2019-11-13

archaeology all around you

1) bombing rubble from Liverpool that makes up the Crosby beach, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/liverpool-beach-war-archaeology

2) recent book about "mudlarks" of London's low-tide river Thames who are registered with the bureau for overseeing cultural properties; bits of the past that wash up or erode into plain view become the treasure that trained eyes pick up,



and 3) Nazca, Peru is the location of 1000 year old burials that have mummified from the climate's low-humidity, but were desecrated by robbers in the 1920s. This 1.9 minute video introduces the cultural site that has been prepared to allow visitors to view a few examples of the bodies at rest.

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2019-10-31

forensic anthro - 1 of 6 programs in USA

Story about the field of forensic anthropology from Michigan State University weekly newsletter,

2019-09-19

Such pyramids of solid waste - or Ziggurat?

Exemplar from India's capital city, probably composed of the "11 per centers" who are Middle Class and above and who are accustomed to buy, consume, and discard; repeat at will.

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2019-06-30

online textbook, Biological Anthropology (lab)

via the message board of the American Anthropological Association on 30 June 2019,

...LibreTexts just harvested Alex A. G. Taub's Biological Anthropology Laboratory Activities, a free Open Educational Resource (OER). Labs include: Identifying Bones, Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, Primates, Bone Injuries, Early, Middle, and Recent Hominid Cranium Comparison Checklists.

The LibreTexts platform makes it easier to customize.
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2019-06-22

languages of Australia - last chance, Miriwoong

video story via BBC in June 2019 about the people, places, and language of Miriwoong.
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2019-06-13

overview - Britain's Bronze-Age "Pompeii" excavated, first synthesis of the pieces

[copied from Facebook page of Must Farm Archaeology 13 June 2019]

We are excited to share our first formal article on the Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement! The piece, published in Antiquity, is Open Access and completely free to download. We wanted to provide an overview of the site, incorporate information emerging from post-excavation and share our current interpretations of the archaeology.
     We discuss the background to the latest excavations, describe some of the material recovered and detail the evidence that suggests the settlement had a short lifespan before its destruction in a large fire.
     In the coming days we'll also share a new Post-Excavation Diary where we discuss the future of the post-excavation and the next stages in the publication process.

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2019-05-30

close-up look at Orangutans of Sumatra

Just 6,000 left on Planet Earth and 97% shared DNA to human DNA, as told in this 11 minute story that makes use of the tiny action cameras for a close-up view, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oir_PSJpbAA

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2019-05-22

intersection Mikmaq x English

Canada story on the radio 22 May 2019:

2019-04-27

roots of literacy, writing systems, society's changes that follow

Here is a modest introduction to the subject matter of writing systems and written languages, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190426-the-british-librarys-exhibition-of-writing
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2019-04-18

early Japan ethnography 1950s-60s (taidan), Plath - Vogel

With permission of the Midwest Japan Seminar, Japan Foundation and host at Ohio Wesleyan University, here is the Youtube link to the hour-long conversation recently between long-time friends and colleagues, Prs David Plath and Ezra Vogel. Hearing first-hand of their early years in the field and in Japanese Studies circles is eye-opening for one and all, no matter your scholarly generation or genealogy. Feel free to share widely with others.

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2019-04-09

new book, "An Anthropology of Anthropology"

This 372 page book comes from an anthropologist in Hawai'i. The PDF can be downloaded at no cost. A print edition can be ordered after June 1 at the latest. His subject is "public anthropology" - using anthropology methods and data to solve social problems with the environment, society, justice, food, education, health, and so on. He says that anthropology has many insights, but usually only is a spectator to watch the world; not to apply the insight to solve big or complicated problems.

Some of the testimonials from noted anthropologists, selectively appended below, give some sense of the book.

<><><>text and link of the book announcement<><><>

...to download a free (open access) copy of An Anthropology of Anthropology as well as see what 35 prominent anthropologists from Australia, Canada, France, Norway, United Kingdom and United States say about it (including Philippe Bourgois, Paul Farmer, Didier Fassin, George Marcus, and Laura Nader).


https://books.publicanthropology.org/an-anthropology-of-anthropology.html


This link can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere to freely download the book. Please forward this link to interested colleagues and students.


If you lose the link, you can readily obtain it from the new, updated publicanthropology website at www.publicanthropology.org.

Public Anthropology: An Open Access Series

c/o 45-045 Kamehameha Hwy., Kaneohe, HI 96744


= APPENDED NOTES =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [some comments by well-known anthropology colleagues]
Starting with a critical state of the art, he then defends and illustrates an alternative paradigm, which would involve a radical transformation of the way in which the academia considers its responsibility toward society. Rich in numerous case studies,

==========careerism in which quantity has replaced quality, in which creativity and path-breaking ideas have become a relic of the past.  Borofsky makes a strong plea for redirecting anthropology into the world beyond the academy that is our object of study in order to produce knowledge that has a real impact on others

==========at a time when it needs to convey its insights to those beyond the discipline. It needs to ask big questions that matter to others. Rob Borofsky asks why cultural anthropology falls short of this potential. In his search to answer this question, he challenges the university-based contexts that shape the field—what == Note: jirei? if not rooted on campus then what alt vantage points.

==========written almost nothing about conditions of work, patronage, funding, institutional hierarchy in the academy—that is, the power relations under which anthropological writing is actually produced. Robert Borofsky is one of the few who's had the requisite courage to do so.

==========Borofsky catches a sea change in the discipline's perception of itself.

