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

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.

Historical Archaeology Field School - East Tennessee - June 2010

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

El Mirador - Destroyed by Teotihuacanos?

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

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

Ebay Curtails Archaeological Looting

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 Death Whistle!

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

Maya hieroglyphic decipherment on NOVA, April 8

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

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.

How Bad Archaeology Should Be Handled

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.

Tomb of Aztec Emperor Ahuizotl found

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.

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

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

Ancient Seafarers of the Atlantic and Pacific

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.

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

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.