Off to Turkey!

I am leaving tomorrow for Ankara, Turkey, where my colleague Phil Glauberman has organized a workshop entitled "Palaeolithic Research in the Armenian Highlands and Anatolia". I am honored to be included in this event, which will bring together an international contingent of researchers that work on the Lower and Middle Paleolithic in a very under-appreciated and understudied region. I'll be presenting on our recent work at Bagratashen 1. It's been 15 years since my last visit to Turkey, so I'm looking forward to the trip. Check back soon for a post that summarizes the event...  

Society for American Archaeology meetings 2015

I attended the 2015 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology in San Francisco this past April (yes, again I am behind in my posts). Although I wasn't able to stay for the whole event, I did get a chance to see some really great talks. We presented a couple of posters on our recent work at Olduvai Gorge as well. As usual, I'll present the highlights from my notes:

• Paul Goldberg and his colleagues provided some new geoarchaeological results from the important Paleolithic site of La Ferrasie (Dordogne, France). The Middle Paleolithic deposits at La Ferrasie, which date to between 90,000 and 45,000 years ago, represent one of the most important, and continuous, MP sequences in western Europe. Even more critically, several partial Neandertal skeletons were recovered from the site, most of them in 1909. One thing that I learned is that the cave is actually made up of two distinct areas, an eastern and western, both of which, as Goldberg and his colleagues showed, with different formational histories. What is more, the artifacts found within the cave's sediments were likely originally discarded somewhere else and only later washed in to their final location. Goldberg also talked a bit about La Ferassie 2, which is the partial skeleton of an adult whose exact provenience and age was still poorly understood. Although they were unable to relocate the exact find spot for this individual, they sampled some sediments from the original foot (currently housed in the Musée de l'Homme) and were able to match them to the sediments from their Layers 4-5, which are dated to around 45,000-50,000 years ago.
• Probably the most fascinating talk that I saw was given by Thomas Morgan and his colleagues entitled "The social transmission of Oldowan lithic technology." They conducted an elegant experiment in which novice knappers were permitted to learn Oldowan lithic technology in one of four ways: (1) through reverse engineering (that is, by looking at finished products); (2) observation only (that is, by watching someone else create flakes without the benefit of active teaching); (3) simple, "ape-like" teaching; (4) gestural teaching only (that is, being taught by an expert with gestures but no words); and (5) with fully verbal teaching. The results showed that novices created more, and more useful, flakes with the benefits of teaching, particularly verbal teaching. What intrigued me was that there was no evidence that observational learning was any better than reverse engineering. So, apparently, watching someone is no better than simply looking at finished products.
• I attended a really fun session in honor of the 20th anniversary of the publication of Robert Kelly's "The Foraging Spectrum", which is a landmark book in the study of hunter-gatherers. Nick Conard and Britt Starkovich humorously critiqued the behavioral ecological approach championed by Kelly through, among others things, references to Jerry Garcia (you had to be there). Raven Garvey and Robert Bettinger presented a fascinating case study of two hunter-gatherer groups that, despite living in very similar environments (the subarctic and subantarctic), exhibited very different levels of technological complexity. They argued that culture, and the density of social networks in particular, encouraged (or discouraged) the invention, adoption, and spread of ideas. Thus, for them, ecological and adaptive factors can only go so far in explaining hunter-gatherer diversity. Mike Cannon and David Meltzer offered a mathematical model to explore foraging options when resources become limited. They asked, essentially, when, and under what circumstances, will a group of hunter-gatherers either (1) move on to use familiar resources elsewhere or (2) stay put and learn how to exploit new resources. The highlight of the session was, of course, Bob Kelly's reflections on writing the book. His story about the genesis of the title was especially interesting: he had decided on a title (I can't remember what he said it was now) but the Smithsonian Press had asked him to change it to something more catchy. He told this to his wife, who was flipping through a magazine at the time, and she came back with "Why don't you call it the 'Foraging Spectrum'"? The rest is, as they say, history!
• Mathieu Lejay and his colleagues presented some data on Aurignacian-aged fireplaces from France. What I found interesting (and it makes sense once you think about it) was that their experimental work showed that bone-fed fires tend to be more bioturbated than wood-fed fires because of the increased organic content.

Overall, a really enjoyable meeting...

Back from the Gorge...

I returned from Tanzania last Thursday. We had another successful field season and another great group of students for the field school. Updates to come...

American archaeology in the 21st century

Every year we  present the Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA) to recognize graduates of the Department of Anthropology at UNCG. This year's winner was Lea Abbott, who is currently the Assistant State Archaeologist for North Carolina. Lea graduated from UNCG in the late 1970s, and his primary research interest is lithic technology. Our DAA committee, however, asked Lea to focus on the role of archaeology in the 21st century and the career prospects for our students, and he delivered with a great talk.

First, he summarized wonderfully the place that archaeology occupies in the broader context of humanity. Archaeology, according to Lea, is important because (1) it helps to round out history (he used the example of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, as his talk was given on the anniversary, April 9th, of that seminal event in American history) and (2) it is the major venue by which the world's historic and prehistoric heritage is preserved (he mentioned the recent destruction of archaeological sites associated with unrest in the Middle East).

The students at the presentation were, unsurprisingly, also interested in jobs. Lea pointed out the intimate relationship between archaeology and development in the United States. Federally funded development projects require an assessment of the archaeological (or cultural) resources that may be impacted by the work, and there are many, many contract companies that provide this service. One only needs to drive down I-40 in North Carolina, Lea commented, to see new solar energy farms popping up, all of which required archaeological assessments prior to construction. This amount of work in cultural resource management rises and falls with the broader economy: lots of development, lots of archaeological jobs. Lea seemed to think that with the economy in an upswing the number of archaeology jobs for anthropology and archaeology graduates will be on the rise.

