Celebrate Florida Archaeology Month with a Dash through the Past

Did you know that Florida Archaeology Month is right around the corner? Every March, an array of programs and events are scheduled to put Floridians and visitors in touch with the rich history and heritage of the Panhandle State, which stretches back over 12,000 years.
  
This year, the Florida Public Archaeology Network and the University of West Florida Historic Trust are hosting Dash Through the Past, a high-speed scavenger hunt set for March 7th from 10 am to 12 pm at 207 East Main Street in downtown Pensacola. Participants will race through a two-mile course in the heart of the city's historic district, using maps to search for hidden treasures and competing for prizes. For more information, view the event details, or email the event organizers at northwest@flpublicarchaeology.org.  

Dash Through the Past is just one of several events planned for the month of March. This year's theme, Innovators of the Archaic, invites participants to discover prehistoric Floridian culture and its connections to the present day. You can find a full list of programs on the Florida Archaeology Month website. 

With this state's rich cultural history, it's a wonder there's just one month dedicated to Florida archaeology. Thousands of years ago, some of the first civilizations to live in Florida hunted mammoth with stone-tipped spears. Rising sea levels, changing environments, and increasing populations were just a few of the challenges they overcame by testing and adapting to new ways of life. 

Curious about Florida's unique past? Enjoy these free articles from Public Archaeology: 

>> Florida's Underwater Archaeological Preserves: Public Participation as an Approach to Submerged Heritage Management

>> Tracing the Roots of Municipal Archaeology in St Augustine, Florida: The Story of How 'The Oldest City' Connected Archaeology, Local Government, and the Public

12 days of Archaeology! A Christmas Sing Song

We are feeling very Christmassy at CUDI, so what better way to spread festive cheer than to have a little festive sing along, so all together now…

On the first day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Fortune's portrait collection of Chinese trees

On the second day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Two neolithic ditch enclosures in Bohemia

On the third day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Three ancient Jewish reliefs

On the fourth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Four middle Holocene pillar sites in West Turkana, Kenya

On the fifth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Five notes on Jerusalem in the first and second Temple Periods

On the sixth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Six apostle spoons from Finland

On the seventh day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Seven years of preserving damaged stone 

On the eighth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Eight seventeenth-century decorative paintings

On the ninth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Nine engraved sites in the Hong Kong

On the tenth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Ten Commandments for effective anthropological exhibits

On the eleventh day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Eleven post-medieval corpses

On the twelfth day of Christmas CUDI gave to me,
Twelve dirt-walled structures in Mesa Verde National Park

Call for Papers: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage: Heritage, Tourism and Traditions

Trans-Atlantic dialogues on cultural heritage began as early as the voyages of Leif Ericson and Christopher Columbus and continue through the present day. Each side of the Atlantic offers its own geographical and historical specificities expressed and projected through material and immaterial heritage. However, in geopolitical terms and through everyday mobilities, people, objects and ideas flow backward and forward across the ocean, each shaping the heritage of the other, for better or worse, and each shaping the meanings and values that heritage conveys.

This conference is brought to you by the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH), University of Birmingham and the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), University of Illinois and offers a venue for exploring three critical interactions in this trans-Atlantic dialogue: heritage, tourism and traditions.

The goal of the conference is to be simultaneously open-ended and provocative. We welcome papers from academics across a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, art history, architecture, business, communication, ethnology, heritage studies, history, geography, landscape architecture, literary studies, media studies, museum studies, popular culture,  postcolonial studies, sociology, tourism, urban studies, etc. 

Topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The heritage of trans-Atlantic encounters
• Travelling intangible heritages
• Heritage flows of popular culture
• Re-defining heritage beyond the postcolonial
• The heritage of Atlantic crossings
• World Heritage of the Atlantic periphery
• Rooting and routing heritage
• Community and Nation on display
• Visualising the Trans-Atlantic world

Abstracts of 300 words with full contact details should be sent as soon as possible but no later than 15th December 2014 to ironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Further information on the Conference and the Call for Papers can be found on the website www.transatlanticdialogues.wordpress.com

Are you going to the 2014 ASOR Annual Meeting?

