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

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.

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

A little something I wrote for Museum Anthropology Review

Issue Table of Contents

Review

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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]