Today was the annual UPAC meeting up at State History. Presentations all morning and then they did the business stuff after we all cut out to head back down to Provo. All told there were four presentations from BYU, including Jim Allison, Rachel Pollock and Mark Bodily, Brad, and I. Topics varied, I'd say Brad's North Creek junk is top list, but I'm still having nightmares from J-in-the-cliff...shudder...
Anyway, one presentation, which I unfortunately didn't really take notes on, was done by a UofU Doctoral student. I'd say it was the most interesting to me, so I wanted to throw out a bit of what I remember for you all.
It dealt with a mass burial in Moab. Six individuals, all male and all between 13-25 years old. Dentition and bone condition suggest that they were all in good health when they died. Three showed similar healed cranial injuries including a segment of bone/incised trauma above the right eye and several blunt trauma episodes to parietal and occipital lobes. Etc, etc, interesting stuff about the bones, but the really intriguing bit is the way the bodies were laid out in the mass grave. Unfortunately I have sucky MS Paint and that's it for graphic edits so I can't crop and rotate it, but the previous post gives you a basic idea.
Each burial was placed face down, with layered bodies having heads placed over the thoracic trunk and down. So they're actually at an angle, which I can't do in Paint, such that the six piled up a bit and then sloped back off.
Has anyone seen anything like this? It's really a bizarre bit of activity.
She didn't say anything about grave goods. She did note that the two common skull shapes for Utah burials (one more spherical/robust typically associated with Fremont/Anasazi culture and one more elongated not consistently identified to any specific culture) were represented in the grave, a good indication that cranial morphology shouldn't be standing alone in our cultural affiliation calls.
Anyway, interesting bit. Wish I had her graphic or better technology on my lappy...but anybody got any thoughts?
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Eternal Principle #1
I've been announcing eternal principles to my roommate lately, but I started with #2, reserving the #1 for something truly all-encompassing. Some of the eternal principles include #3--the sink will clog right before the dinner party and #6--a room is only as messy as the archaeologist living in it. But now, behold!! The #1 eternal principle has been identified, nay, revealed!
...drumroll...
The #1 eternal principle is...
The best way to finish everything you need to do in a given day or week is to procrastinate the number one most important thing!
Amazing! Stupendous! Life-altering in more ways than even I realize!
Actually, this simply comes of the fact that I am STILL avoiding writing a paper that is now due in 3 days...I'm 9 pages into a 20-30 pager, but I've registered my car, prepared an elaborate Valentine's Day package for a missionary, finished a book about the Donner Party, nearly finished The Blue Sword again, and worked out more in the last 2 days than I've managed in any given week this entire semester. The list goes on. It's amazing, really. I might just keep avoiding it and do my laundry and, perhaps, a few years worth of scrap-booking...the possibilities are limitless!
Here's to eternal principles, "those kinky little devils!!" ;)
...drumroll...
The #1 eternal principle is...
The best way to finish everything you need to do in a given day or week is to procrastinate the number one most important thing!
Amazing! Stupendous! Life-altering in more ways than even I realize!
Actually, this simply comes of the fact that I am STILL avoiding writing a paper that is now due in 3 days...I'm 9 pages into a 20-30 pager, but I've registered my car, prepared an elaborate Valentine's Day package for a missionary, finished a book about the Donner Party, nearly finished The Blue Sword again, and worked out more in the last 2 days than I've managed in any given week this entire semester. The list goes on. It's amazing, really. I might just keep avoiding it and do my laundry and, perhaps, a few years worth of scrap-booking...the possibilities are limitless!
Here's to eternal principles, "those kinky little devils!!" ;)
Friday, February 03, 2006
Musings
Well, I've just watched Big Fish, which came out while I was on my mission. Interesting sort of film. Puts one in a mighty introspective mood, which, in my case, isn't often particularly peppy. But I'm well enough off, I suppose. It occurs to me that between the Jolley clan and my FHE group in my current ward, I'd have something of a major bash were I to go the way of the big catfish any time soon. =) Now if that doesn't make a person genuinely content, I don't know what could.
