I spent most of the week in Seattle at the Arctic Observing Open Science meeting. Ben Fitzhugh and I were the point persons for the broader GHEA/IHOPE Emerging Knowledge Hub on Global Environmental Change Threats to Heritage and Long Term Observing Networks of the Past. This is a long and fancy way of talking about the threats that sea level rise, ice retreat, and permafrost warming pose for archaeological sites in the North. Since this was not an archaeological meeting, most of the folks were either natural scientists or resource managers. We focused on the kind of data that archaeological sites contain that are more than relevant to answering the kinds of questions they are asking, while pointing out that the data is vanishing quickly. The library is on fire!
Waves eat at the Utqiaġvik bluffs.
Ben and I each were the lead on a talk (both massively multi-authored), and we also did a poster, with a similarly large number of contributors. Ben’s talk was in the Marine Ecosystems session. It seemed like it interested the audience, which was primarily oceanographers, and related agency and funding folks.
Mine was in the Human Dimensions session, since the Coastal Processes session we had aimed for apparently didn’t get enough papers. I followed a paper on frozen heritage (primarily ice patches and the preliminary stages of development of site evaluation schema) by Martin Callanan and Shelby Anderson, so the issues were thoroughly driven home. The audience included a number of natural scientists (!), and the discussions included the relevance of archaeology to both other fields of research and to developing toolkits for sustainability.
Our hope is we woke some of our colleagues up to both the potential of archaeological sites to provide data, and the need to find a way to get that data that doesn’t rely entirely on Arctic Social Science funding.
My talk and the poster are up on both my Academia.edu and ResearchGate pages, if you would like to see them.
I’ve spent the last month writing almost non-stop. However, none of it was posts on here. We had done a number of CRM projects this summer, and the results had to be written up. Five reports later, that is more or less done, pending a couple of possible new illustrations.
I’m working on a couple of projects for a client who is in the early stages of planning some big infrastructure projects. Instead of waiting until the design and site selection is nearly complete and then considering cultural resources, which often leads to unfortunate surprises, unnecessary expenses and project delays (which are then blamed on archaeology instead of poor project planning), they are actually trying to get a handle on what cultural resources might be located in the possible Area of Potential Effect (APE) and what dealing with them appropriately might entail. This seems like a way better approach and should be a win-win.
This weekend, I’m working on a paper and a poster for the Arctic Observing Open Science Meeting in Seattle in 2 weeks. I had hoped to give the paper in a proposed Coastal session, but apparently there weren’t that many coastal papers, so it looks like I’ll be in the Human Dimensions session. Sort of ironic, given that I’m talking about the paleoenvironmental data that Arctic sites can contain, and how that data is at imminent risk of being destroyed by global change effects, and pretty much taking the human dimension information potential as a given. That’s pretty much been the basic premise of archaeology since the days of CJ Thomsen & JJA Worsaae. I’m spending a part of next week in Anchorage, so I want to get it more or less done before I go.
From Glasgow, we went on to Vienna and CHAGS (the Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies), by way of Düsseldorf. The Düsseldorf airport is not high on my list of airports in Europe.
In Vienna, we stayed in Hotel-Pension Bleckmann, a nice family-run hotel near the University, where all the conference sessions were being held. The hotel had great breakfasts, and the staff was really nice and very helpful. They recommended a restaurant that had great food and a local clientele, so it was more reasonable than the more touristy places.
Glenn having dinner at D’Landsknect, Porzellengasse.
The conference was very interesting. Both Glenn & I were giving papers in a session on Aboriginal Whaling in the 21st Century. I talked about the archaeological evidence for whaling in Alaska, and Glenn talked about the late pre-contact/protohistoric whaling-centric system in North Alaska. There were a number of other northern papers in the session, including papers on Central and Eastern Canadian whaling archaeology from Jim Savelle and Peter Whitridge, as well as papers on whaling in places like Korea & Bequia. There were 51 other sessions, all having to do with hunting and gathering groups. Of course there were a lot of northern papers, but some of the other papers were very interesting as well. The organizing committee and the students really made an effort to have a green conference, including the food and drinks served at breaks, and all in all it was quite fun.
We ran into a couple of hooded crows in one of the courtyards on campus. Oddly, we’d seen one at the University of Glasgow as well.
Hooded crows.
The campus has all sort of restaurants and beer gardens more or less on or next to it. It was very convenient after sessions. Several times we wound up at Steigel-Ambulanz. This was a restaurant/beer garden right across a walkway from the area where the sessions were concentrated. It featured seriously large portions, but the food was very good. We also had a dinner at Universitätsbräuhaus, which was more or less across the quad.
Seriously large (and very carefully arranged) caprese salad).Claire Alix about to enjoy that salad.
The conference banquet was held in a banquet hall in the Wiener Rathauskeller. That literally means the cellar of the city hall, and that’s exactly where it is, in the basement of Vienna City Hall. It is set up for banquets (and also as a restaurant). The food was great, and Richard Lee (of Man the Hunter fame) was honored for his contributions. He was just back from something like his 50th field season!
Conference banquet in Wiener Rathauskeller.