The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) is a non-profit organization that supports and encourages the study of the cultures and history of the Near East, from the earliest times to the present. ASOR is apolitical and has no religious affiliation.

The 2014 ASOR Annual Meeting will be held in San Diego, CA, from November 19th to 22nd at The Westin San Diego hotel.

The Annual Meeting brings together ASOR's vibrant academic community to present their current findings and discuss their research. The conference attracts over 1,000 scholars and enthusiasts of archaeology, linguistics, geography, epigraphy, anthropology, and other fields related to the study of the ancient Near East.

Scholarships and Prizes for the Annual Meeting

Because the ASOR Annual Meeting is one of most important ways to involve students and junior scholars in the field, ASOR, in cooperation with several foundations and generous donors, provides a number of different scholarships.

• Student Travel Grants: Up to ten (10) grants of $250 each are made available to students enrolled at ASOR-member schools.
• Foundation for Biblical Archaeology Scholarship: Through a generous gift of The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology (TFBA), ASOR will offer up to six (6) scholarships of $700 each for students to attend the Annual Meeting and provide work to support the meeting.
• Sean Dever Memorial Prize: Given to the best student paper in the area of archaeology.

Register for the 2014 ASOR Annual Meeting >

Volunteer at SAA 2014!

The 79th Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Annual Meeting will be held in Austin, TX on April 23-27, 2014. SAA is looking for volunteers to assist with all on-site meeting services.

Volunteer Requirements:
There is only one requirement for volunteering: You must be able to work a total of 8 hours (two four hour shifts). In return for your time, you will receive a free meeting registration that gives you full access to the 79th Annual Meeting.

Training:
Training will be provided through detailed and targeted manuals sent to you electronically prior to the meeting along with on-the-job instruction. Volunteers must pick up their registration packet at the volunteer registration table in the registration area at the beginning of the annual meeting. As always, SAA staff will be on hand to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have!

Continuing this year:
Session attendant volunteers (please see note under the description for session room attendants as there are changes) will be allowed to request specific sessions once the Preliminary Program is available in December. If you submit an application before the Preliminary Program is available, you can revise your shift availability to reflect those sessions you would like. Please send any changes to Josh Caro, and please note that these requests will be taken on a first come, first served basis. We may not be able to accommodate all of your choices. We will send an e-mail to all session attendant volunteers to let them know when the Preliminary Program is available.

If you would like to volunteer, please complete the application form at the bottom of this page and send it to SAA headquarters. The deadline for the application is February 3, 2014. Be sure to press the Send Form button at the bottom of the page. Volunteer opportunities are limited so please respond ASAP. If you are a presenter, we understand you will not know your schedule until the Preliminary Program is online in December and you will never be scheduled for a shift that conflicts with your session. You will receive an email confirmation if you are accepted as a volunteer within two weeks of the receipt of your application. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Josh Caro at josh_caro@saa.org or by phone at +1(202)559-7382.

Digging Deeper: Ychsma textiles from a Late Horizon burial at Armatambo

For this month's Digging Deeper we are travelling to South America, specifically Peru, to learn about the Ychsma textile style during the Late Horizon. An excavation in 1982 at Armatambo provided the basis for describing the Ychsma textile style during this period and is the subject of the most popular article in the Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology online archive, 'Ychsma textiles from a Late Horizon burial at Armatambo' by Mary Frame, Francisco Vallejo, Mario Ruales, and Walter Tosso. The textile data (types of garments, images, design lay-out, fibers, fabric structures, yarn spin, colors, etc.) are extensive enough to distinguish many types of Ychsma-style garments from those of other styles, and to identify similar textiles in museum collections.

The valleys of the Rímac and Lurín rivers were inhabited by the Ychsma polity prior to the Inca and they are known for having built some 40 pyramids associated to the irrigation system of the valleys. They are not known, unfortunately, for their textile style "due to the intensive looting of archaeological sites during the past five centuries".

