archaeological landscapes

One of my earliest memories is of running up and down the Miamisburg Mound, near Dayton, Ohio. I have family in the area, and when we visited, we would take a picnic to the park where the mound is located. My cousins and I would run up and down the steps, or roll down the sides of the mound, while the adults sat around and reminisced. On summer afternoons, there were often many families in the park.

If my parents explained the significance of the mound to me, I certainly didn't understand or remember. Many, many years later, I was sitting through a lecture on Midwestern moundbuilders, when the professor started showing pictures of the Miamisburg Mound. I experienced a wrench of cognitive connection, and had a sudden mental image of running down steep steps, in the dappled green shade of what seemed to me, as a child, a veritable forest of trees. Oh, so that's why there'd been a big hill in that park.

Archaeological sites are embedded within a larger landscape, one imbued with meaning, full of economic implications, and environmental diversity on a micro- and macro-scale. All landscapes are contingent, and while archaeological sites write the history of human occupation on that landscape, the sites continue to be a living part of the landscape well after that occupation has ceased. Archaeological sites affect vegetation regimes, they affect local biodiversity. Due to changes in the soil, Archaeological sites can often be identified by the differences in modern vegetation on the site, when compared to nearby areas. In the Amazon, prehistorically created terras pretas continue to be used by modern farmers as agricultural fields, as the soils are much richer than "natural". Archaeological sites are frequently re-used. Obvious examples include ritualistic "power grabs", like building the cathedral of Mexico City over the major Aztec temples, but archaeological sites are often re-used for purely practical reasons, rather than legitimization or socio-religious ones. At Kincaid Mounds site, in southern Illinois, a farmhouse was built on the largest mound during the historic period, to raise it above the frequently flooded ground-level.

As archaeologists, we often ignore the modern (or post-occupation) uses of archaeological sites, or treat them as something to be filtered out during the "real" analysis of the site. At least in the United States, we're often not comfortable with the archaeological landscape. Perhaps this is because few of us are descendants of the initial occupants. We are all too aware that the original meaning of the landscape has not carried down to us, and a current picnic spot may have been a place of great spiritual power to someone in the past. Our culture is also less enamored than many by places we associate with the dead. Unlike many Mexican communities, or Victorian-era Euro-Americans, we do not consider cemeteries to be a place to bring your children, gossip, laugh, eat, and enjoy life.

We miss something, though, as archaeologists and as human beings, when we attempt to wall off archaeological sites, make them into museums, separate them from the living world. Don't get me wrong, we need to protect archaeological sites. We also must understand the needs of communities who may hold some sites sacred. But, where practical, we benefit by embracing the archaeological landscape. Archaeological sites are living entities, long after those who lived in them have ceased to breathe, and as researchers it behooves us to remember the long post-occupation history of our sites, how they were used, re-used, and re-invented. Additionally, our field benefits by bringing more people into the archaeological landscape, by making the past a place where children race up and down mound steps and families picnic on summer afternoons. Archaeology has a fair amount of public support, a "gee whiz" factor largely based on Indiana Jones and Egyptian mummies, but true stewardship of archaeological sites will come only when our past is integrated into our present.

profitablity of the past

A Bulgarian archaeologists claims to have found the relics of St. John the Baptist (in Bulgaria, naturally). I have no comment on the veracity of the claims, but I did think that this story by an English-language Sofia news agency was refreshingly forthright in its coverage of the economic benefits of the finds. In the Middle Ages, towns throughout Christendom begged, borrowed, stole, or faked relics - and took advantage of real ones, of course - for exactly these reasons:

"Investments in history and in archaeology are very profitable for whichever country," said Simeon Djankov, Bulgaria's Finance Minister.

According to him, the return would be about 200 times, while the investment in archaeological heritage in general does not cost much.

"It is worth investing there for archaeology's sake as well, and also because of the new job positions it would create. Investments in this sector return repeatedly and in a relatively short period of time," Djankov said.

He has explained that if there are archaeological landmarks and other attractions, "tourists might decide to stay there not for a day, but for two or three days."

You should read the story. It's short, but interesting, and the Bulgarian Diaspora Minister uses some rather shocking language.

Catalhoyuk dust-up

I hadn't heard about the firing of most lab heads on the Catalhoyuk project. I don't have much to say, other than: Wow.

I'm sure it is true that the analytical team on a long-term project like Catal gets stuck in its ways. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that once a particular scientific team has been chosen, the theoretical and methodological outlooks of those people will shape the nature of the project and are unlike to change over the long-term. But I'm skeptical that bringing in "new blood" will actually accomplish much, other than piss a lot of people off and make the new crew rather wary. There are also a lot of logistical problems to face. Will data continue to be gathered in the same way? If new types of data are gathered using new techniques, new forms, new databases, etc., then how compatible will it be with the old data? If the new data is compatible with the old data, what rules will there be about publishing the new and old data together? How much credit will the old analysts get for their work? How much can they continue to publish after 2012 on this material? Sounds like a real mess!

