinosaurs, and this underlies their interest, as well as the Young Earth timetable.

Furthermore, Leviathan and Behemoth are echoed in the Beasts of the sea and of the land in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Drawing inspiration from these apocalyptic monsters, Poet Laureate of the Victorian British Empire Alfred, Lord Tennyson composed "The Kraken," in 1830. He combines the Scandinavian legend of a tentacled sea beast with the biblical Leviathan to write of a monster that will come to the surface and die at the end of the world.

Which brings us to Cthulhu. As part of a project I'm working on, I recently "interpreted" the iconography of a Moche golden mask as being a representation of horror author H. P. Lovecraft's dead but living alien god Cthulhu, a millions of years ancient monstrosity that rests in a sunken city at the bottom of the Pacific until the stars become right, and on an unknowable and immense cosmic cycle it will arise and bring about the end of human civilization. The thought processes of this entity are obscured by the water above it, but from time to time geological processes raise it close or above the surface, and sensitive humans receive the creature's thoughts and form religions in honor of it (if you have two minutes, you can get the whole story here). In my little exercise, I assembled evidence of a looted Moche mask (probably from the site of La Mina), Moche painted iconography of anthropomorphized fish, the results of an oceanographic survey, and anomalous sounds recorded by underwater microphones all to point to the inescapable conclusion that there really is a dead alien god slumbering off the coast of Chile.

I don't actually believe that Cthulhu dreams in his house in R'lyeh. But look how easy it is to start taking disparate bits of information and shuffling them together to support something utterly absurd. And unlike the videos below, all of my evidence is at least real if misinterpreted, I don't have Ica stones in my argument. And I certainly don't have quite real khipu and pottery (though when you watch the videos, take note of the one pot with the applique "dinosaur," particularly the difference in texture and apperance of its neck with the rest of the vessel) being flung about during an argument that the Moche and Nazca people were fleeing for their lives from abundant living dinosaurs. I winced when these materials were presented.

If you want to know more about Leviathan and Behemoth, I would recommend Religion and Its Monsters by Timothy Beal.

The texts of the Bible, Tennyson's "The Kraken" and Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" are all available online.

Here are the videos (3 parts), part of a series by the director of a Creationist museum.

Archaeologist Tracks Development of Gitmo Prison with Google Earth

2010-08-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

Archaeologist Adrian Myers has utilized Google Earth, ground level photos, and descriptions of the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to track the prison's construction, change in architectural nature, and expansion from 2003 - 2009. In a news article in Science, reported on by Neuron Culture, Meyer's research methods and conclusions are summarized. He determines that the makeshift nature of the early camp reflects a lack of a plan to deal with Global War on Terror detainees, but that as the war dragged on, a larger permanent super-max style prison showed the intent to keep an operating prison there indefinitely (and indeed there were reports in 2005 of plans for keeping detainees in the camp indefinitely). The news article compares this work with the use of Google Earth to track antiquities looting and find new archaeological sites.

Myers' work with Gitmo reminds me of similar tracking of the expansion of the Groom Lake facility in Nevada, the secret military base popularly known as Area 51, but with the operating name "Homey Airport." For years UFO enthusiasts, anti-secrecy protesters, and the curious took photos of the base and drew maps from observation. When a commercial satellite imagery company decided to advertise on the internet about a decade ago, they chose to show Area 51, garnering huge amounts of attention. Likewise, it has been a source of interest for Google Earth users, and such imagery has been used to show the growth of the facility despite rumors it had gone out of business.

But beyond the methods, I do wonder about Myer's interpretations. I haven't read his original research, but the idea that Gitmo reflects a lack of planning strikes me as not including all variables. In particular, while not as visible as Gitmo, the US operated secret prisons throughout the world, including converted former Soviet-client prisons. The location, number, and size of these prisons is still not known to the public (one of the prisons has been located in Lithuania), though early in the Obama administration these prisons were supposedly ordered to be closed. Perhaps the Bush administration underestimated how much prison space it would need, especially once the Iraq war began. Alternatively, there may have been a realization at some point that a facility at Gitmo was probably less damaging or legally questionable than the CIA's constellation of black sites. Perhaps Myers considers this hypothesis in his actual research.

Weird Archaeology 101: Solar Flares Affect Radioactive Decay Rates

2010-08-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

While fascinating scientific inquiry still underway, expect to see this in Creationist and other alternative archaeology/paleontology/geology arguments very soon.

"It’s a mystery that presented itself unexpectedly: The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away.

Is this possible?

Researchers from Stanford and Purdue universities believe it is. But their explanation of how it happens opens the door to yet another mystery."

And

The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.

The Strange Case of Solar Flares and Radioactive Elements [symmetrybreaking]

Weird Archaeology 101: Glenn Beck Revives Moundbuilder Pseudoarchaeology for Millions of Viewers

2010-08-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Clown Prince of Fox News just pwned your entire profession, fellow archaeologists

A Hot Cup of Joe has the details on why this wrong

Courtesy Savage Minds, via Dave Anderson

UPDATE: Anthroslug has done some solid work on taking this whole thing apart

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Revolutionary change in paleoanthropology and rumors of coverups

2010-08-13T18:45:00.001-07:00

One of the attacks fringe belief enthusiasts (pick your poison, from creationists to conspiracy theorists to cryptozoologists) is that scientists won't overturn old ideas because it would endanger their egos, their grant money, and their jobs. I've heard the notion that astounding archaeological discoveries have been covered up and destroyed for this exact reason (IIRC, referencing all the 19th century reports of giants found in North American graves).

Paleoanthropology shows how absurd this notion is. Now, I'm something of a lay person in this field (my expertise is in Mesoamerican archaeology, early European colonialism, and ceramics). But it's pretty obvious that in the last decade or so, our picture of our hominid legacy has changed dramatically. We've got another species of hominid co-existing with humans right up to edge of the Holocene, in the form of Homo floresiensis. While the floresiensis case is still being investigated to better understand the nature and culture of these little people, the concept of another species of Homo existing so close to the present is fascinating. It now looks likely that Neanderthals did indeed contribute their genetics to modern humans, a long contentious question answered, though the exact nature of the interaction (besides the genetic mixing) with modern humans is still fiercely debated. In the 1990s, symbolic material culture and behavior was generally believed to be something that exploded with new tool technologies 40,000 years ago or so in a triumphalist conquest of the world by modern humans overtaking all the other versions of Homo due to some revolution. Now we know that such behavior is twice as old, wrecking the neat 40K modern package idea. I'm sure there are other earth-shaking discoveries I'm forgetting.

And now, stone tool use has been flung backwards a million years, before the existence of our genus, dramatically changing the picture of Australopithecus.

The story of humanity and its cousins has changed dramatically in only a few short years. And there is every reason to believe it will change even more as new discoveries are made, and new techniques are brought to bear. And yet, no anthropological men in black swept it under the rug, no cabal of status quoticians hid the fossils in Warehouse 23 (not a typo). Scientists like when their discoveries make comfortable ideas fall apart. Not surprisingly, those who accuse them of the opposite are often promoting a new-fangled version of a comfortable idea already blown apart by earlier discoveries.

Weird Archaeology 101 - A New Series Educating Archaeologists about the Weird World

2010-08-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be sporadically posting examples of bunk, pseudo, alternative, fictional, etc. archaeology here for your perusal and reference. While there are other sites and resources (Bad Archaeology, the Hall of Maat come to mind immediately) that cover these topics, as well as skeptical sites in general (Skeptoid for example), the amount of ideologically driven and research/reason-poor claims and ideas out there is staggering. Furthermore, many of these ideas are nearly as old as scientific archaeology itself, and after the heyday of media interest in archaeology in from the late 19th century until the Great Depression, have become more popular than archaeology itself.

Far too many archaeologists I have met know nothing or virtually nothing about such claims, concepts, historical streams, subcultures, and the like. In part, this is because they are often quite busy. But I believe there is also a distaste there, and laughing off these notions because they make no sense. Evolutionary biology used to think the same way, until in the United States the intelligent design/creationism movement started to gain real ground in the 1990s and 2000s, and people realized that they couldn't just ignore the problem anymore. Ever heard of Swift Boating? Ignoring a problem doesn't mean it will go away.

I believe one element of this problem is that too many archaeologists simply don't get how diverse and pervasive, and downright weird, some of the ideas are out there. Confront them with someone who believes extraterrestrials built the pyramids, and most will mutter "von Daniken" and maybe reference the fictional movie/show Stargate. But few will know, as we'll see in future posts, that such ideas go back nearly a century, and are extremely pervasive in both pseudoscience and mysticism, and in fiction, long before and independent of von Daniken. And of all people, an archaeologist should know that context is everything.

It will be the purpose of this series to point to some of the weirder, more obscure, and at times older but influential weird ideas that are passed off as "archaeology," or deal with the human past and material culture. Let us start with a video on "crypto-archaeology," a Creationist investigation of depictions of dragons on archaeological ceramics. Despite the old saw that "fossils were placed by the Devil as a test," Creationists love dinosaurs these days. They realize the marketing potential, especially to children. And they have also read their Old Testament, which has all sorts of monsters in it, and have equated the two to argue for a created young Earth. So showing dinosaurs and humans as contemporaries has been a significant Creationist concern, and it underpins interest in cryptozoological expeditions looking for dinosaurs in the Congo, pteradons in Indonesia, and the Loch Ness Monster. I have previously linked to a video on the Acambaro figurines, which is a relatively well known case.

This little video, with public access TV style and production values, has numerous comments and over 2000 views.

Let me ask you this: Do you think more than 2000 people have read your dissertation? Have they emailed you to let you know what they think about it?

Update - Aztec Ritual Depost and possible "tomb"

2010-06-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

As noted 2.5 years ago, Mexican archaeologists found a carved slab which they believed covered the tomb of Aztec emperor Ahuizotl. This has not immediately turned out to be the case, as shown in today's presentation of the materials to the press. The researchers still believe they are near such a tomb.

Did Maya Architects Tie Fossils to Creation?

2010-06-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

Art Daily posts an announcement of research at the Maya city of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, suggesting fossils may be tied to Maya ideas of Creation. This new study notes the use of fossil-bearing stones in ritual and elite funerary contexts at Palenque, and combining historical and epigraphic evidence, suggests that the fossils hearkened back to a watery world at the dawn of Creation.

This would not be the first discovery of fossils in Mesoamerican ritual contexts. At La Venta (I believe, I don't have the original reports here at my fingertips) at least one fossil shark teeth was part of an Olmec ritual cache.

The idea of pre-19th century people conducting different forms of paleontology is a compelling and common sensical notion, one discussed by Adrienne Mayor in her books, as profiled in the New York Times.

I would need to see more about the Palenque research to comment further, but it raises a potentially fascinating possibility.

Colonial Cherokee Archaeology - My Current Project

2010-06-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

It's listed over in the "colleagues" links on the right, but another reminder to check out the blog for our work on the 2010 Illinois State University Historical Archaeology Field School. I'm directing lab work and working in the field with project director Kathryn Sampeck and field director Burton Smith and a number of students.

http://colonialcherokeearchaeology.blogspot.com/

Electronic Atlas of Maya Sites: Now on Google Earth

2010-04-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Database of locations and rough size/scale of over 6000 Maya archaeological sites. And now, they have a kmz version for Google Earth.

http://mayagis.smv.org/

Soviet-Era Maya-Themed Playing Cards

2010-04-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Amazing.