"Ethnohistoric sources indicate that the señorío of Ychsma occupied the lower and middle sections of the Rimac and Lurín Valleys of coastal Peru during the Late Intermediate Period and Late Horizon. According to Rostworowski (1990), the sub-groups that comprised the señorío shared a common language or dialect and mythical origin, as well as a shared style of dress. In 1982, just ahead of the bulldozer, three of the co-authors of the present article excavated a tomb that contained many fancy textiles in the local style. This important context provides a basis for describing the elite Ychsma textile style during the Late Horizon...burial contexts with concentrations of textiles in the elite local style are rare."

"Textiles recovered by archaeologists in the course of
long-term excavation projects at Pachacamac include plain and checked textiles from a Late Intermediate Period burial, as well as more elaborate textiles that have been identified as Ychsma. The published textiles provide useful data on fibers, colors, and structures of specific Ychsma textiles, but the small number of examples gives a limited picture of the style. Attempts to separate Ychsma textiles without provenience (sometimes referred to as “Rimac” or “Pachacamac” style) from other styles have highlighted certain distinctive types of textiles, such as cotton tapestries, but again, the picture of the style is far from complete."

 >> Read the full article for free

Why did the chicken cross the road? Archaeologists are about to find out...

You may have noticed there's been a lot of news concerning chickens lately, and it's for a good reason. A new research project looking at the history of chickens is hoping to shed light on how the relationship between people and chickens has developed over the last 8,000 years. The project will see researchers dive into archaeological records to investigate the history of the world’s most widely established livestock species, which is descended from the wild jungle fowl of South-East Asia.

 

The project will also investigate the ancient and modern cultural significance of the birds in, for example, religious rituals and cockfighting. Research will include metrical and DNA analysis of modern and ancient chicken bones to trace the development of different breeds. The results of the research will form the basis of a series of exhibitions in museums and other venues throughout the UK making up ‘The Chicken Trail’ that will tell the story of the chicken’s domestication in Europe and there are also plans to display some of the research findings in butcher shops. The project, entitled “Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions”, was made possible with the help of a £1.94 million grant from the AHRC under the Science In Culture Awards Large Grants call. The project will also involve collaboration with academic colleagues across Europe and with poultry breeders and other interested members of the public.

Researchers from Bournemouth University, as well as the Universities of Durham, Nottingham, Leicester, Roehampton and York, will be examining when and how rapidly domesticated chickens spread across Europe and the history of their exploitation for meat and eggs. Bournemouth University is also offering two fully-funded PhD studentships on the subject - 'The Ecology of Chickens Past and Present' and 'Chickens and Archaeological Material Culture'.

These studentships are two of nine that are associated with the Cultural and Scientific Perception of Human-Chicken Interactions Project. This project is largely funded by the AHRC Science in Culture Large Grants scheme but, in addition, seven PhD studentships have been fully funded by four of the six universities involved in the project.

For further details of the projects and how to apply visit the Bournemouth University Graduate School website.  

NEW EVENT: American Anthropological Association 112th Annual Meeting

The 112th AAA Annual meeting will be held at the Chicago Hilton November 20-24, 2013 in Chicago IL. The 2013 annual meeting theme is Future Publics, Current Engagements. The annual meeting starts on Wednesday November 20 at noon and continues through Sunday November 24.

Join the AAA to present your work, exchange ideas and network with colleagues from around the globe. Historically the AAA Annual Meeting has approximately 800 scholarly sessions, 200 special events, and 60 exhibitors.

The 2013 annual meeting theme Future Publics, Current Engagements invites discussions about how anthropological theory and method can provide insight into the human past and emerging future. Anthropologists have long been engaged with diverse publics and with other social sciences. The influence of anthropological methods, concepts and research is growing, as witnessed by the fact that over half of us are now employed outside the academy. Our journals are experimenting with new formats to link research to contemporary concerns. We engage with rapidly changing media technologies to reach diverse audiences and explore different pathways to activism, collaboration, and scholarship. By locating the human at the center of its inquiry, anthropology through all of its fields provide crucial methodological and political insights for other disciplines.