Vienna had more places that only took cash than do most cities these days. We wound up having to wake quite a way to find a bank that exchanged money, since we needed more Euros than we had exchanged in the first place. On the way, we stopped by the Spanish Riding School (home of the Lipizzaner stallions), and booked a stable tour for the next afternoon, when there weren’t any sessions we simply needed to hear. The building the Riding School is in had a stratified archaeological site under the plaza in front of it, and portions had been preserved with a wall around it.
Archaeological site in Michaelerplatz. There are portions of a Roman road, Roman fortifications, and even 18th century apartments and drains exposed. The entrance to the Winter Riding School is in the background.
The next day we went for the stable tour. It was pretty interesting, and the stables were very nice, although we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the actual stables. Much like the Royal Stables in Denmark, the horses were all in box stalls, but you could see they had been converted from tie stalls at some point in the past.
Entrance to the Hofburg from Michaelerplatz. The Riding School is on the left of the main archway.Largest walker in the world.Saddles in the tack room at the Spanish Riding School.The Winter Riding School.
Chandelier at the Winter Riding School.
Believe it or not, when it was built, the Winter Riding School hall was considered very simple in design, the better to show off the horses!
We walked back to our hotel through the Hofburg grounds. Being in Vienna really brings home that until pretty recently, it was the seat of a major empire.
Gardens in Vienna.Display rose garden. It seemed to have one bush of each variety of rose, clearly labeled.
Another garden.
I couldn’t resist adding this. The German for ice cream is “eis” and this is an ice cream shop.
We went to Glasgow where the 2014 European Archaeology Association was held, by way of Anchorage and Reykjavik. Because flights from Barrow are disrupted fairly frequently, we went down a bit early, and had a chance to visit with our daughter. There was a pretty amazing double rainbow and a nice lenticular cloud.
The rainbowCloser shot of the rainbowLenticular cloud over the Church Mts.
We flew Icelandair to Reykjavik and then from there to Glasgow. Glasgow was great. The people who live there seem really proud of their city. The cab driver on the way in from the airport was recommending museums, and in particular Christ of Saint John on the Cross by Dali at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Musuem. Glasgow was once the second most prosperous city in the UK, and the residents seem to have been very civic-minded. The Kelvingrove was built to house the collections that were donated by prominent Glaswegians, using funds from an international exposition and public subscriptions. It houses a fair bit of Charles Rennie Mackintosh material. We got in a good visit our last day there. Unfortunately, some of the other Mackintosh venues were under renovation.
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and MuseumCharles Rennie Mackintosh cabinetCharles Rennie Mackintosh table & chairs from one of the famous tea room interiors.
The meetings were held in various venues at the University, including some very old lecture halls and more modern buildings.
University of Glasgow Main Building towerNuvuk Archaeology Project alum Dr. Tony Krus chairing a session in a centuries-old lecture hall
We spent most of our time around the University. There were a number of good restaurants & pubs, particularly along Ashton Lane. We tried a bunch of them. We never made it to this one,which was apparently an isolated inn before Glasgow got so big, near a pond where local curlers used to throw rocks. This is apparently where they went afterwards back then, as curlers are wont to do :-).
Curler’s Rest
Our session (Archaeology and Climate Change) was heavily advertised. Tom Dawson, the organizer, had managed to get leaflets put up all around campus before the session, so it was very well attended. As you can see, there were participants from all over. I talked about the threats to frozen coastal sites from climate change, with an emphasis on the Barrow area. I was able to incorporate images from the storm that had happened the week before. There were some other pretty bad situations, but none that were worse. On the other hand, some people are making strides in dealing with these issues with public help, which is good given the turn-around time for even successful funding applications.
Poster for our session on Archaeology and Climate Change.
The conference featured a very nice party, spread across two venues, both within a block of our hotel! One was Òran Mór, a converted church which now houses performance space and a bar. The upstairs had been rented for the party. It had obviously been redone from its days as a church. The other was the glass house at the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, just across the way.
Òran Mór from the outside, with a blue halo on the tower.Interior space at Òran Mór, with a crowd of EAA delegatesApproaching the Glass House at the Glasgow Botanic Garden
The conference banquet was held in the main hall at the Kelvingrove. It was sponsored by Glenmorangie (the distillery near Glasgow) so there were samples of a couple of their special products. After the speeches and dinner, there was a fine band and dancing.
Dancing at Kelvingrove. BT Wygal and Katie Krazinski by pillar at center.
When I last posted I had just left for a trip to two conferences in Europe. Since then, I’ve been in 4 countries, given two papers (at EAA 2015 in Glasgow and CHAGS 11 in Vienna), submitted an organized SAA session for next spring, come home, gone to Fairbanks for shotgun qualification, come back home, had two of the WALRUS project participants up here to cut samples from the bones that the interns have been finding in the collections, written part of two reports, drafted two abstracts for a meeting in November, and started on a proposal for an edited volume dealing with climate change & archaeology. I haven’t managed to post at all.
Last week was a tough week for Barrow in many ways, with the deaths of several community members, including long-time mayor Nate Olemaun Jr.. On a brighter note, Barrow took three whales on Friday, and another three today.
