Category: Archaeology

A doozy of a field trip

Wednesday was a fun and productive day.  There is a group of middle-school students from a Fairbanks charter school who are in Barrow for about a week on a class trip.  (I think the best we got in middle school was a one (loooong) day bus trip to New York City).  They are going to all sorts of places in the community, including my lab & the ARM site.  They came over to the BARC, and I gave them an archaeological tour of Barrow via PowerPoint, since some of the sites are hard to get to in the winter and don’t look like much right now if you do get there.   I also spent a bit of time on the various ways sites are endangered in Alaska (erosion, permafrost melting, etc.)  and why that matters.  They asked a lot of good questions.  Some of them (maybe all) have been helping in the archaeological collections at the UAF Museum of the North, so they had a bit of background.

Half of the students from Fairbanks in the lab looking at artifacts.

After that, we split them into two groups.  Half of them went out to the ARM site, where Mark Ivey of Sandia National Labs & Jimmy & Josh Ivanoff  gave them a tour, while the other half came to the lab, and then the groups switched.  Since we’re working on weekends, there are samples in various stages of processing, so I was able to show them the process we are using on the Ipiutak floor samples from this fall.  Then we looked at the Ipiutak sled runners, which I’d shown in situ (in place in the ground) in the PowerPoint.  After that, we looked at the items from the Nuvuk-01 hunter’s tool kit.  As usual, the little owl fastener was the star :-).

The little owl toggle from the Nuvuk-01 tool kit.

In the afternoon, I got two contract reports in for last year, and moved on to calibrating radiocarbon dates for the big project I’ve been doing.  I’m using CALIB, since it reportedly may be a bit more accurate, but it’s output format means that you can’t just cut and paste columns.  The only way to keep track was to do about 30 at a time.  I got several hundred done, and finally gave up when it simply kept ignoring two dates. I couldn’t see any problem with the input formating, but it just didn’t make any output.  Oh well, there is tomorrow.

Actually, there wasn’t, since I was home with a fever and sore throat.  We have a half-day holiday for Barrow employees for Piuraagiaqta (Spring Festival), which starts today and runs all weekend.   I’m actually taking the time off, since the Internet at the office is sketchy at the moment.  There is a switchover from one connection to the earth station to another in progress, and it is not going as well as hoped.

Baby steps, baby steps…

It’s been a fairly productive few days. I spent the weekend cooking a turkey (it was stored in the Arctic entryway, and with spring coming, it will soon be too warm.  Since there was no freezer space, it was Easter turkey for us! Then, of course, there were the inevitable taxes :-(.

Today I managed to submit a RAPID proposal to NSF.  If it’s successful, it would let us save an analyze some frozen samples from a past excavation which turned up recently (not in our lab), instead of their being discarded due to lack of storage space.  Fingers crossed.

Now there are just two presentations, and three papers to finish this month!  What was I thinking?

Hints for those thinking of getting into archaeology–Pt 1

For some reason, two of the archaeology blogs I follow had recent posts which were perfect summaries of information for people considering getting into archaeology.  Although the topics were quite different, neither was the sort of thing covered in most classes or textbooks.

On the practical side, GraecoMuse did a nice summation of what an archaeologist needs in the way of personal field equipment.  I’d add a clipboard desk for forms, and certainly most US and Canadian archaeologists would substitute Marshalltown trowels for WHS.

On the other end of the spectrum, what appears to be a new blog gives an extended quote from an L. S. Klijn article in Acta Archaeologica listing 25 Commandments for archaeological researchers. I tend to think that not all archaeologists are quite as individualistic and cutthroat as #5 might imply, and would offer such highly successful collaboratives as NABO and GHEA as counterexamples. The list is a clear description of some very important principles of archaeological logic and epistemology.  Many of the “commandments” are applicable to all scientific endeavor, no matter the discipline.

 

Tires shrink

It’s been pretty cold the last few days.  My vehicle has tire pressure sensors, and every time if goes below about -27, it shows low tire pressure, which  resolves as soon as the temperature goes up.  I guess I should add a bit of air, but it’s been a busy week.

