Old Dirt – New Thoughts

Stacy and Tamara identifying shellfish.

The students in my lab class are pushing hard to finish their projects. They’re all working on materials from Aniakchak – mostly the 2007 collections. They’re producing the first real data from these materials. I have students analyzing shellfish, mammal bones, chipped stone waste flakes, chipped stone tools, and bone tools. Other students are working on the catalog data and illustrations. It’s my favorite part of the class. I have 16 research assistants – all generating data and addressing questions. It’s a blast.

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This post is for Hamline students interested in registering for my fall class (ANTH 3980: Excavating Hamline’s History).

This class is a unique opportunity to participate both on an archaeological excavation and in an interdisciplinary and collaborative project. It’s an interdisciplinary class because of the students. Each of you is asked to contribute to the overall project goals based on either your major studies or other areas of interest and expertise that you have. Your contribution may be in a research area – where you apply your research skills to questions about the site, or the artifacts, or the historical background. The last time I taught this course we excavated Hamline University’s original Hall of Science, a three story brick building constructed in 1887. I had a chemistry major that analyzed the chemical composition of the building’s bricks, a history major that collected oral history accounts from alumni and faculty, an economics major that analyzed 125 year-old bills and receipts from the building’s construction, and an archaeology student who analyzed the distribution of glass artifacts recovered in our excavations.

Other students contributed by presenting and interpreting our project in various media including designing a web site, filming a video, writing a play, printing posters, and putting together an exhibit. We also had an education major that brought over Hancock 6th graders so they could experience archaeology first hand. Our philosophy major examined the ethics of archaeology. And our environmental studies major looked at the intersection of environmental protection and cultural resource management laws.

The point is, you can pursue just about any idea you want. What you need is an ability to collaborate on other people’s projects and an enthusiasm for interdisciplinary archaeology. If this sounds interesting then send me a brief email outlining what ways you could contribute to this fall’s class. Also tell me a little bit about yourself (including your major and year). Finally, I would like to know why you are interested in joining the class and what you hope to gain from your participation. Make sure you look at my other posts tagged as “Hamline History” to get a better idea of this year’s excavation plans.

If you take this class be prepared for a challenge, some fun, and a non-traditional educational experience.

I admit that I am a bit of a science geek — Ok, I admit I’m a major science geek. I love reading and hearing about people doing science. I’m fascinated with the scientific process, with the personalities, the vision (or lack thereof), and the occasional dumb-luck involved. While prepping for a lecture I’m giving tomorrow in my Principles of Archaeology class, I stumbled across this interesting account on the development of radiocarbon dating. Written by E. H. Willis in 1996,  this “Worm’s Eye View” describes his experiences as a young graduate student in the 1950s working for Harry Goodwin and Alfred Maddock at Cambridge’s brand new radiocarbon laboratory. In fact it was so new that most of the fascilities didn’t exist. Willis, as the grad student, was often responsible for building the necessary equipment.

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A number of bloggers, scholars, and news stories have highlighted the intriguing opportunity to use the free satellite images on Google Earth to identify and study archaeological sites.

  
Teotihuacan from 15,500 ft (Google Earth image 1/16/2007).

Ur from 1600 ft (Google Earth Image 1/16/2007). 

I am amazed at what I learn about archaeological landscapes when I can explore them in Google Earth. I’m also amazed at how well one can see surface features and architectural remains in the high resolution areas. One of the really impressive explorations of Google Earth archaeology is posted by James Q. Jacobs. His web site includes a very interesting discussion about monumental architecture from archaeological sites around the world.

I’m working on my own Google Earth “survey”, the results of which I will post sometime soon. In this post I want to write about the application of Google Earth in the classroom. Last month I taught my World Prehistory course. Every time I teach this subject I always begin by telling my students my fantasy would be to have a helicopter, a pilot, and unlimited funds. We would fly to all the sites so that we could see them in person and in their surrounding landscape – see them “in situ“. To me archaeology is about places and things (and our ideas about these places and things). To really grasp archaeology, to understand our theories, to connect with the past, one needs to see and touch the places and things that we study. Google Earth is as close to my helicopter classroom as I’m likely to ever come.

The assignment I gave my students was to develop a “tour” of a world region outlining the prehistoric and historic developments by highlighting its important sites and/or archaeological settings. Google Earth allows them to include text, photographs, and web links with each placemark. So I saw this assignment as having many of the elements of a traditional term paper, but presented in a geographical format. The students utilized a variety of research and computer skills while learning about archaeology, geography, and a new technology.

You can see an example of my students’ work at the GE community forum. The example is for the site of Cuzco put together by Lindsey Jo Helms.  I was really impressed by her use of photographs and overlays.

Last week I had my World Prehistory class engage in a little experimental archaeology. I told them that we would explore the labor and leadership requirements for the building of monumental architecture. We decided to replicate a Woodland tradition earthen mound – only we used whatever equipment we could find in my lab and snow to build with. It took less than an hour to build our 6 foot high mound.

According to our calculations we would need to repeat our mound-building efforts 4545 times in order to build a respectible 30 ft tall Hopewellian mound, or 14,285 times to accomplish the average of the 14 construction efforts for Monks Mound. As in all classic experimental archaeology exercises, this one certainly gave us a unique perspective on monumental architecture of the ancient world. 

 Mound-building experiment

World Prehistory class (mound is in the background)