I managed to get a couple of videos of the evaluation of things exposed by erosion at Ukkuqsi on Thursday uploaded to YouTube. You can see them here, and here.
Unfortunately, the erosion continued, and additional items were exposed after I left for a trip to two conferences in Europe, possibly including human remains (this is the site where the little frozen girl was found in 1994). The North Slope Borough is taking care of the situation at the moment.
Things have eroded out elsewhere in the Barrow area as well. At one point I was on the phone with someone from the North Slope Borough about one site, when someone else called about something found at another location entirely. And I now have a voicemail about yet another location!
This is the first long trip since I came home from back surgery. It involved connections in Anchorage and Seattle. I was lucky enough to score upgrades from Anchorages all the way to Austin, but I still arrived in less than ideal shape, although the trouble seemed to be my hip, not my back. I went to sleep with an ice pack, and everything seems fine except my right big toe, which really hurts. With my luck, it’s probably gout…
Anyway, the GHEA RCN steering committee, of which I am part, is having a meeting about a mile from the Hilton. I suspect it may take me a bit longer than Google maps thinks to walk it, so I am heading out now. My paper is tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll see how that goes.
The surgery went well, and I now have 3 fused vertebrae in my lower back. I had actually broken 2 of the 4 screws and bent one of the two plates that were in there, so no wonder things weren’t right.
My old hardware.
There were a few cardiac complications that resulted in me a) passing out a lot, and b) being moved to a general hospital from the orthopedic one so that a variety of specialists could figure it out–final guess, side effects of anesthesia & painkillers. It stopped & I got released before Christmas, which we spent in the Residence Inn. One of the housekeepers at the hospital had brought me a tiny tree with lights, and told me to take it home, so we had that.
They wanted me to walk as much as possible. My leg pain vanished right away, but my back hurt from the surgery, so it was a challenge at first. I was using a walker, so it pretty much meant flat and paved. I walked up and down the hall in the hotel for a few days, but that was boring, so we ventured to something called the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch, which is a municipal park/nature preserve with a bunch of ponds, some paved trails around one of them, and many birds. I never got past the pond closest to the parking lot (taking the walker onto unpaved trails was not really working and they could use a few more benches ) but I worked up to being able to circle the entire pond before we left.
Paved trail at the Water Ranch.Evening visit to the Water Ranch.Turtle on a log at the Water Ranch.Ducks at the Water RanchCactus
We returned to Alaska at the beginning of the year, after the doctor gave me the OK to travel. I spent a couple of weeks just recuperating, and then began doing a bit of work from home. I’ve been going in to the office (thanks to Sean Gunnells & the others from UMIAQ Science Logistics for shoveling the handicap ramp so I could get into the building) and am pretty well back to full-time.
In the meantime, I’ve submitted two major proposals (one archaeology and one not), several smaller ones for non-archaeology science support work, reviewed a chapter, gotten the AJA Recent Research Notes column out, checked the galleys of an article Glenn & I wrote, got grabbed by UMIAQ’s marketing person to do an interview with a TV crew who were up here trying to see the first sunrise of the year (of course it was cloudy), and even managed to get some lab work done.
Tuesday I am off to Fairbanks for the Alaska Anthropological Association meetings, where I am doing a 2-minute talk and a paper. It’ll be the first time I’ve driven much more than the 5 minutes back and forth to the office since surgery, and the first time I’ve traveled by myself. Hopefully all goes well. Looks like there are some interesting papers and I should see some old friends.
I am currently in Washington, DC, participating in a workshop on Arctic Research and Logistic Support planning. The idea is to get a group of scientists working in the Arctic together to see what we think Arctic research will be like in 10-20 years, and what sort of logistic support will be needed. Then, action steps to get there from here will be formulated. One hopes it is not just an exercise in futility.
As is usual at such gatherings, there are not very many social scientists. There are a lot of physical scientists (marine, terrestrial & atmospheric) and a fair number of biology types. Many of the groups are quite interested in new “toys” (UAVs) and the like, as well as more icebreakers. Better connectivity is also something that is high on most people’s lists, mine included. What I find interesting as an anthropologist is how the cultures of various disciplines vary so widely. One of the breakout sessions was organized more or less by location of research (with social sciences its own group). I actually went to the Coastal group, since I’d just had lunch with Sophia Perdikaris & Genny LeMoine, both of whom are archaeologists, who were going to be in the social science group, and I thought it might be more valuable to get a social science voice into one of the other groups.
The variation in the visions of the groups when they reported back was quite striking. Although there were some things all agreed on, one group saw research in 10-20 years as being done remotely. They even thought that maybe social science could be conducted through social media. Unfortunately they didn’t describe how they imagined one could excavate a site that way; I’m sure it would be a lot warmer than what I was doing last month!
While all that was going on, the Alaska Dispatch picked up Abra’s Arctic Sounder story. Then Archaeology magazine added it to their website news, even asking if they could use a specific picture from this blog. Then they used another one… Oh, well. And I got another interview request.
Out of Ice and Time 