Note: one is Moche.

h/t BoingBoing

How the Pyramids Weren't Built: Nano-Biorobots

2010-03-26T20:42:00.000-07:00

Magnetically controlled bacteria doing the heavy lifting. Work being done at the NanoRobotics Laboratory of the École Polytechnique de Montréal. Other coverage I've seen of this plays on the old slave labor ideas derived from antique folklore and early Hollywood films, and not so much with the known work gangs.

h/t IEEE Spectrum

Historical Archaeology Field School - East Tennessee - June 2010

2010-03-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to be assisting with this course and investigation, so a head's up. Please contact Dr. Sampeck if you are interested in taking the course. The deadline is coming up (April 1), but you still have time.

2010 ISU Field School in Historical Archaeology
Cherokee Towns in the Time of Spanish Contact

May 31– June 25, 2010

Explore the early history of East Tennessee. Learn techniques of survey, excavation, and artifact analysis in this six credit archaeological field school.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Eastern Tennessee may have been visited by Hernando DeSoto in 1540 and Juan Pardo in 1567 as part of the Spanish colonization of the New World. Even though this colonial encounter was brief, it had profound effects for the indigenous inhabitants of this region, the ancestors of some of today's Cherokee. This project will explore the natural and cultural landscape of East Tennessee in the early historic period to better understand what the Spanish referred to as the “Chiscas.” The 2010 season will be devoted to survey, mapping, excavation, and artifact analysis of contact‐period (Qualla phase) sites in the Nolichuckey valley in the vicinity of the modern settlements of Greeneville, Telford, and Jonesboro, Tennessee. Lectures will include discussion and analysis of the Spanish chronicles related to DeSoto's and Pardo's explorations, other sources concerning Cherokee history, and examples of Cherokee archaeology. This project is carried out in close collaboration with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and is funded in part by the ECBI Tribal Historic Preservation Office

COURSE CREDIT
This course earns six undergraduate or graduate credits from Illinois State University. Students can usually transfer these hours toward a graduate or undergraduate degree program. Students should inquire about credit transferability with their degree‐granting institution. All students are required to keep a journal documenting field and lab work. Students will also contribute to the field school blog. The course will culminate in a public presentation of student research to the community of Cherokee, North Carolina.

COSTS (subject to change)
Room and Board: $1300.00
Includes lodging, local transportation, excursions, and weekday lunches.
Students are responsible for all other meals.
Tuition & Fees (6 Credit hours)
ISU students: see tuition schedule
NON‐ISU students: $2041.00
Incidental Fee (supplies, field trips)
ALL STUDENTS: $75

TO APPLY
Please send a letter or email to Dr. Sampeck at the address below. In your letter, indicate why you would like to take the course and include the names and phone numbers of two references.

APPLICATION DEADLINE
April 1, 2010

Please direct all inquiries to :
DR. KATHRYN SAMPECK (Project Director)
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Campus Box 4660
Schroeder Hall 335
Normal, IL 61790
ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY
Phone: 309‐438‐8668
Fax: 309‐438‐5378
E‐mail: ksampec@ilstu.edu

Weird Archaeology 101: Neat Video on the Acambaro Figurines

2010-03-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

A classic of weird pseudoarchaeology.

From the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Enjoy.

Pulp Fiction? Maya Ruins and Treasure Hunting by Parachute in 1931

2010-02-28T19:41:00.001-08:00

Popular Science, April 1931: The story of Captain William F. Long, adventurer, who weaves a tale of parachuting in search of hidden gold and gems in a living city of the Maya. It's a tale of racist notions of natives bowing to white gods, jungle battles, and un-named Mexican archaeologists with stone idols.

Go ahead and read, if you can stand the excitement

I have no idea how much if any of it is even remotely true (obviously, much of it is problematic, but I don't even know if there ever was a plane flight or a skydive, never mind any of the details). What I do know is that in the wake of several highly publicized legitimate air surveys of Maya ruins, including one by hero pilot Charles Lindbergh (we're still before the rise of Nazi Germany and Lindbergh's political steps), it looks like the press was all too eager to print tales of such derring-do. The New York Times ran Long's story, as they did several other sensationalistic tales of archaeological adventure. Around the same time they started running stories on Mitchell-Hedges, who would eventually produce the Crystal Skull "of Lubantuun."

Spielberg and Lucas said they based Indiana Jones off of the pulp serials of the 1930s and 1940s. I wonder if they knew how close they were to the respectable headlines of the day.

Skeleton with East Asian Ancestry Found in Ancient Roman Cemetery

2010-01-31T17:04:00.001-08:00

First-century AD skeleton in a Roman cemetery had East Asian ancestry on one side.

Neat stuff, and a good reminder that talk about "recent" globalism is somewhat overblown and buzzworded. Cool discovery by a former colleague of mine.

John Smith's Universal Translator: Slate May Have Traces of early English-American Communication and Specially Designed Contact Alphabet

2010-01-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

National Geographic has details on a potentially striking artifact, a slate from Jamestown with traces of inscriptions. The extraordinary suggestion is that there may be traces of a 1585 English-created alphabet designed to communicate with Algonquin-speakers.

Pipil document found at Brown University

2010-01-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

My colleague Kathryn Sampeck has recently written a short piece about her rediscovery of a "lost" seventeenth-century Pipil Nahua historical document in Brown University's John Carter Brown library. Includes image of the document.

Chocolate stirrer discovered at St. Augustine

2009-12-29T13:54:00.000-08:00

Not a big surprise, but nice confirmation. The role of Mesoamericans and their culture in the Spanish Empire is a story that still hasn't gotten the attention it deserves

http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2009-12-28/sweet-discovery

Google Streetview Archaeological Sites - Pompeii, Stonehenge, Amongst Others

2009-12-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Stonehenge

Pompeii

This isn't in the park at Teotihuacan, but you can see the major pyramids

Cahokia

Poverty Point

Moundville, AL

El Mirador - Destroyed by Teotihuacanos?

2009-09-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

Press reports coming from the El Mirador project are intriguing, to say the least. This will complicate the arguments over the relationships between Teotihuacan and Tikal, and El Mirador and Calakmul.

"Many of the excavated blades are made of obsidian which the archaeologists have traced to a source hundreds of miles away in the Mexican highlands. They believe the spears belonged to warriors from Teotihuacan, an ancient civilization near Mexico City and an ally of Tikal, which was an enemy city of El Mirador.
"We've found over 200 of the obsidian tips alone, as well as flint ones, indicating there was a tremendous battle," said excavation leader Richard Hansen, a senior scientist in Idaho State University's anthropology department who is pushing the pyramid battle theory."
...
"Hansen's archaeologists found graffiti they believe was left by Teotihuacan fighters who smashed up carved Maya monoliths and left crudely etched skull drawings, known as Tlalocs, on the rock as proof of their victory.

"The Tlaloc is the war god image of the highland Mexicans (and we found it) crudely pecked on these monuments, suggesting that perhaps a hostile event had taken place here," Hansen said."

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42207620090903?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Immigrants and Abandonment at Kiuic

2009-09-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: August 2010 - USA Today returned for a multimedia exploration of Kiuic

Friends and colleagues from the past have made news this weekend with their work at Kiuic, Yucatan, and its Terminal Classic florescence and abandonment. Some choice bits

"Both the pyramids and the palaces look like latter-day additions to Kiuic, built in the 9th century, just as Maya centers farther south were being abandoned. "The influx of wealth ... may spring from immigration," Bey says, as Maya headed north."

...

"the archaeologists found tools, stone knives and axes, corn-grinder stones called metates ... and pots still sitting in place. "It was completely unexpected," Bey says. "It looks like they just turned the metates on their sides and left things waiting for them to come back.""

...

"The only sign of warfare is a collection of spear points found in the central plaza of Kiuic. There are signs that construction halted there — a stucco-floored plaza sits half-complete, for example. "Drought seems more likely, that would halt construction," Bey says."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-09-19-mayan-collapse_N.htm

Tarascan Elite Island Site Includes Conquest-Era Chapel

2009-05-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090513-mexico-ritual-island.html

The little note about the colonial chapel is obviously of interest to me. I do not know why they're claiming it to be specifically within the first twenty years of the Conquest (so, about 1540), but I'm interested to find out.

Ebay Curtails Archaeological Looting

2009-05-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504193641.htm

Great story. Based on the research of Charles Stanish of UCLA's Cotsen Institute, Ebay harms archaeological looting.

In essence, Ebay and the internet in general has made it easier for people around the world to market "fakes"/replicas of archaeological artifacts for low prices. In turn, this has satisfied many customers who want something "authentic" and either prefer replicas due to ethics/costs, or don't know the difference and are simply amazed that an "ancient" Maya bowl markets for $35. This has lessened the demand for actual looted antiquities, and has flooded the market with excellent replicas, making the entire issue of buying and selling the real deal more difficult and risky.

Looting hasn't even remotely gone away. But it's nice to see the internet, which had initially been pegged as making the problem worse, actually making the problem better and encouraging a new market in ethically positive replicas sold more directly by local artisans not beholden to smuggling networks.

Aztec Burials from Spanish Conquest w. elements of Spanish Culture

2009-02-10T23:03:00.000-08:00

A recently excavated mass grave in Mexico City dates to roughly the time of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iPF6IUn8CskP1_rkiUjuU-UZ3mXgD9690QB02

Some elements in particular are of note

"The men also were carefully buried Christian-style, lying on their backs with arms crossed over their chests, though many appear to have been wrapped up in large maguey cactus leaves, rather than placed in European coffins.

The mass grave contained evidence of an Aztec-like ritual in which offerings such as incense and animals were set alight in an incense burner, but Spanish elements including buttons and a bit of glass also were present."

This mix of goods and especially practices suggests a number of possibilities, though speculating further based on the limited information here is not the best course of action.

Update: More details (in Spanish)

Chocolate spread from Ancient Mesoamerica into the US Southwest

2009-02-08T22:53:00.000-08:00

Testing of Chaco cylinder vessels shows chocolate consumption, another important Mesoamerican domesticate and social practice to filter at some point into the Southwest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/us/04cocoa.html?_r=1&em

The Anikythera Device - Replicated

2008-12-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

The Antikythera Device, discovered over a century ago in the wreckage of a Greek ship that sank around 150 BC, has long fascinated scholars and other interested parties alike. You probably know it to look like this, it's geared mechanisms leading to it being called the world's oldest computer.

But since its likely use as an astronomical calculator was discovered two years ago, it has since been replicated with a working model. Michael Wright, curator at the Imperial College London, built and demonstrates the replica below

UPDATE: You can run your own digital copy with open source software.

Roman Battle in Germany Not When or Where it is Supposed to Be

2008-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

The Roman colonization, conflict, and co-existence with northern European people is a topic that interested me as a young student, and after using Peter Wells' The Barbarians Speak in my graduate seminar on hybrid material culture, has come to interest me again.

So it is timely that a recent discovery suggests the history of that interaction is still open to change. Archaeologists have uncovered a third-century A.D. battlefield, involving what appear to have been well-equipped Roman soldiers, in Germany long after they had been thought to have drawn back to defensive lines farther south.

Jeb Card CV

2008-09-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Jeb Card CV Keeping my CV here for future reference

Updated October 2010

jebcard (at) gmail.com

Education

University of Pittsburgh, 1991-1994
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology (Summa cum laude); Minors in Spanish and Classics

Tulane University 1994-2007
Masters of Arts in Anthropology – 1995
PhD in Anthropology – May 2007
PhD Dissertation: The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica.