The 2013 annual meeting is dedicated to examining our efforts to transform our disciplinary identity and capacity in terms of knowledge production and relevance in a world of radical change. What is the nature of anthropological knowledge in a world of heterogeneity, interconnectivity and risk? How can we rethink collaborations beyond the categories of researcher/subject, expert/lay, or anthropologist/other? How can we fruitfully participate in interdisciplinary exchanges and projects that engage big questions? How do we nurture and support younger scholars who are struggling to expand the questions and parameters that define the field for a new century? How do ethical considerations shape the practice but also the substance of our scholarship in an imperiled world?

We are at a historical moment when there is healthy interdisciplinary dialogue about theory and method and a search for effective methods for studying globalized futures. Anthropology can take a lead in confronting questions of the human, culture and life itself that engages many disciplines.

Founded in 1902, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is the world's largest organization of individuals interested in anthropology. Although there were several other American anthropological societies in existence at the turn of the 20th century, this new, national organization was formed "to promote the science of anthropology, to stimulate and coordinate the efforts of American anthropologists, to foster local and other societies devoted to anthropology, to serve as a bond among American anthropologists and anthropologic[al] organizations present and prospective, and to publish and encourage the publication of matter pertaining to anthropology".

>> Visit the conference website

Not just for decoration? The significance of jewellery in the Iron Age

It was reported last week that the Yorkshire Museum is trying to raise enough funds to buy an Iron Age bracelet found in North Yorkshire before it is sold privately at auction. The torc is one of two found separately in 2010 and 2011 by metal detector enthusiasts at Towton, near Tadcaster, UK and has been valued at £30,000. The torcs have been dated to about 100 BC to 70 BC and are the first examples of Iron Age jewellery found in the north of England.

I took a look in the online archive to find out more about Iron Age jewellery and came across "Iron Age Hoards of Precious Metals in Palestine – an 'Underground Economy'?" an article by R Kletter published in Volume 35 of Levant. In it the author investigates how hoards of precious metals discovered in Palestine may not only have been for ornamental purposes but perhaps also had social and economic significance.

The following is a excerpt from the article's introduction:

"Hoards containing objects made of precious metals (silver/gold), often buried underneath floors, are a source of immense fascination. They are extremely photogenic, even mysterious: we wonder about the living persons who once held them, and why they concealed and never retrieved such hoards. What happened to the owners? In view of this fascination with hoards, this study should open with an apology for not including beautiful illustrations: but the discussion will concern the economics rather than the art-history of hoards. There will not be an exhaustive description of each hoard, nor a detailed typology of the jewelry found in it. Many types of jewelry were manufactured and kept for long periods of time, and their artistic merits have already been discussed at length. Most of the Iron Age hoards from Palestine contain damaged or cut pieces of jewelry and shapeless silver pieces (‘Hacksilber’), rather than whole objects. Hence, they indicate amalgamation of wealth. This is an attempt to understand the meaning of such hoards in terms of economic conditions and possible economic developments in Bronze and Iron Age Palestine."

Although the author goes on the conclude that caution should be used when interpreting hoards of precious metals as anything but that, hoards of precious metals:

"What about the ‘underground economy’ mentioned in the title of this paper? One ponders over the place of hoards in human societies. In dragon-based societies, hoards govern the economy, and influence the neighboring societies of Dwarves and Hobbits alike. By modern economic theory, ‘underground’ hoarding is not logical – capital should be ‘put to work’ to raise more capital (e.g., by interest-bearing loans). There is a famous debate about ancient economics. According to Polanyi, the notion of gain was not crucial, economy was embedded in the society; markets in the sense of price-determining mechanisms did not exist, and modern economic theory is not valid. This has been criticized sharply, and some rule that ancient and modern economics are one and the same. Perhaps Iron Age hoards in Palestine were perfectly logical for a world in which banks were scarce and violent threats common. The age of plastic credit cards and virtual reality, still full of conflicts and wars, does not mark the end of the phenomenon of hoarding."

>> Read the full article for free

The first free African-American settlement and resistance against slavery

It was reported earlier this month that archaeologists from the University of Maryland and Morgan State University have uncovered evidence that suggests Treme, in New Orleans, is not the oldest free black community (it was established in 1812) in the US as first thought. Findings from the dig at The Hill in Easton, MD including bits of glass, shards of pottery and oyster shells indicate that the community was established in 1790 by former slaves who had bought their freedom.