I’m still working on papers.  Only a couple more to submit, plus whatever revision need to be done!

I spent a bit of the afternoon straightening up the lab a bit, before a group from the US Coast Guard and RAND Corporation came by to tour the BARC.  Naturally, they wanted to see the lab (there isn’t much happening just now in any of the other labs anyway).  I gave them a nice tour, which they seemed to enjoy, before the headed off to look at the rest of the building.  The lab humidifier seems to have gone belly up, so it looks like we’ll need another one.

Tomorrow is another lab day.  We’re pulling some more items for C14 dating as well as working our way through the Ipiutak house floor. The new Mac is getting set up too!

Going through the Ipiutak floor

I was traveling the last couple weeks to the Alaska Anthropological Association conference in Seattle, and then stopping in Anchorage on the way home to help  my daughter get settled there. The conference and the session went well.  I’ll try to put something up on the highlights, when I get a little more free time.  I’ve still got papers and also homework for an on-line class I’m taking.

Yesterday, we got back to going through the Ipiutak floor material from the summer and the fall salvage excavation.  Trace Hudson, Jacob Harris & Frieda Kaleak all came in, along with Laura Thomas, and we got going on the screening, floating and picking over the heavy and light fractions.

It’s a slow process, but a couple of things were found yesterday that may be interesting.  A couple of very small fragments of rock crystal (probably clear quartz) showed up.  This is interesting because of some of the properties of quartz crystals and the finds of larger quartz crystals at some Ipiutak sites.

We got so into that process that we didn’t actually get much straightening up done.  I’ll have to do that later this week, since some visitors are being brought to the lab on a tour late in the week, and it’s a bit messy there now :-(.

Visits to zoological collections

I am in Seattle for the Alaska Anthropological Association meetings.  Today was spent primarily in tours of the Burke Museum’s zoological collections (in the morning) and the marine mammal collections at NMML (in the afternoon).  The Burke has pretty impressive collections, especially when you add in the off-site material, and NMML has a good range as well.  After the tours, Jeff Bradley of the Burke took me to their off-site storage to look at whale mandibles.

I’ve been trying to track down whale mandibles ever since I was sent a picture of one from Cape Krusenstern and I saw one at Cape Espenberg that didn’t look like bowheads.  I didn’t think they were grey whales either, but I’m not as familiar with their skeletons.  There are bowhead skulls in front of every school in Barrow (& my daughter attended all three), the college, the library/heritage center, the city hall and the North Slope Borough building, as well as miscellaneous other sites around town, so I know bowhead jaws when I see them.

I found a couple that looked like possible matches, or at least members of the same family, so that is progress.  The Burke has pretty restrictive photo policies (they hold a lot of art, so the policies are based on that), which means I can’t put any photos up here without permission.  It would take days  & several person-hours of work at both ends, so I’m not going to try for a blog post.

Now off to bed so I can be bright-eyed & bushy-tailed (or at least halfway coherent) for our session tomorrow.  I don’t have to give any papers until afternoon, but still…  The other organizers have papers in the morning, so I’m guessing I’ll be moderating….  We’re only winging it a little 🙂

Trading Skins & Oil

I’ve been working on talks for the session on the Connected Arctic at next week’s Alaska Anthropological Association meeting in Seattle. My family was in Juneau lobbying, so I had some free time.  I’m almost done with the one about the trade networks  which moved large quantities of oil, blubber & baleen from the coast to be exchanged for caribou & sheep products from the interior.  By volume, this greatly exceeded  the amount of metal, jade and similar items that also moved through these networks.  For some reason, the skin & oil trade has received less attention from archaeologists, although it has been documented ethnographically.  In fact, it seems to have been a necessity for sustained interior occupation.  I’ve been trying to make a good visual presentation, which takes a bit of doing.  I think it should be done tomorrow.