Research Interests

Historical archaeology in Mesoamerica (before and after the Spanish conquest); Archaeology of the conquest of the Americas; Material culture hybridity; Ethnogenesis and material culture; Ceramic analysis; Archaeology of invasion and empire; Indigenous conquistadores in the Spanish Conquest; Classic Maya political history and organization

Teaching Experience

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Anthropology 513 Hybrid Material Culture and the Origins of Style (Fall 2008). Description: Graduate seminar in methods and theory for investigating and understanding hybridity in archaeological evidence.

Tulane University

Anthropology 102 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Tulane University School of Liberal Arts (Fall 2006) and Tulane University College (Spring 2001). Description: Overview of culture and anthropological tools.

Anthropology 201 Man Before History (World Prehistory). Tulane University Liberal Arts and Sciences (Fall 2001, Spring 2002, Fall 2004) and Tulane University Summer School (Summer 2002). Description: Global archaeology and prehistory from Homo erectus to the Spanish Conquest of the Americas.

Anthropology 291 Monster Hunters, Ufologists, and Vampire Slayers: Alternative Methods of Knowledge Production. Tulane University School of Continuing Studies (Summer 2007). Description: Examination of modern and historical subcultures defined by belief in the paranormal.

Anthropology 301 Hunters and Gatherers. Tulane University Liberal Arts and Sciences (Spring 1998). Description: Ethnography-based overview of foraging societies and strategies.

Anthropology 309 Ancient Cities and States. Tulane University Summer School (Summer 1996). Description: Archaeology of four state-level and urban societies: Pharonic Egypt, Sumer, Teotihuacán, and the Classic Maya.

Anthropology 334 Introduction to Archaeology, Tulane University School of Liberal Arts (Spring 2007). Description: Methods and theory of archaeology, utilizing case studies and primary data.

Field Instruction

Field School in Historical Archaeology, Illinois State University (Summer 2010). Assisted field excavation instruction and directed daily laboratory analysis section on protohistoric sites in Eastern Tennessee, under direction of primary instructor Dr. Kathryn Sampeck (Illinois State University). Edited project blog.

Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador (Spring 2003). Taught (in Spanish) archaeological laboratory methods and ceramic analysis to undergraduate archaeology students, Universidad Tecnologica de El Salvador. In collaboration with Dr. Frederick Lange (Universidad Tecnologica de El Salvador) and Dr. William Fowler (Vanderbilt University)

Seminars as Part of a Course or Series

Adult Seminar on Precolumbian Art in Mesoamerica (February 2002), New Orleans Museum of Art. In conjunction with the traveling exhibit, The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame.

Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh (September 1993). Lecture and seminars on Maya hieroglyphic writing, under the direction of Jeremy Sabloff.

Field and Lab Experience

Field School in Historical Archaeology (Illinois State University) – Assistant Archaeologist and Lab Director (May – June 2010). Assistant archaeologist and laboratory director for field school (project blog), directed by Dr. Kathryn Sampeck (Illinois State University). Supervised and instructed graduate and undergraduate students in field excavation and daily laboratory analysis section on protohistoric sites in Eastern Tennessee.

Public Archaeology Facility (Binghamton University) – Senior Field Technician
(July – December 2007, April – July 2008): Cultural Resource Management. Three months Phase I, two months Phase II, two months Phase III

Earth Search, Inc., New Orleans, Louisiana – Field Technician (July 2006, July 1998)
Field Technician (Phase I)

Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador – Project Ceramicist and Assistant Archaeologist (1999 – 2004)
Assistant archaeologist and project ceramicist in excavation and analysis at Spanish contact period site of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Project directed by Dr. William Fowler (Vanderbilt University).
• Two seasons of field excavation, directing field crew of 2 – 4 excavators in household excavations
• Creation and management of ceramic laboratory in San Salvador
• Twenty months of ceramic laboratory analysis.
• Taught (in Spanish) archaeological laboratory methods and ceramic analysis to undergraduate archaeology students, Universidad Tecnologica de El Salvador. In collaboration with Dr. Frederick Lange and Dr. William Fowler

San Andrés, El Salvador – Assistant Archaeologist (January – June 1997)
Assistant archaeologist in excavations of large-scale Classic Maya architecture at San Andrés, El Salvador. Directed field crew of 4 – 16 excavators in excavation of masonry platform, adobe brick pyramid, and possible ritual deposit. Project directed by Christopher Begley (University of Chicago).

Ek Balam, México – Student (June 1995)
Housemound test excavations at Ek Balam, Yucatan, México. Project directed by Dr. George Bey (Millsaps College), Dr. William Ringle (Davidson College), and Craig Hanson (Tulane University).

Public Archaeology Facility (Binghamton University) – Field Technician (July – August 1994) - Field Technician (Phase I & II)

Thomas-Lucky Site, New York - Volunteer (June – July 1994)
Volunteer excavation for Binghamton University field school at Thomas-Lucky site, near Elmira, NY. Test-pitting and soil-scraping. Project directed by Timothy Knapp (Binghamton University).

Carman Site, New York - Student (June – July 1993)
University of Pittsburgh Archaeological Field School. Excavation at protohistoric Carman Site, Mecklenburg, NY. Project directed by Dr. Kathleen Allen (University of Pittsburgh).

Other Experience

Center for Archaeological Investigation (Southern Illinois University) – Visiting Scholar (2008 – 2009) - Organizer of two-day conference on hybrid material culture, editor of volume on that topic, to be published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Center for Archaeology (Tulane University) – Assistant to the Director (2005 – 2006, 1999 – 2000) - Assistant to the Director (Dr. Robert Hill: August 2005 – May 2006; Dr. T. R. Kidder September 1999 – May 2000). Management of research center and computer lab, management of archaeological and image collections, supervising and coordinating graduate research assistants and undergraduate workstudy students.

Torre Design Consortium – Maya Hieroglyphic Translator (2003)
Translation from English to Classic Maya hieroglyphs for the Torre Design Consortium. Monument to be placed in the Tropics of the Americas exhibit, West Palm Beach Zoo, West Palm Beach, Florida.

Professional Service

Organizer of the Center for Archaeology’s Visiting Scholar Conference 2009 Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, March 28 & 29, 2009.

Session Co-Organizer (with Conard Hamilton), The Archaeology of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador, 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 11, 2003

Aided in organization and distribution of books donated to Tulane University Anthropology students and faculty severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina, 2006

Information coordinator, Tulane Anthropology Student Association, 1995 – 1996

Publications

Card, Jeb J.
n.d. Introduction. In Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis, edited by J. J. Card. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. In preparation.

n.d. Renaissance Italianate Pipil Potters: A New Approach to Hybrid Ceramics in the Colonial Americas. In Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis, edited by J. J. Card. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. In preparation.

2006 Excavaciones y arquitectura de la Estructura 6F4. In Arqueología Histórica de la Villa de San Salvador, El Salvador: Informe de las Excavaciones (1996-2003), edited by W. R. Fowler, Jr., pp. 84 – 92. Historical Archeology in Latin America, No. 17, series edited by Stanley South. The South Carolina Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina. Columbia, S.C.

2002 Excavaciones y arquitectura de la Estructura 6F4. In Investigaciones arqueológicas en Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: La primigenia villa de San Salvador, edited by W. R. Fowler & R. Gallardo. CONCULTURA & Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, San Salvador

1996 Classic Mayan Dynastic Records in Light of Paleodemography. Human Mosaic
29:31-44

Card, Jeb J. (editor)
n.d. Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis. Occasional Paper series, Center for Archaeological Investigations. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. In preparation.

Book reviews

n.d. Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past by Chris Caple. Museum Anthropology Review. In press.

Presented Papers

Card, Jeb J.
2010 Identity and the Circulation of Crafting Techniques at Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
2009a Conquistadors, Community, and Ceramics in Early Colonial Central America. Presented as part of the Finding Bridges series, Anthropology Department, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
2009b Conquistadors, Community, and Ceramics in Early Colonial Central America. Presented as part of the Washington University Friday Archaeology presentation series, Anthropology Department
2009c Renaissance Italianate Pipil Potters: A New Approach to Hybrid Ceramics in the Colonial Americas. Presented at the 26th Annual Visiting Scholar Conference – Hybrid Material Culture: The Archaeology of Syncretism and Ethnogenesis. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
2008a Ethnogenesis in Colonial San Salvador: Ceramic Evidence from Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
2008b Archaeology and the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica: Invasion and Ethnogenesis in Early San Salvador, El Salvador. Presented as part of the Binghamton University Anthropology Department Brown Bag Series, Vestal, New York.
2008c The Indigenous Population of Early Sixteenth-Century San Salvador, El Salvador: Archaeological Ceramic Evidence. Presented at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
2006 Evaluating Ceramic Evidence of the European Invasion of Mesoamerica. Presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
2005a Cultural Innovation During the Invasion and Conquest of Mesoamerica: Hybrid Ceramic Tablewares from Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented at the 70th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
2005b Setting a Table at the End of the World: A Preliminary Report of Ceramic Analysis from Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented as part of the Tulane University Anthropology Colloquium Series, Middle American Research Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana.
2005c The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented as part of the Binghamton University Anthropology Department Brown Bag Series, Vestal, New York.
2004 La ceramica de Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Una guia preliminar. Presented at the Museo Nacional de Antropología "David J. Guzman", San Salvador, El Salvador, June 30, 2004
2003 The Ceramics of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: The Economics of a Conquest Period
Settlement. Presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
2002 Early Colonial Society and the Use of Ceramic Vessels at Ciudad Vieja, El
Salvador. Presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
2001 Investigation of Structure 6F4 at Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented at
the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation is available at http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jcard/saa/saa1.html
1999 After the Fall: The End of the Classic at San Andrés, El Salvador. Presented as
part of the Tulane University Anthropology Colloquium Series, Middle American
Research Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Card, Jeb J. and Christopher T. Begley
1998 The Classic-Postclassic Transition at San Andrés, El Salvador: A Re-examination. Presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Card, Jeb J. and Laura Matthew
2009 Indigenous Mesoamerican Conquerors in Central America. Presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fowler, William R., Jr. and Jeb J. Card
2007 An Early Sixteenth-Century Tavern at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Presented at the
40th Annual Chacmool Conference – Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: the Archaeology of Foodways. University of Calgary.
2005 Presencia nahua y cambio cultural en la primera villa de San Salvador: Evidencias
arqueológicas de Ciudad Vieja. Presented at the I Congreso centroamericano de
arqueologia en El Salvador: Cultura nahua en centroamerica. Museo nacional de
antropologia “David J. Guzman,” San Salvador, El Salvador

Matthew, Laura and Jeb J. Card
2010 A Tale of Two Ciudad Viejas: History and Archaeology in Conquest-Era Central America. Presented at the 33rd Annual Midwest Mesoamericanist Meeting. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Other Presentations

October 13, 2008 – Presentation (“Ethnogenesis in Early Colonial Central America: Ceramic
Evidence from Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador”) and Mini-Seminar on Historical Archaeology in
conjunction with Illinois State University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

February 1 - 15, 2008 – Photos and information provided for museum exhibition “La vida cotidiana de la antigua villa de San Salvador, a través de la cerámica,” Alcaldía Municipal de San Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador. Exhibit sponsored by La Alcaldía de San Salvador and PROMOCULTURA, directed by Arqueologa Liuba Moran and Arqueologa Miriam Mendez

October 8 – 13, 2007 – Photos and information provided for museum exhibition “La vida cotidiana de la antigua villa de San Salvador, a través de la cerámica,” Teatro Roque Dalton, San Salvador, El Salvador. Exhibit sponsored by PROMOCULTURA, directed by Arqueologa Liuba Moran and Arqueologa Miriam Mendez

Unpublished Reports

Begley, Christopher and Jeb J. Card
1997 Chapter 2: Excavation and Restoration on Structure 5, the Campana. Part of San Andres Archaeological Project report to CONCULTURA.