Went to Howl's Moving Castle at the international cinema early today. It's been a big movie day, I guess. It was absolutely classic anime with all my favorite characteristics--particularly, as with Spirited Away, that there are a number of side characters who have absolutely nothing to do with anything, really, but are completely loveable. I also enjoyed the bits of Russion mythology stuck in here and there...mostly dealing with a particular chicken-legged house. Billy Crystal always has such great roles, doesn't he? The fire was fabulous. And small bits of me are now head over heals for an animated fella who's far too concerned with his hair! =)
It was a good week. I've gotten deeper into Field School prep and have also started working on some stuff dealing with a collection of pots now housed at Harvard in my beloved Massachusetts. If only I could convince Dr. Allison to let me fly out there and look at them...what a lovely thing to combine my two great loves, Boston and archaeology. I've decided being married to my work suits me quite fine. I'm happy as a clam, only I'll be the one digging, not the one being dug up!
There's a small part of me that whispers something about a phD and that's somewhat terrifying...one never knows which voices one might decide to follow someday, but for now, I'm simply trying to be motivated enough to do my research, write my papers, and get myself ready to present something or other on Virgin Anasazi trade patterns at the UPAC meeting end of the month. I'm attaching a view of one of the places we'll be working. Gorgeous region outside St. George! Can't wait!
Went to Howl's Moving Castle at the international cinema early today. It's been a big movie day, I guess. It was absolutely classic anime with all my favorite characteristics--particularly, as with Spirited Away, that there are a number of side characters who have absolutely nothing to do with anything, really, but are completely loveable. I also enjoyed the bits of Russion mythology stuck in here and there...mostly dealing with a particular chicken-legged house. Billy Crystal always has such great roles, doesn't he? The fire was fabulous. And small bits of me are now head over heals for an animated fella who's far too concerned with his hair! =)
It was a good week. I've gotten deeper into Field School prep and have also started working on some stuff dealing with a collection of pots now housed at Harvard in my beloved Massachusetts. If only I could convince Dr. Allison to let me fly out there and look at them...what a lovely thing to combine my two great loves, Boston and archaeology. I've decided being married to my work suits me quite fine. I'm happy as a clam, only I'll be the one digging, not the one being dug up!
There's a small part of me that whispers something about a phD and that's somewhat terrifying...one never knows which voices one might decide to follow someday, but for now, I'm simply trying to be motivated enough to do my research, write my papers, and get myself ready to present something or other on Virgin Anasazi trade patterns at the UPAC meeting end of the month. I'm attaching a view of one of the places we'll be working. Gorgeous region outside St. George! Can't wait!
Friday, January 27, 2006
Focus issues.
I don't think I've spent more than an hour studying at any point this semester until today. Long live the lame-o Friday night study session...*sigh*
I successfully created an ArcView map of this summer's field school area around St. George, Utah. I'm looking forward to getting down there on the ground--especially now when it's snowy and miserable up here. But in the meantime, I still need to find a high res. topo to lay under my sites. For now, it's only an ortho., though aerial shots are always cool.
I've got 500 pages to read and summarize this weekend to keep up on my readings course, so I best get gone. But Look Mom, I'm a Blogger =) (Note: if Mom ever actually makes it on here to see this, the earth will likely shake, and now you'll know what's happening and won't have to worry about any apocalyptic advent! You're welcome. "Please leave a contribution in the little box!")
I successfully created an ArcView map of this summer's field school area around St. George, Utah. I'm looking forward to getting down there on the ground--especially now when it's snowy and miserable up here. But in the meantime, I still need to find a high res. topo to lay under my sites. For now, it's only an ortho., though aerial shots are always cool.
I've got 500 pages to read and summarize this weekend to keep up on my readings course, so I best get gone. But Look Mom, I'm a Blogger =) (Note: if Mom ever actually makes it on here to see this, the earth will likely shake, and now you'll know what's happening and won't have to worry about any apocalyptic advent! You're welcome. "Please leave a contribution in the little box!")
Monday, January 23, 2006
The Southwest Symposium
I just posted this on Friends of the Fremont, but for those of you who are archaeologists, I'll add it here as well. You should probably just go to FOF, though...