I would have been done earlier if I hadn’t had to spend some time on sorting out some safety issues. The local phone company is installing a microwave link to carry  internet for science, and the best spot is on the BARC, apparently on the tower where the radar is.  For some reason, they didn’t think the FOUR signs on the locked door to the tower warning of possible radiation hazards and giving the numbers to contact someone who could  make sure the radar was disabled before they went up on the tower meant THEM.  The locked gate at the bottom of the tower deck stairway didn’t faze them either.  Fortunately the radar was off, so no one got hurt.  However, the radar can be activated remotely, so going up on the tower, even if you think you saw the radar was off when you went by the controls, is a really STUPID idea.  Since they presumably will need to go up there again to finish the setup and for periodic maintenance, it was necessary to impress on them (management, not just the crew) that they need to call and get an OK every time.  The excuse was that they’d talked to the building owner (who I’m sure approved putting stuff up there in concept, but never told them it was OK to ignore warning signs while doing it!)  If people would just read and think….

Chipping away at things

I’ve been chipping away at a bunch of things.  The main ones are the big Late Western Thule chapter and an associated project which involve evaluating every Birnirk & later C14 date I can get hold from Alaska, to see which ones hold up (a number that are cited a lot are really early solid carbon dates!) and what exactly was dated.  In some cases, what was dated was in a different house from the “diagnostic” which is purportedly being dated, and there is no a priori reason to think the houses are contemporaneous.  It may have been the best that could be done at the time, but some revision is needed here.  Once those are done, I can finish the two other papers I am working on.

We got the symposium for the Alaska Anthropological Association meeting more or less put together, pending any additional papers submitted as general papers that the organizers may send us, and next week we’ll just have to decide on an order so the conference organizers can get their materials to the printer in good time.

I’ve also been invited to be a speaker at a small conference on Sustainability and Heritage in Kirkwall, Orkney which is sort of the main kick-off for a Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Global Long-Term Ecodynamics in which I am fortunate enough to be involved.  I’ve never been to Orkney, but I love the Shetlands, so I’m looking forward to it.  There are some great people involved, and we’re trying to do some really interesting things involving the use of archaeological data to illuminate questions about long-term sustainability.  I actually owe them an abstract by tomorrow (which it actually is in Orkney), so I better get to it.

Last Call for Papers: The Connected Arctic–An Alaska Anthropological Association symposium sponsored by the Arctic Conference

I wound up agreeing to help organize a session at the upcoming Alaska Anthropological Association meeting in Seattle.  Long story about Seattle, but we have gone to Whitehorse, YT once or twice, so leaving Alaska is not a first.

Anyway, the deadline to submit sessions (including paper lists) is this Friday, so I though I’d put a description up here, since the AnthroAlaska list seems to be a bit slow showing up (although it might be my email).  We have room for a few more papers and are being fairly expansive in our interpretation of the topic.  If you are interested, the description and directions for how to participate follow:

Although the Arctic tends to be viewed as a place apart, both in the sociocultural sense and as a research area, the first has never been true, and the second is becoming less so.  This symposium will look at the Connected Arctic from both perspectives.

Papers on any aspect of trade and/or travel (pre-or post-contact) from one or more disciplinary perspectives are welcome, as long as they involve the Arctic.  We are interested in both specific case studies and methodological works.

We also welcome in papers dealing with aspects of connected Arctic research, including virtual repositories which can be used from multiple locations, shared databases, digital teaching and outreach tools, and social media.

N.B.  People wishing to submit papers are asked submit the paper abstract directly to the meeting organizers by the deadline of February 3, using the Alaska Anthropological Association meeting website form:  https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/fitzhugh/139716 .  Note you will need to register for the meeting first.  Please put “The Connected Arctic” in the space on the form.  The symposium is not on the website list of symposia yet, but we have been assured that does not matter, since sessions are due the same day.  Please also send your name and at least a paper title (preferably with the abstract) directly to one of the organizers:  Anne Jensen (anne.jensen@uicscience.org), Herbert Maschner (maschner@isu.edu ) or Owen Mason (geoarch85@gmail.com ).