Card, Jeb J.
1997 Chapter 3: Excavations on Mound B. Part of San Andres Archaeological Project report to CONCULTURA.

Fowler, William R., Jr. (with contributions by Jeb J. Card)
2005 The End of Pre-Columbian Pipil Civilization, Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. Final report to the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. http://www.famsi.org/reports/02091/index.html

Other Research

Bricker, Harvey M., Jeb J. Card, and Katrina Kubicek, Compilers
“Selected Bibliographical References on Mesoamerican Archaeoastronomy”
http://www.Tulane.EDU/~anthro/other/archastro.html (site no longer available)

Honors and Awards

• Graduate Studies Student Association and Graduate and Professional Student Association Travel Grants, Tulane University – 2005
• Graduate Fellowship for Dissertation Writing, Tulane University - 2005
• Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, Research Grants - 2004; 2000; 1999
• National Science Foundation Archaeology Program, Dissertation Improvement Grant #0331533 “The Ceramics of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Adaptation in Mesoamerica,” by E. Wyllys Andrews and Jeb J. Card – 2003
• Graduate Student Support Fund Travel Grant, Anthropology Department, Tulane University – 1997
• Mellon Grant, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University – 1995
• Graduate Fellowship and Research Assistantship, Tulane University – 1994 – 1997
• Lambda Alpha (Anthropology Honorary) – 1993
• Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh – 1993
• University Scholarship, University of Pittsburgh – 1991 – 1994

Languages

• Spanish - Three years experience in Central America including managing employees and research assistants, interacting with government officials, and giving presentations; two years of undergraduate classes; substantial experience reading, writing and translating
• Experience reading and writing Classic Maya hieroglyphs

Xibalba Update: INAH Article

2008-08-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

INAH, Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History, has released an English-language short release on the cave complex discussed in my previous post. It's a lot more interesting than I thought, with not just one building within the caves, but several.

Particularly interesting is the presence of a sacbe. These white limestone raised roads radiate out between and within Maya settlements, and are particularly well-documented in western Yucatan. Roads are an important aspect of Maya thought, similar to the idea of one's path or journey having a lot more significance than literally where one will travel. The equivalent in Yukatek to "How's it going?" is "How's your road?," which come to think of it is a fairly similar sentiment. When one gets married, it is said "their road came to an end." While this is humorously close to the English colloquialism "End of the road, pal," it would be better understood as meaning that the married people began a new road together as a pair.

There has long been debate on whether the roads were primarily for ritual pilgrimages and processions, for transportation of goods and people, to demonstrate political allegiance, or some combination. The discovery of one inside a heavily sacralized cave complex will likely give some heft to arguments for ritual.

Subterranean Maya Temple Complex Suggested as Road to Xibalba

2008-08-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1442474520080815?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

The image of the building constructed within the cavern is impressive. The article doesn't mention where specifically this is, other than in Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula. Apparently it dates to the Classic.

The Dowser and the Legendary Gypsies

2008-07-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

From my soon to be local paper, a story that suggests psychic or dowsing techniques can be used to do the work of bioarchaeology.

The Mayor of Sesser, Illinois has asked a local dowser to investigate folklore concerning a Gypsy mass grave. Not only does the dowser suggests she can use some mix of energy (related to her Christian beliefs concerning souls) and DNA to detect graves, but also to determine age and sex.

While excavations won't be based on the "findings" of the psychic investigation, a historical plaque may be placed there based on further historical research prompted by the dowsing.

In my reading on pseudo and alt-archaeology, a big deal has always been made of psychic archaeology. Something I had never really heard of in new reports or personal experience (in contrast with other pseudo topics like ancient astronauts or Phoenicians in Utah). But I guess now I have, and I am amazed at it, and the relatively straightforward media coverage of it.

Tulane Archaeologist Finds Peruvian Mummy

2008-07-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

Dr. Kit Nelson of my former department has been in the news for the discovery of a Chancay mummy. National Geographic loves its mummies. Hat tip to Ashley Heaton for the story.

Another Tulane anthropologist, Dr. John Verano, also got some media attention two years ago for working on a Moche mummy.

Vampire Archaeology

2008-07-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

A recent news report from the Czech Republic immediately grabs the attention: archaeologists have uncovered the 4000-year old grave of a vampire in Bohemia. Or rather, the grave of someone who was treated as a vampire. According to the report, sometime in the Early Bronze Age, a man died, and was buried with heavy stones placed in the grave over his head and chest. This is interpreted as treatment to ensure the man didn't return from the grave to plague the living as a vampire.

I'm no expert, but there is a problem with this. The development of the legend of the vampire in the Balkans dates back about a thousand years, with some elements being older. The term upir first appears in a Russian text in 1047 CE. Bruce McClelland discusses the history and development of the Balkan vampire (specifically focusing on Bulgaria) in his dissertation (openly available online) Sacrifice, Scapegoat, Vampire: The Social and Religious Origins of the Bulgarian Folkloric Vampire and in his book Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. In those works, he ties the development of the vampire to a mix of pre-Christian ideas about death and the afterlife and religious strife between groups during the early centuries of Christianity in the region.

And the folkloric vampire of the 17th century or so has many differences from that of Bram Stoker's Dracula or subsequent tales. I'm pretty sure Anne Rice never had one of her pretty-boy protagonists roll around the landscape as a literal bag of blood, easily killed by a puncture wound from a hawthorne, for the first few years of their undead existence. The classic Balkan vampires were most commonly "dead sorcerers, witches, werewolves, excommunicates, and those who died unnatural deaths (such as suicides and drunkards)" Some were destined at birth to become vampires, including those with a caul on their head, with teeth showing at birth, or with contiguous eyebrows. Also, if a human or unclean animal steps over the body before burial after it is buried, the dead might rise as a vampire (Oinas 1982). This last is very common (Mclelland 2006: 53). Also, in general, bad people, unavenged people, etc. will return from the dead. The Romanian version (non-slavic) suggests that unmarried dead people, or those unforgiven by their parents, have a greater chance of rising as a strigoi (Perkowski 1982). In Serbia and in Greece, at least, this happens 40 days after death, when a "devilish spirit" enters the body to create a vukodlak (Serbia) or a vrykolakas (du Boulay 1982; Fine 1987). In some greek legends (of the vrykolakas) children born on Christmas will be vampires).

But even if there was something vaguely reminiscent of the vampire in Central European cultures 3000 years before the first appearance of the term, tying those pre-literate beliefs to skeletal and archaeological evidence becomes very difficult.

There is, however, more secure archaeology involving vampires. Archaeology and bioarchaeology on several cases in New England has noted the relationship between tuberculosis outbreaks and vampire panics in the nineteenth century. This report describes some of the details (Sledzik and Bellantoni 1994) and this press release discusses the filming of some work for a documentary.

And a major update. Anastasia Tsaliki, a PhD candidate at Durham University in the UK, is conducting dissertation research on "disposals of the dead" involving "necrophobia." That indeed fits the bill. She has already written a paper on "Vampires Beyond Legend: A Bioarchaeological Approach" which she has made available on her blog. She is indeed pointing at the use of rocks as a sign of necrophobia, and tying that into vampire folklore. As I mention above, I am skeptical of this. Broadening the interpretation to a general fear of the dead rising is of course more acceptable, and I could see myself doing something similar if I were working on remains with such treatment, but it remains speculation. I look forward to Ms. Tsaliki's dissertation.

EDIT: Lost of new information on the Italian vampire announced last year.

du Boulay, Juliette
1982 The Greek Vampire; A Study of Cyclic Symbolism in Marriage and Death. Man 17: 219 - 238.

Fine, John V. A., Jr.
1987 In Defense of Vampires. East European Quarterly 21: 15 - 23.

Mclelland, Bruce A.
2006 Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Oinas, Felix
1982 East European Vampires. Journal of Popular Culture 16: 108 - 114.

Perkowski, Jan Louis
1982 The Romanian Folkloric Vampire. East European Quarterly 16: 311 - 322.

Sledzik, Paul S. and Nicholas Bellantoni
1994 Bioarchaeological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief. The American Journal of Physical Anthropology 94.

Aztec Death Whistle!

2008-07-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's not just the "Whistle of Death," though that's getting the most attention for obvious reasons. Plus, it is actually an exceedingly creepy. But check out this story on replication of Aztec flutes, and then the video linked below for the actual sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVinnWp1Pck

Map of London's Dead

2008-06-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Museum of London and The Times Online have created a digital map of the 37,000 some burials that have been identified in London. Check it out, and note that the map is at the top of the article, and works as a Google Map does.

Maya Textiles From Copan Show Impressive Craftworking

2008-04-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

Textiles are obviously rare in archaeological contexts, especially in the tropics. Nonetheless, textile fragments from Copan are some of the few leaving any evidence of Classic Maya fabrics, and apparently the work was extraordinary.

The History of Crystal Skulls

2008-04-16T08:08:00.001-07:00

Interesting article from Archaeology Magazine on the history of supposedly Mesoamerican crystal skulls (soon to be even more famous due to the Indiana Jones movie) and how they swirl around one antiquities dealer in the second half of the 19th century.

Update: The British Museum and Smithsonian skulls also have tool marks like those used about a century ago.

Investigation of Titanic Wreckage Reveals Shoddy Materials May Have Speed Sinking

2008-04-16T07:49:00.001-07:00

The NYTimes reports that a combination of historical and forensic/archaeological investigation suggests that the Titanic sank much faster, dooming hundreds of people, because lower-grade iron rivets were used in the bow of the ship. Disputed by descendants of those involved in the construction, this line of research was only possible due to examination of rivets and plates found at the wreck site, and was then put in context by examining the manufacturing company's records and board meeting minutes.

Like others I know, I went through a "Titanic" phase in my youth. I remember being tremendously excited when the first evidence of the wreck was found over twenty years ago. So I am particularly intrigued by this development.

Stonehenge Altered in Roman Era?

2008-04-15T09:44:00.001-07:00

The results are way too preliminary from ongoing excavations at Stonehenge, but there does seem to be some evidence that someone in Roman times modified the monument. Quoting Current Archaeology:

However the most surprising discoveries so far have been Roman. In a small pit
containing a small bluestone in the corner of the trench, itself cut into the
main socket of one of the uprights, they found a Roman coin. Even more alarming,
was the excavation of the large pit in the centre of the excavation, where right
near the bottom they found a very small piece of what was indubitably Roman
pottery. Was there a major reordering of the site in the Roman period? As
Geoffrey Wainwright said, their small trench looked like an urban excavation,
there were so many intercutting pits.

This could be some form of turbation or other taphonomic process. But it is certainly interesting.

Maya hieroglyphic decipherment on NOVA, April 8

2008-04-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mayacode/

The show appears to be a history of the decipherment. But regardless of that, there are a few neat aspects on the website, such as a translation of Piedras Negras Stela 3, with audio for the entire text. This is of course similar to the audio elements of the dictionaries at FAMSI, which are well worth checking out.

Aztec Measurements Deduced

2008-04-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

Using a mix of history, mathematics, and survey, two researchers have uncovered smaller units of measure employed in Aztec surveys, that are not part of a vigesimal (20-base) scaling but are instead unique prime numbers.

SAA Session on the Meteor Hypothesis and New Evidence for Humans in North America Before Clovis

2008-04-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

Coprolites from Oregon date to 14,000 BP, have human DNA in them, and were found alongside artifacts. This is getting a lot of press. Archaeology Magazine sent an editor to talk to the researchers.