I figure I better hurry and post just in case Holly decides to do something brash and actually post--wouldn't want to be branded as she has been.
That said, all I'm gonna say about you sceptics and your anti-historic attitude is...well...ok, I got nothin', but it's still cool. Pass your rust to me, I'll gladly take it--maybe it's my practical side reacting to the number of uncontrollable variables in prehistorics. But don't get me wrong, I'll take a pretty lithic scatter over a pile of cans any day of the week.
Now, to the Symposium...
First of all, even now, days later, I can feel my tailbone. The drive was LONG. I tried keeping the 'hey, we're bonding' perspective and that made it slightly more tolerable. 1776 was really enjoyable even though it came in such large blocks.
The first session was definitely the highlight for me, despite its comparative lack of historic discussion, but when it came down to it, I enjoyed the Pueblo talk a lot more than I did any of the Euro-American junk. Traitor to my own cause.
Christine Ward's discussion of lithic procurement. Definitely interesting stuff--a great way to start the conference. Aaron has already discussed it, so I won't except to say that it was definitely one of the more useful presentations.
Donna Glowacki's was a little soft around the edges, but I enjoyed the basic concepts. She discussed The Social Landscape of Depopulation in the northern San Juan. I resonate with ideas that go beyond what's strictly represented on the ground and really try to bring in our inherent understanding of humans, but getting too post-processualist can rub me the wrong way. In this case, some good points were made and I'll just choose to ignore the rest. Ultimately she suggested that movements in the region, particularly between the east and west, were caused by social differentiation in addition to drought. The east became more ritualistic than the west and that affected the equilibrium.
Does anyone know of any positive demonstration of the southwest "ball courts"? I mean, yes, they're big flat community areas with seating around, and yes, they're very similar to what we see in Mesoamerica, but do we have associated gaming artifacts? Just curious. I wonder if we tend to just follow along with traditional terminology and let previous biases (such as the standard south to north movement) cloud our ability to read the ground. Ball courts were mentioned, mostly in passing, in a couple of the presentations.
Wendy Ashmore was the discussant, as Aaron mentioned. Her broad discussion of landscape theory was certainly more useful than anything any of the other discussants shared. Her nine factors to be considered were: (1) use of ethnography, (2) consideration of the spatial scale, (3) physical visibility, (4) time, (5) decision making and strategy use, (6) social relations and interaction, (7) movement/pilgrimages, (8) power, and (9) citation circles/networks. I appreciated her inclusion of no. 9—that we need to acknowledge the work being done on the other side of the Atlantic and the Euros need to do the same.
Well, I’m long-winded. The point is that the conference had a lot of good points. I got to see a few token rusty things, particularly in Carol Griffith’s trash talk. Interesting history bites about waste disposal. Did you know there’s a landfill in Fresno that’s eligible for the Register under A, B, C, & D?! The fire talks were interesting, but I think more could have been done. My particular interest in the fire venue is maybe better saved for a separate post…I’ll probably do that one of these days.
In the meantime, it’s oddly nice to be back to the bubble, though I’m still hoping for a giant pin to come along someday. Looking forward to the Great Basin Conference, now, or whatever may come before that.
I figure I better hurry and post just in case Holly decides to do something brash and actually post--wouldn't want to be branded as she has been.
That said, all I'm gonna say about you sceptics and your anti-historic attitude is...well...ok, I got nothin', but it's still cool. Pass your rust to me, I'll gladly take it--maybe it's my practical side reacting to the number of uncontrollable variables in prehistorics. But don't get me wrong, I'll take a pretty lithic scatter over a pile of cans any day of the week.
Now, to the Symposium...
First of all, even now, days later, I can feel my tailbone. The drive was LONG. I tried keeping the 'hey, we're bonding' perspective and that made it slightly more tolerable. 1776 was really enjoyable even though it came in such large blocks.
The first session was definitely the highlight for me, despite its comparative lack of historic discussion, but when it came down to it, I enjoyed the Pueblo talk a lot more than I did any of the Euro-American junk. Traitor to my own cause.