Catalhoyuk is such a fascinating site, and has incredible importance, both intrinsically and as a highly visible example of archaeology. I hope the potential problems are worked out quickly and smoothly.

weekly accountability: Sept. 19-25

My writing goals for this week were to finish my pre-tenure sabbatical application and to write the introduction and background section of a conference paper that I'm turning into a journal article.

I did not meet my writing goals this week. I finished the pre-tenure sabbatical application, but I didn't get to the journal article at all. There are a couple reasons for this. One is that I've been really sick all week, so I'm barely keeping my head above water. The other reason is I think I'm over-estimating how much I'm capable of getting done during the week. My writing hours have been going very well, and I've gotten more done in the last two weeks than I have since classes started. The fact remains I have a very teaching-intensive job and I'm prepping a brand new class outside my field of expertise. It's not surprising that I'm not as productive as I think I "ought" to be. I have decided to ease back on my expectations a bit.

My goals for next week are to re-write the introduction and background sections of the conference paper that I'm turning into a journal article.

balance, pt. 4: class prep

I don't teach any classes in my field of research. The closest I come is a four-field course on environmental theory and anthropology. I don't even teach the introductory archaeology course at Tiny Liberal Arts College (it's taught by Dr. Mr. Palimpsest). Instead, I teach introductory courses in biological anthropology and (gasp!) cultural anthropology, as well as higher-level courses in bioanth and archaeology. The only higher-level archaeology class that I teach is focused on a region I've never been to, much less conducted research on.*

I can easily spend 6 hours prepping for each class period, especially if it's a new class. Since I have a high teaching load, if I'm not careful I lose all my time to teaching and have none left over for research. One trick I've learned that helps: do all class prep in the evening, after the kids go to bed. This has two advantages: 1) it forces me to work during a time that I often get lazy and just want to read a book (or write a blog post). The panic of not having anything to teach the next morning will work wonders; and 2) it forces me to limit the time I devote to class prep. Prep-work, like a gas, expands to take all available time between its initiation and the actual class. If I prep in the evenings, then pure need for sleep will eventually force me to call it quits.

I should note that this plan didn't work at all when I had all new preps, my first year on the job. Then I had to work evenings and all day to get it done. I will also admit that this plan worked a lot better before Boo Too was born. Between sleep deprivation, and an infant who will only sleep while in my arms, my evenings have been increasingly devoted to the Red Menace (aka Netflix). I've found the evening prep time to work well in the past, however, and highly recommend it. I hope to return to it, once Boo Too starts sleeping on his own.

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*"Why?" you ask. Don't ask. The inner workings of this department are not for the faint of heart.

macaw breeding in Paquime

JAA has a very interesting article on stable oxygen and carbon isotope tests on scarlet macaws from Pacquime. (Anyone know how to add the accent on the last e? Anyone?):

Somerville, Andrew D, Ben A. Nelson, and Kelly J. Knudson
2010 Isotopic Investigation of Pre-Hispanic Macaw Breeding in Northwest Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29: 125-135.

To summarize briefly, the oxygen isotopes suggest most macaws were born and bred at the site, rather than imported from Mesoamerica. The carbon isotopes suggest that adult birds, at least, were fed mostly maize. The outliers were as interesting as the overall pattern. One bird, for example, appears to have come originally from a wetter, warmer climate, probably within the original range of the birds in Mesoamerica.

It's a great example of human manipulation, where prehistoric peoples extended the range (and diet!) of a species. I wonder what other species or sites could be investigated in this manner. As much as I would love to see this kind of analysis applied to the movement of domestic herd animals across Eurasia and Africa, sufficient chronological control is impossible. Macaws are an oddity in many ways: very long-lived animals that were kept alive for a secondary product (feathers), were traded in very small numbers, and were not clearly bred in captivity outside of a few centers. There aren't a lot of other cases like them.

There are on-going debates over the origin of macaws in the Southwest, of course, so it would be fascinating to see whether the oxygen isotopes suggested a Pacquime origin for birds in the Four Corners region. I assume such analyses are on-going.

agricultural landscapes of the Ozarks

I love this essay about Ozark agriculture and subsistence traditions. Like many areas that are marginal for agriculture (whether due to technological, population, or environmental constraints), the Ozarks encourage alternatives to industrialized agriculture, and in particular create areas of high agricultural biodiversity. Similar things happened in the past, as well, affecting the diversity of both plant and animal species in areas around villages and fields. I'm most familiar with cases from the Americas, and there are just too many to mention. Everyone should read these three books:

Cultivated Landscapes of Native North America, by William Doolittle, Oxford University Press, 2002

Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes, by William Denevan, Oxford University Press, 2003

Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the Eve of Conquest, by Thomas M. Whitmore, Oxford University Press, 2002