 

The founding of such communities presents the often overlooked theory of a cultural resistance to slavery, something considered by Kalle Kananoja in his article 'Pai Caetano Angola, Afro-Brazilian Magico-Religious Practices, and Cultural Resistance in Minas Gerais in the Late Eighteenth Century' which is included in a special issue of Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage on Atlantic approaches on resistance against slavery in the Americas. In the issue's introduction, Ana Lucia Araujo explains that:

 

"The authors examine unexplored aspects of individual and collective actions led by enslaved men and women, by developing a broad definition of resistance that does not always encompass violence, but also includes cultural and religious forms of resistance. Using several kinds of primary sources and approaching resistance from an Atlantic perspective, the authors examine slave rebellions, runaway slave communities, slave and abolitionist networks, as well as African religious traditions...numerous studies addressed the issue of violent collective resistance against slavery, especially in the USA and the Caribbean. However, with some welcome exceptions, most recent scholarship that attempts to provide an international perspective to resistance and the fight against slavery also continues to privilege the English-speaking world and the North Atlantic region.

 

Moreover, by defining resistance as a synonym with rebellion and envisioning the Haitian Revolution as the only successful rebellion in the Americas, most book-length studies barely address the role of everyday forms of individual and collective resistance. As a result, despite their great value, these works fail to discuss cultural forms of resistance and address the role of women in slave resistance."

>> Read the full introduction for free

>> Read the full article for free

>> "Archaeology dig may uncover nation's earliest free African-American settlment"



 

Embrace the Margins: Adventures in Archaeology and Homelessness

Following the news this week that the 2013 Homeless World Cup is to be held in Poznan, Poland with the hope of using the "social power of football to change homeless people's lives and fight their exclusion" I was reminded of an article published in Public Archaeology in 2011 entitled 'Embrace the Margins: Adventures in Archaeology and Homelessness' in which Rachael Kiddey and John Schofield explain their efforts to not only "conduct an archaeological study of contemporary homelessness that broke new ground in several ways" but also to find out "whether participation in the archaeological project offered genuine and tangible benefits for the communities and individuals concerned."

Kiddey and Schofield chose to conduct their study at Turbo Island, a tract of private land in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol, UK with the intention of "developing a socially engaged and socially active form of archaeology."

The reasoning behind the experiment is explained in the article's introduction:

"Archaeology has a broad base, and offers a range of intellectual possibilities. Its close attention to material culture and place, and to interpreting traces of evidence for past human behaviour, embraces the full range of human experiences, from the deep past to the very latest depositions, and is inclusive of everyone in society. Archaeology also provides a range of possibilities for public participation and engagement, not only with the archaeological process but also with intellectual content. During our
wanderings in Bristol we often discussed archaeology, and one recurring theme was the similarities between survival strategies of contemporary homeless and earlier hunter-gatherer societies, in terms of food gathering, social cohesion and compassion, and in the locations chosen for settlement."

The authors reference the work on archaeology and the homeless that preceded their study but also stress the one big difference:

"Sociologists and anthropologists have increasingly sought to explore the culture of homelessness and its impact, while homelessness has also started to receive archaeological attention. However, this project was always going to be different in that it sought specifically to engage homeless people directly in fieldwork and in the presentation of findings"

The majority response to the project from local authorities, the police and the homeless people involved was overwhelmingly positive. The authors conclude with the following:

"This project allows us to map places that traditionally are ignored and overlooked. For example, in most interpretations of Stokes Croft, Turbo Island is described as a ‘gap site’ — a non-place where ‘nothing’ exists. Throughout our excavation and working in partnership with socially excluded, marginalized people we learnt about rituals and patterns of behaviour of which we previously knew very little...Throughout this project archaeology has contributed to understanding a community felt by many, even within the professions engaged to work with homeless people, to be ‘unreachable’. It was also an experience which our homeless co-workers greatly enjoyed and appreciated."