Lea also outlined some of the biggest issues that will confront the next generation of archaeologists. One of the most urgent is related to rising sea levels. There are, in North Carolina alone, ~5,800 archaeological sites that lie at or <30 feet above current sea level, and they are being eroded away at an alarming rate.

He concluded by offering some advice to students, particularly those who wish to pursue graduate studies. First, and most importantly, people who make a career of archaeology have to feel it not only "up here" (he pointed to his head), but "in here" (he pointed to his heart). If that doesn't apply to you, then archaeology is probably not a great career choice. Get engaged immediately, he also said, as professors have a lot going on, and students that are engaged tend to get great dissertation projects. He also recommended that students have a back-up. Take courses that will provide you with skills that can get you a job outside of archaeology.

Disasters and social change

Under the guidance of our Department Head, Bob Anemone, the Department of Anthropology at UNCG initiated a brown bag lecture series entitled "How I spent my 'summer vacation'," with summer vacation in quotations because we (the anthropology faculty) are active researchers who conduct much of our field work and data collection during the summer months.

On April 1, our colleague Art Murphy presented on his work in Mexico on human responses to disasters. For the last few years, he has been working on the ABC Day Care Center Fire, a tragic event that eventually resulted in the death of 49 children. He is currently on a Fulbright in Mexico and, while there, he was asked to work on a more recent disaster, the chemical spill at the Buena Vista del Cobre mine. There is a lot going on in both cases, not the least of which is politics, but there is one point that Art made that resonated with me. It is often assumed that disasters−take Hurricane Katrina or the Haiti Earthquake−highlight social inequalities and are thus movers of social change. While the former is true, Art pointed out that the latter is typically not: as things calm down, people try to recreate and preserve the system of inequality that existed before the disaster. 

19th century German science as seen through literature

Another post from my lengthening backlog...

The Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG hosts an event they call "Food for Thought," which brings UNCG scholars to speak about lively topics. I had never attended, but I saw the title for the February 11 talk, "Visions, Dreams, and Divinations: Literature and Science around 1800," and was intrigued by the fact that a visiting German scholar, Susanne Gomoluch, was speaking. Apart from my interest in the history of science, I've spent quite a bit of time in Germany, so, my interest piqued, I went.

She began by providing some historical background, and the political situation in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th century is particularly critical. At the time, what is now Germany was a loose confederation of autonomous states and principalities that was, until 1806 when it was dissolved by Napoleon, the Holy Roman Empire. This was followed by several loosely affiliated German confederations until the eventual unification of Germany under a single government in 1871.

Holy Roman Empire in 1789. By Robert Alfers via Wikipedia.

The looseness of the political arrangement is important in this context because there simply was no unified policy towards anything. Germany lagged behind Great Britain and France in industrialization, for example, largely because of this lack of centralized decision-making. This also meant, though, that a diversity of perspectives on science emerged in the German states. Dr. Gomoluch spoke about a number of interesting issues, but the most fascinating was a character named Karl Phillip Moritz (1756-1793). Moritz, among other things, was a high school teacher, professor of archaeology and, most pertinent here, the editor of Das Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte (The Magazine of Experiential Psychology as a Reader for Scholars and Laymen), which was one of Germany's first journals of psychology. The journal featured much early work on mental pathology, deaf studies, social deviance, and the interpretation of dreams.

An interesting presentation, and LIHC also provides a pretty nice spread of food... 

Osteology in the Carolinas 2

Here's another post from my backlog. In February of 2014, I attended the first Osteology in the Carolinas meeting. This year's event was held on February 7, 2015, hosted by UNCG, and organized by our own Bob Anemone. Twelve papers were given, and there were around 20-30 attendees, some from as far away as Virginia and South Carolina. Another set of really interesting papers, one of which was given by a UNCG anthropology undergraduate, Alexa Uberseder (great job, Alexa!) on our work at Olduvai Gorge this past summer. Some snippets from my notes:

• Gwen Robbins Schug (Appalachian State) focused on re-imagining the idea of social collapse, a theme made very famous by Jared Diamond's 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." In that book, he cites examples of past societies that apparently outstripped their resources and thus collapsed. Gwen made the point that "collapse" may not be the best word, as a detailed examination of the archaeological record indicates that when societies undergo dramatic changes, significant reorganization usually occurs, but the cultural framework remains intact. In fact, what often happens, as her work among South Asian prehistoric sites demonstrates, is that people decide to either remain in cities or move to more rural settings. The latter typically results in a signature that can be misunderstood as a total collapse of society.  
• Megan Perry (East Carolina), who spoke at least year's meeting, and one of her graduate students, Kathryn Parker, both gave talks on attempts to identify the origin of people living in Byzantine and early Islamic times in the Middle East. By assessing the isotopic signatures in food items or geological formations on the landscape, it is possible to determine where people did most of their eating and to track trade routes.
• David Hines (University of Florida and Regime Crimes Liaison Office Mass Graves Investigation Team) summarized some recent work on extracting DNA from skeletons in mass graves in associated with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Interestingly, they found that some bones are better for producing DNA profiles than others (as it turns out, the pelvis and femur work best).
• The last talk for which I took detailed notes was by Ashley Gosselin-Ildari (Duke University), who spoke about the use of clickers in large, introductory biological anthropology courses to encourage active learning. This was interesting, and timely, since I started using an on-line Student Response System (SRS) called Socrative to achieve the same goal. I am looking forward to hearing the student reaction at the end of the semester.

Overall, another enjoyable get-together...