On a related note, I attended part of the session at the Society for American Archaeology meetings, on the asteroid hypothesis, that eastern North America was devastated in 12,900 BP by an impact that also created the Younger Dryas. It was jampacked with people, standing room only with many being turned away, the likes of which I've never seen at a conference before. Many of those people were younger undergraduate or graduate students. There is obvious interest I couldn't stay that long, I had people to see and the packed room was tiring (a good 15 degrees warmer than the hallway outside, due to body heat). But from what I saw, it once again seemed like the same fight, and many of the same fighters, from the pre-Clovis debate and related battles over Meadocroft, Monte Verde, and Cactus Hill (one of the papers was on Cactus Hill). I don't do paleo, so I can't comment further.

Silver of the Iceni

2008-03-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Interesting piece on hybrid uses of material culture, the complexity of culture contact, and the always popular Boudica

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1579&Itemid=26

Pagan Archaeological Treasure Trove in Cornwall

2008-03-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've blogged before about ritual magic deposits. But if the interpretation is right, this one takes the cake.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3517036.ece

Dissertation Now Available

2008-02-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

My doctoral dissertation on the ceramics of early colonial San Salvador is now available if you have access to the UMI/Proquest dissertation database. I went the extra mile and gave them a pdf of my creation, so it is text searchable and has color imagery.

The citation is

Card, Jeb J.
2007 The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica. Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Divination "Game" and First Druid Grave?

2008-02-13T06:53:00.000-08:00

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/11/druid-grave.html

The preservation on this thing sounds fairly incredible.

I would note the inherent notion that a proper Druid wouldn't be messing around with anything Roman. Many assumptions there about lack of contact across Europe in the centuries before the actual Roman conquest of Britain, about technology transfer and medicine, about concepts of purity and identity.

UPDATE: Images of the burial and artifacts

The Lewis Chessmen

2008-02-05T06:48:00.001-08:00

Nifty essay on the famous ivory Viking chessmen. A good read.

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.2014774.0.0.php

On Lost Cities: Lost Inka City of Patiti Found ... Again

2008-01-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

The legend of El Dorado, or this case the variant of the Inka city of Patiti, crops up about every six months when a new impressive stone ruin is found in the jungles of South America. Here's the current candidate.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080116-lost-city.html

I can't blame them, of course. I remember the false alarms around finding Copan royal founder Yax K'uk' Mo', before his tomb was finally identified for certain. El Mirador was overlooked for decades before it was rediscovered as the greatest of all Maya cities, transforming the picture of early Maya civilization, and Tikal has the Mundo Perdido or "Lost World" pyramid which has a similar history. And closer to Patiti, there is always the tantalizing memory of the lost city of Macchu Picchu, discovered right at the peak of popular interest in explorers and lost cities and other colonial-era fantasticalness.

Back in college, I remember being amazed by the discovery of Ubar using space shuttle imagery and remote sensing to find camel and foot paths. The Moskitia of Honduras has the enduring legend of the White City, Ciudad Blanca. It too is looked for (here's an example) and sometimes found time and again. Initially supposed to be a city of gleaming white stone buildings, in the 20th century viewed from the air in addition to the old tales, it has also taken on the meaning over time of being a lost city of White people. This of course brings to mind the older medieval stories of Prester John and later colonial myths and fiction of lost Roman legions that brought civilization to Africa, reflected in the treatment of Great Zimbabwe. The British Empire had a lost city of its own, Camelot, which has been identified several times, including at Tintagel in Cornwall.

EDIT: Looks like Patiti is still lost

Amarna's Dead Suggest Brutal Akhetaten

2008-01-26T22:25:00.000-08:00

For a long time, conventional wisdom held that the Old Kingdom great Pyramids of Dynastic Egypt were the product of mass slave labor. There were several reasons that this idea was popular, ranging from the understable awe at the task, to stereotypes of the oriental despot, to the bondage described in the Old Testament.

Archaeological excavation has revealed otherwise, that gangs of professional laborers were a major factor in the construction of the Pyramids. But it now seems that there was one Pharoah that ruled in this manner: Akhenaten. to briefly summarize, Amenhotep IV of the 18th Dynasty became the head of a cult of the sun disk, Aten, changed his name to Akhenaten and built a new capital city, Akhetaten. Here, he and his family acted as intermediaries between the Aten and the world, in part by ending worship of the other gods. Akhenaten was swept from historical records and his city abandoned not long after his death.

In much of the 20th century, Akhenaten was a heroic or enlightened figure to many Western scholars and writers, his monotheism a sign of what was to come. He has been linked by modern occult and alternative theorists to Moses (also here). But more recently, the cult of the Pharaoh and his god, of royal military processions and a radical break with the past have led some investigators to view the Amarna period as one of revolutionary dictatorship. Now, osteological evidence from Amarna suggests that the inhabitants were extremely unhealthy and worked into an early grave during construction of the city.

Experiment : Culture Rewires the Brain

2008-01-21T06:01:00.001-08:00

Not archaeology, but of importance to anthropology.

A recent study suggests that cultural differences rewire the human brain. In the experiment, cultural differences manifested in how much work the brain had to do in solving certain visual geometry problems, and correlated not just with broad cultural divides, but with individual attitudes regarding cultural values.

Ritual Cache Found on Top of Mexico City Cathedral

2008-01-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

The article says it is a "time capsule," but lets call it what it is: a magical protective cache. Placed on top of the Metropolitan Cathedral in 1791, the contents include:

- a small case of wax blessed by the Pope that served to protect against mishaps

- an engraving of Saint Barbara, a Roman Catholic martyr associated with lightning whose image served as "a religious lightening rod, to protect against damage," said archaeologist Xavier Cortes

- 23 medals, 5 coins, and five small crosses made of palm fronds - which it said were "for protection from the storms."

I have previously blogged about magical caches left in Anglo- and Anglo-American buildings.

Guatemalan President Announces El Mirador to Become Tourist Park

2008-01-16T07:37:00.001-08:00

El Mirador is the cradle of Classic Maya civilization, the first great city. Now swallowed by jungle, two thousand years ago it was a Maya metropolis dotted by numerous pyramid temples, some of them the largest constructions of the Maya world, centuries before the "Classic" period. The city was abandoned before the Classic period began, at least in part due to ecological mismanagement and destruction documented by archaeological projects directed by Richard Hansen. But the Mirador basin was remembered, and scattered activity and settlement continued. The Kan dynasty of Calakmul (which is connected to El Mirador by an ancient road), which dominated much of the Maya world in the 6th and 7th centuries, seem to have clamed the city as their ancestral home.

Shockinlyg, this city only came to light decades after Maya archaeology had become a serious field of study. This was largely due to the remote location of the city and the extremely difficult field conditions. Once the size and age of the city became clear, the entire story of the development of Maya civilization had to be changed, a process that is ongoing.

El Mirador is about to become even more high profile. In his inauguration speech, newly-elected Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom announced plans to open the site the tourism, part of a plan to tame the infamously lawless Peten.

How Bad Archaeology Should Be Handled

2008-01-12T22:28:00.000-08:00

The term pseudoscience is one I don't like. It smacks of a clubhouse, with people who are in, and those who are out. This only breeds contempt for established science and learning.

If someone makes claims that appear to be completely unsupported and crazy, don't call it pseudo. Call it what it is: bad.

And don't just call it that, point out why it is wrong and why another interpretation is right.

Case in point: Colombian gold artifacts have for years been highlighted in books and tv programs claiming that the artifacts are representations of ancient jet planes. Anyone looking at them can see the resemblance, but of course this makes no sense.

Take a look at how Mori handled this, with an initially respectful tone that doesn't speak from authority, but with simple common sense.

The Blingdom of God

2008-01-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

Irreverent and insightful blog on material culture and spirituality. Not about archaeology, but very much of interest to those who study material culture.

Tenochtitlan/Tlatelolco Older than Previously Known

2007-12-28T17:49:00.000-08:00

A pyramid uncovered in Tlatelolco dates to ca. 1100 - 1200 AD, the Early Postclassic. According to Aztec stories, the Mexica who settled the island had done so relatively recently. And Mexican history and archaeology has incorporated those stories for much of the 20th century. But this find suggests a significant settlement (with a 10 meter tall pyramid to either Tlaloc or Tezcatlipoca) up to three centuries before the Triple Alliance.

Most Interesting Archaeological Discoveries of 2007

2007-12-28T00:51:00.001-08:00

Yes, it is the time for yearly round-ups.

Archaeology Magazine has posted what it thinks are the 10 most important discoveries of the year. I agree with a fair amount, but I have some differences of opinion. Here are mine:

1.) North America and world devastated by asteroid strike 13,000 BP: This one is still being tested like any good hypothesis, but there seems to be geological evidence that the impact of a comet or asteroid caused mass destruction in North America, and kicked off the Younger Dryas event. While the spin for this is that it killed off the megafauna and ended Clovis, the ramifications are bigger. One possible spin-off of this major, if correct, discovery would be a much better understanding of the Younger Dryas mini-Ice Age. The conventional wisdom is that the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet, as part of global warming at the end of the Pleistocene, changed the salinity of the North Atlantic current, very quickly plunging the world into a return to glacial conditions. This climate change has been suggested as a major factor in the oldest known case of plant domestication in the Levant. This has also been the stuff of nightmares, informing the scenario that current global warming could cause a new ice age (best and unfortunately known from the scientifically implausible action movie The Day After Tomorrow). A major climatological report on global warming rejected this scenario last year, but knowing even more about this significant event, and its relationship (or lack of one) to the previous bout of global warming is very relevant to the 21st century. This event would also have ramifications for attempting to understand the peopling of the Americas.

EDIT 2010: The years have not been kind to the meteor impact hypothesis.

Also on the climate front, a lagoon in Puerto Rico has provided a record of hurricanes for the last five thousand years. At a minimum, I can think of ways this could be used in combination with Maya historical records, let alone in combination witharchaeological evidence throughout the North Atlantic.

2.) Pre-Columbian contact between Polynesia and South America. Chicken bones were excavated from a Chilean site dating to the 14th century. Now, this could simply be bad dating near the time of the Spanish arrival. But DNA from the bones shows the chickens were related to chickens raised by Polynesians, not Europeans. This seems to confirm transoceanic contact across the Pacific.

This may not be a huge surprise, since it seems at least some early migrants to North America may have come by boat, though others seem to have walked, and the chronology and details of these land migrations are becoming clearer.

EDIT 2010: Likewise, this case seems to have fallen apart.

In related news, a coin found in Australia suggests earlier European contact, sometime in the 17th century.

3.) Oldest evidence of modern human behavior now in Morocco. 82,000 BP beads push back modern behavior even further, and more importantly, place it early on the opposite side of the African continent than previous finds and expectations.

Elsewhere in the modern behavior field, genetic evidence suggests Neanderthals may have been able to speak. And Homo floresiensis increasingly looks like a species, and not diseased moderns.

4.) Domesticated maize pushed back to 7300 BP in Mesoamerica. Phytolith evidence from the Gulf Coast, eventually to be the Olmec heartland four thousand years later, pushes the date back a millennium. This is in concert with similar dates in the Balsas valley.

Elsewhere in Mesoamerican agriculture, Joya de Ceren continues to give up surprises, this time the first evidence of a manioc field in Mesoamerica.

5.) Earliest Astronomical Site in South America (and the Americas?). A 2200 BC "fox" temple in Peru may provide the oldest evidence of architectural solar alignments in the Americas. Elsewhere in Peru, a younger complex, dating to 400 BC, appears to be an observatory, using numerous pillars to observe solar events. Because of their written records and calendars, Mesoamericans have long been considered the main calendar-keepers and astronomers of the Americas, but that view may have to change. However, a stone found in the Huastec area of the northern Gulf Coast of Mesoamerica may contain calendrical information from 600 BC, and definitely provides more information on the poorly understood Huasteca.