>> Read the full article for free

>> "UEFA support for Homeless World Cup"
 

Czech yourself before you wreck yourself: 19th EAA Annual Meeting in Pilsen

The annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) is almost upon us and in this week's blog post Rachel Young, Maney Publishing's new Executive Publisher in archaeology and heritage, cherry picks the sessions that catch her eye:

 
"I’ve been looking forward to attending the 2013 EAA Meeting for some time. Looking at the programme I feel a bit like a kid in a sweet shop. Generally anything with the words ‘lithic, ‘stone’, and ‘landscape’ catches my eye, and there are plenty of sessions to choose from in this year’s programme.

As there are so many enticing sessions on offer it’s been hard work honing my list. The ‘Public Archaeology’ session on Thursday 5th September is a ‘must attend’. Lorna Richardson has co-organised a round table to discuss the definition of the discipline which should be lively. It will be interesting to see Estella Weiss-Krejci’s session on ‘Archaeology meets modern art: artists’ approaches to prehistoric data’ given the dismissive comments made about the contribution of modern art in many reviews of the British Museum’s recent ‘Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind’ exhibition. Don Henson and Diane Scherzler’s session on digital heritage also catches my eye as I have an infatuation with laser scanning and its potential in multi-scale archaeological interpretation after a recent scanning demonstration. The main digital heritage session, ‘New digital developments in heritage management and research’, is co-organised by Julian Richards, Franco Niccolucci and Elizabeth Jerem and held over Friday. I am planning to see as much of this as I can, digital archives, data standards and open access are going to be core concerns for archaeology publishers over the coming years!
 
Aleks Pluskowski’s session on ‘Indigenous Communities in Conquered Landscapes’, looks fascinating as does 'Creating Landscape Visions: managing the past while imagining the future'. I’m hoping that there will be some imaginative presentations and perhaps some new methods of presentation.
 
Iain Banks will be presenting at ‘The Archaeology and Heritage of the Prisoner of War experience: researching and managing a fragile resource’. As this overlaps with the main digital heritage session I will do my conflict archaeology stint in the ‘Archaeology and cultural heritage during and after armed conflict’ session on Saturday afternoon.
 
With all of this it looks like I won’t get a lithics fix this year, even though these two sessions look very interesting: ‘New Perspectives on Lithic Scatters and Landscapes: Different scales, different approaches?’ and ‘Managing lithic tools: The contribution of technological and functional studies to the understanding of stone tool management during the Neolithic’, especially if there was a discussion on stone selection.
 
Do please come and visit the Maney Publishing stand to tell me what I’ve missed. If I’m not there you know what sessions I’m likely to be attending or just possibly I'm somewhere enjoying a cold Czech beer!"

Let's celebrate British archaeology: Yorkshire Archaeological Journal



Festival of Archaeology runs
every year in July

As many of you may be aware, Britain is currently in the throes of the Festival of Archaeology which runs between Saturday 13th and Sunday 28th July and celebrates British archaeology with a whole host of events up and down the country. This varies from a tour of Leicestershire Museums archaeology collections to excavating Alderney’s Roman fort in the Channel Islands.

So in this spirit I wanted to showcase some of the best research in British archaeology that the Maney Publishing archive has to offer and this article from the latest issue of Yorkshire Archaeological Journal does just that. "The Development of Archaeological Thought as Evidenced in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal" was written by John Collins and explores the role of the YAJ not only as a journal of record, but also as an innovator in the development of archaeological ideas such as landscape archaeology, aerial photography and open-area archaeology, as well as more traditional approaches, for instance tackling historical questions such as the Roman conquest of Britain. It deals with the changes of paradigm which affected both the types of fieldwork carried out and nature of interpretation in both a British and a European context. With the work of Raistrick on landscape history and of Beresford on deserted medieval villages, its publications had an impact far beyond the boundaries of the county. The Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS) has also acted as a meeting ground for the various institutions which have engaged in archaeology in the county, both professional and amateur.

