Field Season Over...with video recap

We finished up our 2013 excavations last Monday and backfilled the final unit in a torrential downpour.


There will be more detail to come, but I wanted to post this clip put together by Colin Duryea

After the Rain

Field Class-Week 3

Another week, another rain day.  This time, at least we had enough artifacts to warrant a day of washing.  We also had a visit from the college videographer...so stay tuned for a slick trailer for next year's class.

Field Class--Week 2, or really 1.5

Evidence of Sophisticated Behavior.

Our first couple of weeks in the field were abbreviated by an unsettled weather pattern, which brought one cancelled day and one significantly shortened one.  Nevertheless, we've made some progress.

Day 1--SUNY-Orange Archaeological Field School 2013

Today, the 2013 season of the SUNY-Orange Field school begins.

Expanding Possibilities

The following quote from Hornborg's article struck me as I was reflecting on discussion in 101 yesterday.

We are trained as anthropologists and tend to maintain a healthy distance to social engineering, but as stewards of a vast collective memory of global cultural experimentation, it could be argued that we have an obligation to share these alternative ideas and ideologies with nonanthropologists seeking visions of a sustainable world. Like so many other populations over the past few centuries, the Tiv have discovered how their incorporation into a world economy orchestrated by general-purpose money implied loss of local control, inequitable trade relations, and environmental degradation [2007:65].

Very often, policy makers and other social scientists assume the experience of Western peoples defines the boundaries of possibility (see this link for an interesting, but long, study in which the study populations used by the discipline of psychology are scrutinized...how representative of a general human species are those results?). However, as Hornborg argues above, there are other ways and other possibilities and should not be discounted out of hand as "backward" survivals from a more primitive stage of human cultural evolution.

Anthropological Approaches...Interrupted by Fire and Finished Friday

Adding to the previous post, the remainder of influential ideas and approaches in anthropology.  This and the last post are not at all an exhaustive list, but I believe it does provide a general sense of the direction of the discipline.  On Friday, we'll recap a bit more and I'll emphasize those elements that remain common practice.

Approaches in Anthropology...so far

Just a quick overview of the theoretical approaches in anthropology that we've covered so far.  I'm going to try my best and distill the major points as well as those elements that remain with the discipline.

Diagnostics, Stratification and Zeppelin

Just a bit of a restatement or expansion of Mike's question and my response from class today.

The survey project I described used diagnostic pottery and projectile points to place the sites in the region into a basic temporal sequence.  What inferences was this based on?  Well, bear with my analogy again...

Points of View

This post is to hopefully recap a bit of the discussion from today's class. While anthropology has traditionally focused primarily on culture, I tried to emphasize other aspects of the human experience and how they articulate with culture. However, it might be best to think of the four divisions I used as different angles from which to look at the same thing...humans.

Talking Up the Field School

Last night, I had the opportunity to present about the 2012 summer field school--both the class and its initial findings--at the Wisner Library in Warwick.  One of the great results of such public presentations is getting to talk to folks with expertise and knowledge you didn't previously have.  I believe some of the leads will prove productive in future field seasons.

Holistic Connections

This post primarily stems from Friday's discussion in the Archaeology course, but it's relevant for the Cultural one as well.

Shedding Light on Early Homo

This week, the news of new fossil finds northern Kenya hit the anthropological scene.  You can find a good summary by Kate Wong here, and at Hominid Hunting here.  For further, bloggy, but knowledgeable commentary, check out Adam Van Ardsdale's post.  These fossils have special importance because they fit into the time period just around two million years ago, which marks the beginning of our genus, Homo, and has been characterized by a relatively fragmentary fossil record.

In the News: Early Pottery and Presidential Politics.

A couple of things caught my eye this week in the world of anthropology.

Modern Genetics and Ancient Humans

Yet again, a new study seems to have found evidence of the interbreeding of ancient human populations.

Early Immigrants and the Politics of Archaeology

For the past century, one of the most fascinating questions in archaeology, especially American archaeology, has been that surrounding the first human migrations into North and South America.  For most of the last half of the 20th Century, most archaeologists agreed that the first settlement happened around 12,000 years ago and that the first residents were the Clovis culture, distinctive by their fluted spear points.  During the past 30 years, however, that model has come under sustained attack by new data.  The archaeological consensus has now shifted to an earlier occupation of the hemisphere and that the Clovis people were not first and not alone.

The Catalog is Done, Dude...

Joe and I completed the initial catalog of artifacts today.  About 1166 recovered in our four weeks on site.  There's still a lot of research and writing to do, but I hadn't expected to find the diversity or abundance of artifacts prior to the field season.  I still feel we're looking at a late 19th Century occupation, but the specific nature of the activities at the site are still not clear...though they were smoking.

Here's a few more shots of the artifacts...many more details to come.

Toddlers, Tarsiers and Teeth

I just returned from taking my two small sons to the dentist.  By the way, if I had known the costs of something like dentistry before having kids...I don't know if they'd be here now. 

This visit marked the first time my four year old had x-rays taken. When we viewed the images, I was struck by how much his mandibular incisors (bottom front teeth) looked like that of a prosimian dental comb. Primates are noted for their lack of dental specialization (to take advantage of varied and flexible food sources), but the dental comb is a classic example of some specialized dentition that does occur in non-human primates.

Despite the adaptive specialization found in dental combs, I still found the common ancestry apparent.  My son and a lemur may look very different now, but that x-ray reminded me in a visceral way how they do share grandparents from about 50 million years ago.

My oldest son

Human Mandibular Incisors, not my son (disregard B and C)

Lemur Dental Comb (also mandibular incisors, plus modified canines)

Not my son

Almost Famous

We made the local paper.  I'll just add that I think our gear in the background of the photo looks like a mess and I really wish we had some crew who would have kept it organized.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120709/NEWS/207090328

Engage Cataloging

Maybe it's the day alone in my office with nothing but artifacts and I feel I must seek out some human connection...so here's another post.  As noted earlier (yes, today), all artifacts recovered from the 2012 season have been washed.  This afternoon, I began the cataloging process and have gotten through 133 individual artifacts (and there's many more to do, my guess is that I got through about 10% today).

I've included some quick pictures, including of a pipe bowl fragment that seems to have an eagle wing and neck design on it.

Pipe Bowl Fragment (you can't really see the design in this image)

Final Clean Up

The transition out of the field is almost complete.  Today, I hope to finish the last of the basic washing of the remaining artifacts we recovered.  Here's an exciting shot of sherds (yes, that is how you spell it) and sundry rocks (likely nothing) drying in the bright July sun on the porch of the Christine Morrison House (side note: my department recently moved buildings on campus and as far as space goes, we've experienced a significant downgrade.  However, the porch is a nice consolation prize).

Science!!!

Once the cleaning is done, I, and hopefully some students in the fall, will begin analysis to get a fuller sense of the dating and functions of the artifacts.  After that's complete, we'll be in a much better position to say what was really going on at the site.