Elsewhere in the world, Romans may have designed their cities in accordance with astronomical alignments. Non-western or earlier cultures are often thought of in this light, and seeing the Romans there intrigues me.

6.) Remote sensing two emperor's tombs. These could be stories for the future, but remote sensing has detected a structure within the burial mound of Qinshihuang, the first Chinese emperor, and in what is suspected to be the tomb of Ahuizotl, one of the most powerful Aztec emperors, and the first to have a tomb discovered. And while neither a tomb nor an emperor, excavation has revealed material from the time of the second king of Rome.

7.) Three important communities in the British Isles (sort of). Stonehenge, long considered an isolated Neolithic ritual site, is now part of the largest Neolithic settlement from Northern Europe. Another neolithic community has been uncovered in the Orkneys of Scotland, and may rival the famous site of Skara Brae. And undersea mapping is giving a first peak into the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic landscape of what would become the North Sea.

8.) Thera eruption created tsunami that smashed eastern Mediterranean. While long recognized that the Minoans suffered a huge blow from the eruption in ca. 1500 BC, it is now clear that tsunami waves wreaked havoc as far away as Egypt.

Elsewhere in Mediterranean news, genetic evidence suggests that the Etruscans may have had a West Asian origin, as recorded by Herodotus.

9.) New ideas about the emergence of urban life in Eurasia. A regional perspective is showing that a broad swath of cities existed in southwestern and central Asia in the third millennium BC. While there do seem to be new developments, this seems to be an extension of what has been known for some time, if not discussed as widely as the Mesopotamian phenomenon. The Mesopotamian city of Tell Brak may have coalesced into an urban site from several pre-existing towns. And the process may have been violent.

10.) A rock art gallery in Australia is a major ancestor shrine. The site is being compared to a pantheon in regards to the number of depictions of ancestors and spirits.

Archaeology Shows Origins of Christmas in Roman Pagan Religion

2007-12-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year, Italian archaeologists discovered an underground shrine where Romans believed the city's mythic founders Romulus and Remus were nursed by a wolf. Well, someone has now put 2+2 together and realized that the grotto is basically at the same site as what may be the first church to celebrate Christmas, with approval of the Roman government, on December 25.

If this were not about Christianity and Europeans, there would be no hesitation to say that the latter holiday emerged right out of the older tradition, or was at best syncretism.

Tomb of Aztec Emperor Ahuizotl found

2007-12-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's going to take a long time to pump it out, but ground penetrating radar appears to have detected chambers under the capstone marking the death of the Aztec Emperor Ahuizotl.

http://www.groundreport.com/article.php?articleID=2850694

He was in many ways the last great and terrible emperor of the Triple Alliance. This should rival the discoveries made within the Templo Mayor for archaeology of the political and religious elite of Aztec society.

Possible Use for Ulua Marble Vases?

2007-12-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

Marble vases from the Ulua valley of Honduras are some of the most amazing objects from prehispanic Maya society. Laboriously carved by hand from the hard stone, they have been typically studied as looted art objects. But the discovery of one of these vases in the potential context of an ancestor rite in Honduras suggests that they may have contained a nasty concoction consumed as part of a religious ceremony. The soil around the vessel contained remains of corn, cacao, and a purgative. Once we start talking about shamans and trances, things get a little loose, but this does suggest that at least one of the marbles was not a simple gift or prestige good, but had a higher calling.

Marketplace Detected at Maya City of Chunchucmil

2007-12-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/535748/

Press release describing article in Latin American Antiquity on the methods and findings of soil chemistry exploration at Chunchucmil, Yucatan. In essence, high phosphorous readings, available in the field, allowed for the suggestion of a marketplace for selling food, surrounding a footpath in the Late Classic city. This is not the first phosphorous-based attempt to identify past activity areas, but it does sound significant.

At Ciudad Vieja, we combined several lines of evidence (remote sensing, excavation, ceramics, glass) to suggest a commercial food vendor, iron works, and possible market area also near a footpath in the early sixteenth-century town of San Salvador. Perhaps in the future this might be tested against chemical evidence.

Africans Brought Rice to the New World

2007-11-20T22:12:00.001-08:00

Genetic markers suggest African slaves brought the best rice strains to America.

Origins of Chocolate Lie in Preclassic Mesoamerican Beer

2007-11-13T23:47:00.001-08:00

Analysis of Early Preclassic pots from Puerto Escondido in the Ulua Valley of Honduras show that chocolate was a by-product of the fermentation of cacao pods for use in making beer. The exploitation of chocolate as a specific product may date to ca. 1100 BC. It is noteworthy that this evidence is not from the Olmec Gulf Coast, but from the southern edge of Mesoamerica. Previously, the Olmec had been credited with the invention of chocolate, in part on linguistic grounds.

Early 16th Century Beads in Georgia May be Evidence of Failed Spanish Settlement

2007-11-13T00:20:00.000-08:00

A handful of beads and metal found in southern Georgia (US) date to the early sixteenth century, and may have something to do either with deSoto's entrada in 1540, or an earlier failed settlement in 1526.

Edit: Looks like they're leaning towards De Soto

The Destruction of Sumer

2007-09-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

The Independent's Robert Fisk on the destruction of Sumer.

Battles of the New World: Andean Gunshot Victim and Jamestown Arms and Armor

2007-07-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

Two unambiguous testaments to the military aspect of the invasions of the Americas.

In Peru, one of the burials in a sixteenth-century cemetery outside of Lima appears to be the oldest skeletal evidence of a gunshot victim in the Americas. Other burials in the group may also show gunshot evidence as well as injuries from maces (a traditionally Andean weapon). A lack of grave goods and other contextual evidence suggests a hasty burial, though not a mass grave pit.

The arquebus was an initial shock weapon in encounters between Spaniards and Native Americans, but it is generally considered less important than the more numerous crossbows, steel swords, and the all-important horses. In Mexico, arquebus or cannon would break-up infantry attacks, and could be used to impress locals. But time and again, Spanish battle chronicles follow a similar pattern. After initial contact (sometimes involving trickery or ambush), the Spaniards and their allies would fight the Aztecs or other Mexicans primarily on foot, inflicting damage but loosing fighters. Eventually the mounted horsemen would get into the fray, ride down the natives, and then get into the back area of the opposing army and wreak havoc with their lances. This decided many more battles than firearms did.

The following video from National Geographic (one of the sponsors of the research), shows some of the evidence

Some seventy years later, the English brought their arms to the coasts of Virginia, and recently armor and arms have been recovered from Jamestown. While iconic and impressive, as the article notes, these had been put away when famine, not natives, brought the English to their knees.

Update: More skeletal evidence of the Spanish conquest of Peru

Frog Legs Central European, Not French

2007-06-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

Not all archaeological discoveries are either spectacular or terribly important to someone's hypothesis of ecological adaptation or dialectic of colonial (re)sistance.

Sometimes we find things that change the little trivia that make up our lives. Like the recent discovery that the French didn't invent the cooking of frog's legs. Or that the oldest tabasco sauce bottle was found in an African-American saloon in Nevada (though I guess that does point out the often forgotten role of African-Americans in the US expansion westward, or the attempts to find new and freer lands after the Civil War).

Antiquity of Modern Humans in China as old as Europe

2007-04-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Modern Human remains from China 40,000 BP.

The news articles covering this are pushing the elements of hybridization coming from Trinkaus. But regardless of whether that is accurate, this is a refreshing change from the typical focus on the modern migration to better-studied Europe.

Passover, Exodus, and Archaeology

2007-04-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

A blog post introduction to the chronological issues between archaeology and the Hebrew story of Exodus, currently being celebrated in Passover. I know there is much more on this, but I found the post informative since this stuff isn't my bag.

More on "No Evidence of Moses in the Sinai"

The Destruction of Mesopotamia

2007-03-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

An informative if depressing article on the destruction of Iraq's past along with its present and future. The best way to see archaeological looting is via satellite, since the country is too dangerous to travel, and the experts are being driven out as part of the civil war.

WWI Subterranean Ruins Uncovered in Belgium

2007-03-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

http://heritage.scotsman.com/news.cfm?id=410232007

Underground c0mplex, the Vampire dugout, filled with material culture and artifacts from a permanent battlefield settlement of the Western Front.

Jesus Tomb Part Almost the Last: New Epigraphic Claim and Boredom

2007-03-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

This will probably be my next to last post on the topic of the Jesus tomb. An epigrapher has published an article saying the "Mary Magdalene" ossuary is no such thing, and that the inscription has been misread when in reality it isn't one inscription at all. This re-analysis suggests there are two female names on the box written at different times, the result of the box being a multiple burial. This would sink the whole argument if correct. Of course the director of the documentary notes an epigrapher did the original work and reading.

I can't comment on that, I'm not a Near Eastern archaeologist or epigrapher or linguist. I'm going to finally get around to watching the documentary next week. I had my Introduction to Archaeology students watch and report on it for extra credit. Anyway, my experience in epigraphy is with Maya epigraphy, which is a much younger field of study, and one still in development. So I can't apply the tendency for shifting readings in Maya epigraphy on to this case.

I'm somewhat surprised by the reaction to the Jesus tomb. I thought this would have caught more fire, ala The DaVinci Code. But there has been roundly rejected in the media and from what I can tell in much of the blogosphere. I don't think millions of people have all of a sudden developed a love of authoritative academics squelching extraordinary claims, or have become much more critical thinkers than usual. I think the answer proposed by documentary and book were just not popular. Doesn't mean those findings are correct, there are plenty of good reasons to think they aren't.

But I will note that for the first time, I've seen the people behind this documentary resort to one of the common themes of Spooky Paradigm research, the notion of democratizing science, taking power from the hands of the scientific establishment that ignores anomalies it doesn't like. From the article linked above.

[quote]

Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars' discomfort with journalists "casting light into their ossuary monopoly."

"What we're doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy," he said.[/quote]

Jesus Tomb Part 2: Serious Critique

2007-03-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

This piece from the Washington Post includes the first criticism of the "Jesus Tomb" claims that seem sound, to me. Not just doubting the statistics, but cultural and historical considerations which suggest there may be problems. Still nothing that blows it apart, in my opinion, but worth reading

The Tomb of Jesus and Family

2007-02-25T23:33:00.000-08:00

This is obviously going to be a big story, especially with the press conference on Monday.

Check the links at the bottom, but in summary, film maker James Cameron has produced a documentary (and the research? I'm not as clear on that) on new analysis and interpretation of what the researchers believe to be the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family. A family tomb in Jerusalem, excavated in 1980, includes ossuaries for a Yeshua (Jesus) son of Yosef (Joseph), Maria (Latin for Mary, and Mary mother of Jesus was referred to in other texts by the Latin), Matia (Matthew). Most stunningly, one ossuary is inscribed Mariamene e Mara or "Mary, known as the Master," a name for Mary Magdalene in Gnostic texts, and Judah son of Jesus.

Furthermore, bits of bone in the Yeshua (yes, you read that right) ossuary and the Mariamene ossuary are not related by blood (DNA was extractable from the remains in those two ossuaries). This leads to the interpretation that Mariamene married into the family.

The linked articles note that while the names are common in that region in the first century AD, the chances of all these names, that are associated as family and associates in the New Testament, occurring together, is 1 in 600.