The following is an excerpt from its introduction:
 

"At several times in the last 200 years Yorkshire has been at the forefront, pioneering new ideas in Archaeology, but equally it has absorbed many innovations from outside, and, though these are many and varied, over the long term two major sources can be identified. The earlier of these was from Scandinavia, more specifically Denmark, though some of this came via London where there has always been a strong Yorkshire involvement in the Society of Antiquaries and other national bodies (Giles 2006). The other influence of long-term significance was the University of Cambridge, in theoretical ideas and in the important role played by its graduates, starting in the 1930s, though local universities have been playing an increasing role in the last thirty years.

 

The YAS was founded
in 1863

The society was founded in the immediate aftermath of one of the most fundamental upheavals in the history of science, with the publication of Charles Lyell’s The Principles of Geology in 1830 and Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859, and the rejection of the biblical date for the creation of the world around 4004 bc. The new paradigm envisaged an open-ended date for the appearance of the world and the arrival of human beings on its surface, so its impact was huge not only on religious beliefs but in Physical Anthropology, Archaeology and Philology."



>> Read the full article for free

>> Visit the Festival of Archaeology website

Digging Deeper: A Load of Old Rubbish? A Quantitative Study of the City-Dump of Early Roman Jerusalem

View of Early Roman Jerusalem city-dump looking south-west

Following the discovery of a stone head - thought to be of a god worshipped by people in the north east of England - at an ancient rubbish dump at the Binchester Roman Fort in County Durham, UK, I took a look in the Maney Publishing online archive for other examples of when the every day waste of over 1,000 years ago can hold the key to further understanding ancient civilisations.

"Holy Garbage": A Quantitative Study of the City-Dump of Early Roman Jerusalem" published in the June 2007 issue of Levant details the chance discovery of an Early Roman city dump (1st century CE) in Jerusalem that has yielded for the first time ever quantitative data on garbage components that introduce us to the mundane daily life Jerusalemites led and the kind of animals that were featured in their diet.

Most of the garbage consists of pottery shards, all common tableware, while prestige objects are entirely absent. Other significant garbage components include numerous fragments of cooking ovens, wall plaster, animal bones and plant remains. Of the pottery vessels, cooking pots are the most abundant type. Most of the refuse turns out to be “household garbage” originating in the domestic areas of the city, while large numbers of cooking pots may point to the presence of pilgrims. Significantly, the faunal assemblage, which is dominated by kosher species and the clear absence of pigs, set Jerusalem during its peak historical period apart from all other contemporaneous Roman urban centers.

The following is an excerpt from the introduction:

Dismemberment cut mark on an axis and a long bone of a sheep-goat specimen.

"During the Early Roman Period (63 BCE to 70 CE), Jerusalem was a large metropolis (ca. 170 hectares) with a resident population of over 30,000 people. It was a temple-city housing the only shrine where the God of Israel could be worshipped. Large numbers of pilgrims gathered in the city three times a year for the main Jewish festivals. The city’s prosperity largely derived from its religious status; produce was brought to the city from the many small farms in the Judaean Mountains surrounding the city (e.g. Baruch 1998). Pilgrims brought animal- and plantbased food provisions to the city, part of which was sacrificed on the altar, part given as tithe to the priests and part consumed by the pilgrims themselves.

The greater part of the ‘second tithe’ was consumed by the pilgrims themselves, within the boundaries of the city. From the animal offerings the Pessah offering was consumed completely by the pilgrim, as well as greater parts of the Zebah Shelamim offering. Due to activities associated with the Temple and its animal sacrifice rites, Jerusalem’s population, whether native or foreign, was a major consumer of meat. While historical and archaeological records have given us a wealth of insights into Jerusalem’s religious rites and practices, we know virtually nothing about how people in the city spent their daily lives and the kind of animals that were featured in their diet."

>> Read the full article for free

Who are they and what do they do? Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society

Interview at the 78th Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting

Sarah Herr, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society (AAHS)

When and why was the AAHS founded?