==========inclined to agree on the paramount need for the field to work at building an explicit consensus about what an anthropology degree signals to the world and also agree that the standards of accountability we set for ourselves go well beyond biblio-metrics to include the ways in which our work contributes to a more just and sustainable global community.  EDWARD LIEBOW, Executive Director of AAA

==========the faith that Rob Borofsky places in what anthropologists can do in bringing professional and activist roles together—what I   termed   in the 1990s 'circumstantial activism'—for the benefit of both publics and anthropology.

==========moving past the "do no harm" seemingly neutral stance of the academy, to a more proactive "do good!" model of anthropology with no apologies.

==========He asks tough questions about individual accountability, ethics, and self-interests. Has anthropology made real intellectual breakthroughs in recent decades? He confronts anthropologists asking them to reassess and to renew our social contract with the public good

=========="Reach out to others or else become irrelevant!" is Rob Borofsky's take home message for American cultural anthropologists. He believes the discipline has shot itself in the foot: producing abstruse publications on topics of little value to the broader world, read only by an insular anthropological audience, and written primarily for the sake of narrow professional advancement.

=========="The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame." Sir Salman Rushdie, British-Indian novelist and essayist
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2019-03-30

since 2012, the "Great Pompeii Project"

The website gives a glimpse of the locations and views open to the public. These days 30 buildings may be seen up close, compared to the 60 back in 1956 and compared to 10 in 2010. The Great Pompeii Project has succeeded in stabilizing the excavated spaces so that visitors may see some of the city buried by volcanic eruption almost 2000 years previously. Perhaps a drone recording will be added to the website to give a virtual visit to distant and nearby people who are curious about the society long ago.
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2019-03-04

Nitty-gritty, archaeology methods *after* the excavating is done

The ongoing coverage of the UK's "Pompeii" site at Must Farm bronze age (wetland) site is being reported on their Facebook webpage brief and on their website in detail.
This three-part series covers the specialist scrutiny of samples and artifacts to shed new light on the people and events surrounding the fire and escape from this habitation long years ago.

Part 1, Post-Ex Diary 8: Specialist Analyses Part One
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-8-specialist-analyses-part-one/

Part 2, Post-Ex Diary 9: Specialist Analyses Part Two
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-9-specialist-analyses-part-two/

Part 3, Waterlogged and Charred Wood; Ceramic; Bone; Fabrics
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-10-specialist-analyses-part-three/

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2019-02-06

linguistic anthropology> Project online to record all the many languages rooted to a place

[excerpt from article linked, below] ...2019 is the UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages. What is Wikitongues doing in coordination with it? The International Year of Indigenous Languages (#IYIL2019) was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as a way of making 2019 a platform for promoting linguistic diversity and the recent groundswell of activism to sustain it. This was accomplished thanks to the hard work of indigenous activists who spent a long time lobbying for this level of recognition. UNESCO is stewarding the year-long campaign, since they’re the branch most concerned with cultural preservation. Wikitongues was brought on board to help bridge the gap between UNESCO and the grassroots organizations, so we helped build a coalition of civil society organizations from the around the world to amplify the spirit of the year. Wikitongues will be working to encourage people to use their languages publicly, especially online, so we’ll be designing and copromoting fun and creative social media campaigns that do just that, such as the Mother Language Meme challenge, which is self-explanatory, or Indigenous Language Challenge, which encourages nonindigenous people to learn indigenous languages in solidarity, and indigenous heritage speakers to reclaim their ancestral languages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The wiki-tongues project, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wikitongues-documenting-languages =-= See also, 2007, K. David Harrison, When Languages Die <>Similarly eye-opening is the story of his LivingTongues.org research center, (Iron Bound Films) The Linguists, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Linguists <>Then also, see PBS.org, Language Matters (2015), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Matters_with_Bob_Holman
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2019-02-02

museum care - how to clean a totem pole

Major caretaking of collection of totem poles in NYC at the American Museum of Natural History, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-conserve-totem-poles
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2019-01-18

your language shapes what you pay attention to (or you are blind to)

This November 2017 T.E.D. talk about languages and relativity of one's perspective in the world includes many vivid illustrations to show the way that your language shines a light (or casts a shadow) on social interactions and relationship to the environment, too.


After watch the presentation a Russian speaking colleague observes (posted with permission): Of course, each language, in turn, is a product of the history, geography, culture and mentality of that particular ethnic group and thus, reflection thereof. For instance, one of the differences between English and Russian is that in Russian it's very common to use impersonal idioms akin to "it rains," even in situations where there clearly is a traceable responsible source of action or at least, there should be. So, from the language one often gets an impression that something of a personal, political, etc. nature just happened so -- sort of like a natural occurrence. By contrast, in English the indication of who is the action subject is typically much more evident. That definitely reflects the centuries-old collective/communal/totalitarian culture where individual responsibility is neither common, nor encouraged, whereas in the lands of English language the mentality builds around individual rights and responsibilities.
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2019-01-03

ancient human DNA as window on distribution and timeline of related peoples

At the end of 2018 this article provides recap of major insights produced or suggested from labwork on samples of ancient human remains. 

One author, David Reich, has compared the powers of this new technology to the breakthroughs offered by Carbon 14 dating of organic materials excavated. Instead of induction and deduction from the layering of deposited materials to estimate dates, now some precision was possible. In the same way, DNA offers a sharper view of relatedness of peoples ancient and modern; it allows previous conclusions about (paleo) archaeological locations to be revisited, too.

Reich's 2018 book, Who We Are and How We Got Here, offers chapter by chapter visions of the past in various corners of the world.
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