Now, there is a lot that could be wrong about this. There may be elements of the data that we don't know about, that falsifies the hypothesis proposed by these researchers. With such a spectacular claim, there is always the possibility of fraud (perhaps by someone prior to the discovery). The researchers are suggesting a possible tie to the James ossuary (possibly having been in the tomb), which some researchers have declared a fraud, while supporters have produced 1970s-era photos of the ossuary. Of course, if the latter is true, this presents problems for the 1980 excavation. And of course, even if everything here is above board, at most it points to a likely historical link to the tomb occupants, something not provable beyond an absolute shadow of a doubt. But that's how archaeology often is.

Anyway, it is far too preliminary to judge any of this. But unlike many other media blitz claims about archaeology (this is a book, a documentary being shown on the Discovery Channel, etc.), the evidence seems pretty straightfoward here. And a peer-reviewed article on the statistics is apparently coming out soon, something often not found in media blitzes. And let's be honest: did we really think a discovery of this nature would appear first in a scientific journal. Of course it was going to get the King Kong 8th Wonder of the World treatment.

Here is a Discovery "News" blurb about the discoveries, that detail the basic outline

This is a somewhat detailed presentation of the tomb, in particular pictures of the ossuaries with transcriptions and translations of the inscriptions, and more about each element of the research. I recommend checking it out.

One of the archaeologists involved in the initial discovery says this is all PR and nonsense. But I will wait to see what the new analysis actually suggests, as I've seen this kind of rivalry before, sometimes legit, sometimes not. He is right, that archaeologists are not involved in the new analysis. On the other hand, an epigrapher of texts of this era is involved.

It may all be garbage. It may actually have merit. But regardless, I imagine this is going to be something a lot of people outside archaeology will be talking about.

Magical Architecture Caches: Witch Bottles, Mummy Cats, and Abandoned Shoes

2007-02-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

The discovery of a mummified cat in an early 19th-century Edinburgh building reminded me of one of the niftiest things in historical archaeology, magical deposits. Common caches hidden under floorboards or within walls include shoes, cats, or "witch bottles" specially prepared with pins and urine. These were magical charms in British culture, and still hold some power. As noted on Brian Hoggard's page on these charms and other folk magic, cats were often destroyed or otherwise noted by construction teams that discovered them. They can be creepy whether interpreted by the discoverer as an unfortunate accident or as an occult artifact, and in some cases are burned to cleanse the deposit and perhaps help the cat in the afterlife.

Update: First witch bottle still sealed (and presumably containing urine) found in Greenwich.

Update: Article from March 2008 has nice images and discussion

Update April 2009: Sealed shoes from Nova Scotia

Update June 2009: The sealed witch bottle has been analyzed

My Favorite Part of Archaeology - Dispelling Common Wisdom

2007-02-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

More than anything, I enjoy when archaeology shows that what most of us think about the past is wrong. I don't mean just finding something new, though that is of course great. I mean going and finding the physical evidence of past alternatives to what we have normalized to be the status quo. Or finding direct contradictions to the historical record. Each of the following stories includes an element of this.

In New Kingdom Egypt, the heretic king Akhenaten was stricken from the historical record, as best as was possible. Yet his capitol city lies in ruins at Tell el-Amarna, with ample evidence for his new religion based on the Aten sun disk and the relationship between it and the royal family. Right there archaeology recovers an embarassing chapter in Egyptian history that the authorities attempted to coverup after his death. But in something of a reversal, a recent discovery at Saqqara suggests the new story is also not entirely true. Akhenaten may have shut down the temples to the old Egyptian gods, but Dutch archaeologists have found elites still being buried in the old way, honoring the old gods but using the new Amarna art style, at Saqqara during the Amarna period. Akhenaten's hegemony was not complete.

In New York City, a pipe inspector stumbled across subterranean passages immediately next to the basement of 740 Park Avenue, the richest apartment building in the city's history and home to titans of finance and capital. This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for persistant rumors long denied that John D. Rockefeller had an escape tunnel leading from the building to his private subway. The tunnel cannot be tied to Rockefeller, and a local historian suggests the Vanderbilts as possible patrons of the construction. But clearly the legends weren't as far-fetched as previously thought.

Across the ocean in Britain, a medieval monastery in Hereford turned up something of a surprise. Thirty years ago a skeleton was dug up and was believed to be one of the monks. But re-analysis suggests that the bones are probably those of a woman. Someone has some explaining to do.

Jamestown Sister Settlement Discovered

2007-02-13T03:18:00.000-08:00

The site may have been worked before, but archaeological remains in coastal Virginia are now being identified as Henrytowne, a contemporary with Jamestown. I of course am intrigued by the similarities to my own work at Ciudad Vieja, the ruins of the second Spanish settlement in what is now El Salvador. In fact the things so far discovered (an iron forge, pottery production, possibly a store) are some of the highlights of what we've found at Ciudad Vieja.

EDIT: The interpretation of the site is being questioned, in particular the location of the settlement in documents (possibly near Richmond?) and the relationship to the archaeological remains.

here

and here

In related news, the first iron works of the north American English colonies has been found at Falling Creek, Virginia. I'd note, of course, that the Spaniards had occupied North America for decades before 1619. Anyway, these are part of the Virginia colony and also contemporary with early Jamestown. And recent discoveries show 18th-century Yorktown (near in space if not time, but still part of the colonial heritage of the area) to be more complex than previously thought.

Expect more news of Jamestown this year. Virginia and other interested parties are promoting the site during its 400th anniversary. This article from US News and World Report gives an overview of the topic and profiles Dr. William Kelso, the force behind the recent breakthroughs at Jamestown. And this article discusses the various historical sites in the region, noting the anniversary.

Ancient Seafarers of the Atlantic and Pacific

2007-02-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

Two different studies highlight very different elements of historical seafarers.

DNA taken from the tooth of a man who died in Alaska 10,300 years ago suggests that the earliest Americans travelled along the Pacific coast, possibly settling rapidly around 15,000 years ago. Modern indigenous American people were tested in comparison with the ancient remains, and only a small number had the mitochondrial DNA lineage of the ancient man. These individuals were all from indigenous groups that lived along the Pacific Coast of North and South America.

The idea that people migrated to the Americas by boat has become increasingly popular as older archaeological remains have made a land crossing over Beringia unlikely as the source for the first people in the hemisphere.

I will note that the research also found very fast rates of mitochondrial DNA mutation, the basis of the method. Four times faster, in fact. I'm a layman in regards to molecular studies, but that seems like something that needs more explanation.

The other story is much more recent, and much stranger. Viking sailors may have used crystals known as sunstones to help navigate even on cloudy days. The stones would allow one to see the polarization of sunlight and use that to determine the position of the sun for use in navigation. If this turns out to be the case, I hope someone goes and revises historical discussion of "magical" sunstones.

Olmec Artifacts and Influence in Central Mexico

2007-02-06T01:33:00.000-08:00

This is not terribly surprising, but is noteworthy.

The 2500 year old (Middle Preclassic) site of Zazacatla is not far from Mexico City, but has turned up artifacts and sculpture which look very much like those at Gulf Coast Olmec sites. Pictures can be seen in this slideshow. We've known about Olmec-style sculpture in the Central highlands, most famously at Chalcatzingo. But the striking similarities to classic Olmec figures is impressive.

Speaking of the Gulf Coast, the pyramids and structures at El Tajin are being destroyed by acid rain. This site is likely more important than we currently understand.

Earliest Semitic Text: Magic Spell Used by Egyptians to Fight Snakes

2007-02-06T01:21:00.000-08:00

Very weird. The earliest evidence for a Semitic language is a protective spell used by Egyptians to protect royal mummies. Because some snakes were believed to speak Canaanite, Egyptians of the Old Kingdom (2400 - 3000 BC) turned to Canaanite magic.

On the flipside, the newest edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica casts doubt on the historical existence of Moses.

Life and Death Amongst the Hominids: Interaction Between Various Members of the Genus Homo

2007-02-06T00:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of stories recently on some of the famous hominids contemporary with Homo sapiens sapiens.

More evidence for cannibalism amongst Neanderthal populations has surfaced. This interpretation continues to pop up, but because of the sensationalistic nature of cannibalism, the evidentiary level is pretty high. Another set of remains has been interpreted as a hybrid modern-Neanderthal, evidence of interbreeding between the two populations. I am no expert in that field, but until the genetic evidence stops showing big differences, I am skeptical. Especially since so many examples of hybridization come from still-growing adolescents.

Modern humans have been in Europe for at least 45,000 years, according to the dating of artifacts from Russia. Settlement here may have been spurred on because there was no competition from Neanderthals in this colder part of Europe.

Meanwhile, a flurry of stories have popped up regarding the Indonesian "hobbits," also known as Homo floresiensis. Research is beginning again in the caves of Flores Island, after political concerns had shut down the work. The discovery of a large cave under the cave sites may allow for many new sets of remains to be found. New testing refutes the idea that the specimens were hydrocephalic, and instead suggests that they were a separate species with a brain comparable to modern humans. And modern humans may have hunted the "hobbits" or their food sources into extinction, as it appears a volcanic eruption did not kill them off. This news will certainly please those, including cryptozoologists who support the idea of ancient primates other than humans surviving to the present, who have taken interest in the stories of the Orang Pendek and of stories in the region of little people.

A Late Post on Apocalypto

2007-02-06T00:32:00.000-08:00

I blogged about this in December on my other blog. But the topic is more relevant here, so I post it here and add a few new links.

I saw a pre-release showing of Apocalypto on the Monday before it opened. As a Mesoamerican archaeologist, I strongly give this movie a complete anti-recommendation, and would urge people not to support it. First off, it is not an entertaining film. Secondly, as many of the reviews have mentioned, it is very violent. This did not bother me in a filmgoer sense, but several members of the group I saw it with had to leave the theater because they could not stomach futher gore and injury.

But the main reason I write this is that the basic message of the movie is offensive. For reasons that become apparent if you watch the movie, Gibson's message is unmistakeable: Mesoamerican civilization deserved to be destroyed and conquered by Christianity. If this was just some academic exercise, it still would be wrong and inaccurate (while some parts of the film visually look good and recreate nifty bits of costume and architecture, much of the movie is highly inaccurate). But this movie will harm the efforts of the millions of Mayas in Mexico in Central America to survive and thrive in societies that already have power structures arrayed against them, and that in many cases are still victims of a centuries long Conquest that is not over.

If you want to read further about this, here are two reviews and comments by other Mesoamerican archaeologists

http://www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/apocalypto.html

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/shared/movies/stories/2006/12/history.html

EDIT: Another bad review of the film from an archaeologist, and mixed reviews from Mayas.

Roman Roundup - Gladiators, Gauls, and the Legendary Birth of Rome

2007-02-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

A series of discoveries from Roman archaeology

In Rome, excavation has supposedly uncovered the Lupercale, the legendary origin cave of the Eternal City. It was turned into a shrine, and included by Rome's first Emperor Augustus in his private household. As a Mesoamericanist, I find the parallels to Teotihuacan to be extraordinary. That city was also the biggest in its region, an imperial capitol, and it was founded from a cave. In the case of Teotihuacan, which is a late contemporary of Classical Rome, a massive pyramid was built over the cave. The cave may be at least partially natural, but it was artificially modifed, and came to serve as the orientation for the grid network of streets and residential compounds.

Not far away from Lupercale, the treasure of the last Pre-Christian Roman Emperor has been found. Hidden before Constantine defeated Maxentius at Milvian Bridge, the insignias, weapons, and glasswork is a reminder of a major historical shift in Roman and European history.