The AAHS was founded in 1916 when Tucson was still a young American town with a lot of archaeology yet to be discovered. Tucson is a place with over 4,000 years of continuous history. It was a natural place for a state museum focusing on archaeology, and this was founded in 1893, starting in small basements of buildings a on the campus of The University of Arizona. Over the years it accumulated a variety of Native American artefacts but remained underfunded so wealthy local businessmen set out to support the museum by establishing the society. The AAHS in a non-profit, volunteer organization that has remained affiliated with the Arizona State Museum throughout its almost 100 year history. In 1935, Father Victor Stoner a local and highly revered priest started the journal KIVA as a means to get the eminent Byron Cummings, director of the museum, to publish his research. That didn’t work particularly well, but the journal caught on and has become the most widely-known aspect of the society.

 

What are the main objectives of the AAHS as an organisation?

The AAHS is a binary organisation with a membership that is both avocational and professional. Examples of its goals to serve these audiences include:

 
Working with and teaching a local contingent of active members who are volunteers, about the archaeology and history of the region through lectures on ‘hot topics’ and field trips,

Supporting the work of professional archaeologists in the region through publishing the latest research on the region in the peer-reviewed journal KIVA

Helping students of archaeology with scholarships to attend field schools and national conferences such as the Society for American Archaeology annual meetings.

How does the importance of discoveries made in these regions compare to other regions in North America?
Arizona is part of the society’s name but our focus extends to the neighbouring states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah and the northern Mexican of Sonora and Chihuahua.

 

The Greater Southwest is a unique place as there was a substantial Native American population and although they too were displaced and moved to reservations by the government they were not sent across the country but continue to live somewhat adjacent to their ancestral lands. Therefore there’s a long history in the region from 12,000 years ago to today. It’s not easy to trace back that far but the people are very connected to their past. Archaeologists in the region can use science and ethnography to collect information that we hope is of interest to descendant communities, about the histories and journeys of their ancestors.
 
It is also a semi-arid region where the archaeology is very well preserved. Arizona is where tree ring dating was developed, and sometimes archaeologists can date a site to a single year or season, so we can talk about archaeology in single human generations not just “eras” or “phases” as with other regions around the world. It is also known as the ‘laboratory of American archaeology’ as it is the best place to try out new methods and test theories, because we can talk about change more readily than is possible elsewhere.

Another reason that archaeology here is important is that Arizona shares a border with Mexico. On the other side of the international border, laws change about how you can practice archaeology and funding for projects becoming restricted. Most project funding stops at the US border. Traditional peoples and the archaeology don’t change over this line. Organisations like the AAHS provide the opportunity to learn more about Mexican archaeology and therefore the bigger picture of North American archaeology.
 
What is the single most important archaeological discovery made in these regions?
There are a lot of possible answers to these questions! I have two answers – it can be argued that significant discoveries have been made in Arizona in every century. This includes mammoth finds that reveal the human/animal relationships of the Paleoindians in the late Pleistocene era up to the history of Hopi and Zuni communities.

A couple of years ago the first canal-fed field systems were discovered in the region. This shed light on how agriculture, which started in Central America, moved  to North America in to the Tucson basin. You can see the canals coming from the river, where they dammed and even individual planting holes where corn, amongst other crops, was grown. This site has the potential to tell us about  knowledge farmers had as they moved into new environments.
 
We also have the ability to look at how important movement is to Native peoples. The Southwestern USA is a newly occupied place compared to Europe and the Old World. Paleoindians came to the New World more than 12,000 years ago and spread rapidly across the America from Alaska to the south American.  Later, people who spoke Athabaskan, the ancestors of the Navajo and the Apache peoples, have a different set of movements. The histories recalled by Native American groups in the Southwest are filled with stories of their travels and the places that recall their history. Their journeys can be charted through the landscapes rock art, and archaeological sites which are their “footprints.” The movement of peoples is a hot topic in archaeology and the archaeology of the Southwestern USA is no longer static, as we can match histories, stories and songs to the region from over half the continent.
 
What are the future plans of the AAHS?
The AAHS is approaching its 100^th birthday in 2016. the all-volunteer Board is looking towards modernizing its services to membership with a better communication through an updated and improved website, making the monthly newsletter attractive to wider audiences, and making Kiva more available as publication practices transition from paper to electronic.