Christine Ward's discussion of lithic procurement. Definitely interesting stuff--a great way to start the conference. Aaron has already discussed it, so I won't except to say that it was definitely one of the more useful presentations.
Donna Glowacki's was a little soft around the edges, but I enjoyed the basic concepts. She discussed The Social Landscape of Depopulation in the northern San Juan. I resonate with ideas that go beyond what's strictly represented on the ground and really try to bring in our inherent understanding of humans, but getting too post-processualist can rub me the wrong way. In this case, some good points were made and I'll just choose to ignore the rest. Ultimately she suggested that movements in the region, particularly between the east and west, were caused by social differentiation in addition to drought. The east became more ritualistic than the west and that affected the equilibrium.
Does anyone know of any positive demonstration of the southwest "ball courts"? I mean, yes, they're big flat community areas with seating around, and yes, they're very similar to what we see in Mesoamerica, but do we have associated gaming artifacts? Just curious. I wonder if we tend to just follow along with traditional terminology and let previous biases (such as the standard south to north movement) cloud our ability to read the ground. Ball courts were mentioned, mostly in passing, in a couple of the presentations.
Wendy Ashmore was the discussant, as Aaron mentioned. Her broad discussion of landscape theory was certainly more useful than anything any of the other discussants shared. Her nine factors to be considered were: (1) use of ethnography, (2) consideration of the spatial scale, (3) physical visibility, (4) time, (5) decision making and strategy use, (6) social relations and interaction, (7) movement/pilgrimages, (8) power, and (9) citation circles/networks. I appreciated her inclusion of no. 9—that we need to acknowledge the work being done on the other side of the Atlantic and the Euros need to do the same.
Well, I’m long-winded. The point is that the conference had a lot of good points. I got to see a few token rusty things, particularly in Carol Griffith’s trash talk. Interesting history bites about waste disposal. Did you know there’s a landfill in Fresno that’s eligible for the Register under A, B, C, & D?! The fire talks were interesting, but I think more could have been done. My particular interest in the fire venue is maybe better saved for a separate post…I’ll probably do that one of these days.
In the meantime, it’s oddly nice to be back to the bubble, though I’m still hoping for a giant pin to come along someday. Looking forward to the Great Basin Conference, now, or whatever may come before that.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Scheduling...
I sometimes wonder if calendars and time pieces will ultimately mean the destruction of us all. I live by them nearly obsessively, but they don't prevent me from wasting a significant bit of every day doing things like buying a third copy of The Blue Sword and staying up all night reading it which I confess I have every intention of doing...
Still, things are looking manageable as long as I give up some of the sleep I enjoyed last semester despite its difficulties. I'll be working 20 hours a week, a much needed blessing money-wise, but less-than-fun in terms of restricting my day-time hours and therefore requiring more night study than usual. Such is the life of a grad student. If it didn't stretch me, I suppose I wouldn't deserve or appreciate the degree.
Started my Revelation of St. John class this morning at the ungodly hour of 8am. How are we supposed to have a spiritual understanding of the Revelation when we are lying unconcious in our cushy JSB chairs? Still, the professor is passionate about his topic and that makes every yawn worthwhile. I have a feeling I will count it as one of my all-time favorite BYU classes, which, since it's in the religion department, is saying something considering my previous experience.
Still, things are looking manageable as long as I give up some of the sleep I enjoyed last semester despite its difficulties. I'll be working 20 hours a week, a much needed blessing money-wise, but less-than-fun in terms of restricting my day-time hours and therefore requiring more night study than usual. Such is the life of a grad student. If it didn't stretch me, I suppose I wouldn't deserve or appreciate the degree.
Started my Revelation of St. John class this morning at the ungodly hour of 8am. How are we supposed to have a spiritual understanding of the Revelation when we are lying unconcious in our cushy JSB chairs? Still, the professor is passionate about his topic and that makes every yawn worthwhile. I have a feeling I will count it as one of my all-time favorite BYU classes, which, since it's in the religion department, is saying something considering my previous experience.