A Roman-British Colosseum in Chester was much smaller than the famous ampitheatre in Rome, but it may have otherwise been a close copy. The exterior would have looked very similar to the Roman original. Inside, archaeologists have found bits of weapony and skeletal fragments, in accordance with historical accounts of Roman gladiatoral combat and sacrifice. This kind of brutality is on display in carvings recovered by Italian police during a raid on a looter's warehouse.

Roman entertainment of another sort is now on display, as a famous brothel in Pompeii has been restored and re-opened as a museum exhibit (not an operational brothel).

Back on the frontier, a French Roman-era cemetery is puzzling experts. The burial patterns do not appear to be Roman, but are reminiscent of pre-Roman religious practices. The problem? The remains are centuries younger than the Roman conquest of Gaul. Could these practices have continued literally underground or been resurrected (really, I'm not trying to pun here, it's just happening)? Or is there another answer?

Pagans Rising: The Stonehenge Settlement and Repatriation or, Who Controls the UK's Past?

2007-02-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

The big archaeological news of the week has been the discovery of a large Neolithic residential site near Stonehenge, that most famous of all standing stone sites and emblem of British prehistory. This piece discusses the festival aspects, interpreted as seasonal, of the settlement and ceremonial architecture of a massive woodhenge at the site as well as nearby Stonehenge.

The article also notes the ties to modern pagans. Modern paganism is no small thing in the UK. The Catholic Cardinal of England and Wales states that Britain is no longer a Christian country, that it has gone pagan. Of course, he's lumping in all kinds of things he deems to be un-Christian or not of organized religion, and not just Pagan believers. Perhaps this is much ado about nothing, as three-quarters of Britons identified themselves as Christian in 2001, with Wiccans and other Pagans making up less than 0.1% of the country.

Despite these relatively small numbers, Pagans increasingly participate in the heritage of archaeological and sacred sites in the UK. The solstice celebrations at Stonehenge and other megalithic sites are the most famous. Last year some Catholic youths confronted Pagans during festivities in Glastonbury, throwing salt at them in a magical attempt to cleanse the town.

Meanwhile in Greece, a small group of Pagans have semi-legally (it seems, the coverage is not clear) started worshipping Zeus and the Classical Greek gods at ancient ruins in Athens. Greece is famous for the close ties between the church and the state, so this is no empty act.

Now, in a move echoing that of indigenous and minority people aross the planet, British Pagans are claiming the bones recovered from prehistoric sites as their ancestors and demanding repatriation from museums. The efforts have so far not been successful, in particular due to the great time depth between a modern claimant and the remains, without openly known ancestry traced between the modern and their claimed ancestors. This in turn echoes the issues around Kennewick Man, or as an alliance modern indigenous people have called him, the Ancient One. That case cannot be the same, due to the colonial aspect of the last five centuries and their legacy today. But all of this gets very complicated, quickly.

EDIT (Feb. 20, 2007): Stonehenge altar stone, long missing, may have been identified. Would modern pagans insist this piece is necessary for the proper use of Stonehenge, or do they stay where they are? Standard conservation practice is not to reverse later changes to architecture). How is the decision made?

EDIT (April 5. 2007): Craig Childs points out the issues involving Stonehenge and modern societies.

EDIT (April 7, 2007): An amulet from Suffolk may be similar to an amulet in a burial near Stonehenge. The Suffolk amulet dates to 1900 - 1700 BC, at which point Stonehenge would have been largely in its final form. The news article calls them "Stonehenge Amulets" but there is no particular reason for that to be the case.

EDIT (July 5, 2007): Pagans are protesting temporary modifications, for a television show, to Britain's famous Long Man geoglyph. Of course, the age and origin of the sculpture are still not certain, at least from an archaeological or mainstream historical perspective.

Hiatus Over: Dissertation Draft Submitted, Maya Meetings Attended

2007-02-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've been missing from this blog and Spooky Paradigm because I've been too busy preparing the draft of my dissertation. As of last week, it was in the hands of my committee. I still have revision to do, a defense to make, and official copies to print before it is really done.

Immediately after I turned in the draft, we had the Maya Meetings here at Tulane, organized by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, with a focus on mural art. San Bartolo was of course a major topic of discussion, in Dr. William Saturno's presentation as well as others, but Yucatan was covered extensively. This included the amazing finds at Ek Balam. That was nice to see, presented by Dr. Alfonso Lacadenas, since I had worked at the site for a month or so back in 1995. Dr. Francisco Estrada Belli presented new eviidence for the Teotihuacan entrada into the Maya world in 378 AD, found in the Holmul region of eastern Guatemala. There were other papers, though those based on presenting results of recent field research made more of an impact on me.

So, now I can finally get back to having a little time to myself and to writing here and at Spooky Paradigm. Not much mind you, I am still quite busy. But at least some

Anthropology and the Destruction of New Orleans

2007-01-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

The Boston Globe reports on the latest issue of American Anthropologist. How often does that happen? It happens when the entire issue is dedicated to the anthropology of Post-Katrina New Orleans. The article has summaries of the various articles, including one by Shannon Lee Dawdy on the archaeological implications from what people took from their ruined homes in the aftermath.

I am an archaeologist at Tulane University, and yes my rented apartment home (hence no benefit from insurance!) was filled with four and some feet of water for several weeks. I didn't return until my landlords had cleaned it all out (with my permission, they've been golden to me during all of this). Eventually I did return four months after the storm and the flooding. I re-opened our Center for Archaeology, and got back to writing my dissertation. It wasn't until March, two months later, when I ventured onto the neutral ground (the media) in front of the house. In part this was because it was choked with debris. Even when I finally walked over it, it was still covered in trash, and gnats were everywhere, rising up from the wet mud. There were other hazards, including an open sewer (the entire foundation around the manhole cover had been torn out and laid to the side, exposing a fifteen foot drop).

Being an archaeologist, I started poking around on the surface, and it wasn't long before I began recognizing some of my own possessions. This was a bit startling, but I figured that after years of pawing through other people's trash after they've died, there could be a karmic penalty to pay. So I made a few observations and took a few photos. I noticed that my possessions were relatively small ones, and they were oriented about three feet to the south of the lines of the house, if you extended them across the street and onto the neutral ground. This trash was not disposed as part of standard city sanitation trash hauling, but rather as debris. Homeowners and contractors in the first few months after the storm would dump their trash, debris from house gutting, sealed (for fear of what rotted inside) refrigerators, and other things on the neutral ground. On a, I believe, weekly or so basis an Army Corps of Engineers truck would come by with a large claw arm, and pick up debris for landfilling. What I found of my former possessions (a music CD, Mardi Gras doubloons, old floppy disks with my handwriting on them) were those that were small enough and slippery enough that they could fall out of the claw's grasp, and start to be embedded in the mud.

Their displacement a few feet south of the house initially puzzled me. I walked up and down the neutral ground, and noticed that in general the denser debris scatters were in each case a bit south of the houses on my block. Why? Was there some taphonomic factor that escaped me? They certainly didn't roll down hill. Then it struck me: the trash wasn't in front of the houses, it was in front of the driveways. The houses I was investigating had driveways, and access doors, on their south sides. The trash was leaving the house through the easiest access doors, and either being dumped by hand by homeowners or contractors at the closest spot, or they were filling their trucks with the debris and then backing up to dump it on the neutral ground.

I will admit, the temptation did drift through my mind: maybe some of my stuff, the metals, stone, ceramics, and plastics, could be excavated and recovered. I started thinking about what I owned, what was small and durable? What was precious to me in that category? Maybe with enough disinfecting cleanser, I could recover my own artifacts. Then I thought about the gnats. The muck. The toxic and septic stew that had sat in my apartment for days. And I thought about how much I really needed any of those things. Or did I really just not want to give up all the vestiges of my former life. I decided I'd leave it to someone to study in the future. Maybe the robots that survive the twenty-first century, or the ant people that succeed them. In any case, if this blog post survives, remember to look a meter south of the houses.

This Explains Lot: Meth Addicts Addicted to Archaeology

2007-01-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

People have wondered what I was smoking when I decided to become an archaeologist. Maybe they were on to something. An Arkansas sheriff believes that the obsessive nature of surface collection and survey appeals to crystal meth addicts, and he commonly finds arrowheads in meth busts. Me, I suspect the value to collectors is probably part of the equation. But this is interesting in either case, and might be a cautionary tale to field workers. We've already learned to be careful of traps or guards on meth labs and pot fields.

Top 10 Discoveries of 2006

2007-01-02T00:35:00.000-08:00

Archaeology Magazine has made a list of what it considers the top discoveries of last year.

It has been a fantastic year for early Mesoamerican writing, with the discovery of what appears to be Olmec writing, the oldest Maya writing, and what may be an ancient calendar representation.

Ancient Religion?

2007-01-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

Two recent discoveries address what may be early religious activities. The younger of the two discoveries have precedent, but are still extraordinary. Plastered skulls 11,500 years old were discovered in Tell Aswad, Syria. The skulls were coated with plaster, simulating flesh and skin, after death and painted to look more lifelike. Not only are these skulls earlier than those found at Jericho and elsewhere, they are far more impressive. Dating to the very beginning of settled life and the transition to food production, the uses of these skulls are uncertain. Guesses usually suggest family, ancestors, and ritual.

A find without precedent in Botswana dates back to what may be the beginning of modern human thought. Deposits of spear points around a rock sculpted into the form of a python appear to date to over 70,000 BP. The patterned deposition of these artifacts around a large image of an animal important to human concepts of nature and supernature may well be some of the earliest evidence of more complex ritual or religious behavior for Homo sapiens sapiens. Intriguingly, this is not far in time or space from the earliest evidence for human art. Blombos Cave, in neighboring South Africa, has produced the earliest evidence for symbolic creation of material culture. Shells were pierced for hanging on necklaces, and most intriguingly, zig-zag geometric patterns were carved into bars of red ochre, all around 77,000 BP. I would not be surprised to see other evidence of modern human behavior appearing in Southern Africa in the future.

Of course, other later hominids (such as Neanderthals) show some evidence of mortuary practices that may hint at symbolic thought. But so far not much evidence of symbolic material culture outside of mortuary practices. I'll leave the splitting between modern human behavior and other humans to those with more expertise in these fields.

A New Year, a New Mission

2007-01-01T23:07:00.000-08:00

I'll be changing the purpose of this blog in the next weeks. First off, starting a designer's journal for a dissertation after having written 75% of the dissertation is a bad plan. Second, I've decided I don't like the idea of a designer's journal, too egocentric.

I'm still deciding what to do with this blog, but it will likely become a place to discuss new archaeological discoveries, and put them in perspective. This may well develop in conjuction with the Introduction to Archaeology course I am teaching this semester.

So here's a good start.

This article from Halifax, Nova Scotia, mentions some new historical archaeological discoveries under that city. But it also discusses the importance of archaeology as a hands-on scientific experience. This is one of the great strengths of archaeology. It deals with material culture, which can be understood by anyone at some level. Of course there can be theory or technical issues requiring substantial amounts of education and jargon control. But putting that all aside, I can put a fragment of a drinking glass, or a religious medal, or a kitchen knife, or a hammer stone into someone's hand, and there is a basic human connection to people from another time, another society, another culture, another world.

Futhermore, archaeology is about pattern recognition and detective work. Archaeology can be literally hands on artifacts, and it can also be hands on data. Inspired by Dr. Robert Drennan of the University of Pittsburgh, I have found great utility in giving archaeological data to students so that they can "do the math" and solve research questions. Even if they never think about archaeology again in a professional manner, students can learn how to judge evidence and make reality-based conclusions. A predisposition to reality has been lacking in some quarters as of late.