Dig Hatteras

Since late March, I have been helping out on Prof. Mark Horton's excavations on Hatteras Island, North Colony. The site is tied to the lost colony of America, so there is lots of excitement and intrigue. Catch up on the project here: www.facebook.com/dighatteras.

Ireland's SOPA proposal that you can't actually vote on

Just found out today that the motherland has gone the way of American senators, bowing down to pressure from the EU and international corporations in regard to intellectual property rights and all that jazz. Infuriating.

You can sign the petition online here http://stopsopaireland.com/

I've also written a long email to the ministers and am currently firing copies to everyone associated with Limerick (yes, I got a bit carried away with the letter...sigh). Do the same for your own county and let's get this thing under control!

This image sums up one of the associated issues of this entire fiasco:

Bye bye, democracy, it was nice knowing you, even if you were broken.

Archaeology, Sci-Fi & Time Travel

While correcting first year essays today, the following occurred to me:

Material Culture: 9/11 and Ground Zero

"Excavating Ground Zero: Fragments from 9/11" is Penn Museum's latest exhibition offering. Housed in a small room, some 15 objects retrieved from Ground Zero are displayed alongside video footage, photographs and information panels detailing the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.

Visitors are invited to respond to the exhibition and recount their own experiences in written form. The simple every day objects recovered from the site by archaeologists and anthropologists (a melted keyboard, glasses, a visitor badge, window glass) evoke remembrance of the ordinary people who lost their lives on that day.

The events of 9/11 are ingrained on the USA's collective conciousness. This display will hit a nerve for many, but its small-scale approach (rather than a multi-level exhibition) will hopefully create a more personal and intimate experience for visitors, avoiding a shock-factor show. See more: www.penn.museum

Paintballs vs Petroglyphs

Some people have no interest in history or archaeology, that's just fine. But when people have no respect for ancient remains, that can be a dangerous thing with serious consequences. For one David R. Smith, he found out the hard way via the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Grapevine Canyon defaced petroglyphs

Back in March of last year, 21 year old Smith and two others took their fully automatic paintball guns out to the site of the petroglyphs, showering Grapevine Canyon with hundreds of oil-based red and green paint bullets. 38 of the bullets seriously defaced the petroglyphs, and while the paint has been removed, an oily residue still remains.

Grapevine Canyon is a sacred place to the Colorado River Indian tribes and home to 700 petroglyphs that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Yesterday, Smith pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 15 months in prison and an order to pay nearly $10,000 in restitution.

Source: here.

Making the Statue of Liberty

There is something incredibly appealing about seeing the various stages of construction of iconic builds, this is definitely up there! Check out this link to see the whole series of amazing images: LINK

11,500 Year Old Human Remains Discovered in Alaska

Burial of 3-Year Old Child is the Earliest Example of 'behavior associated with the death of an individual' Yet Recovered

Some 11,500 years ago one of America's earliest families laid the remains of a 3-year-old child to rest in their home in what is now Alaska. The discovery of that burial is shedding new light on the life and times of the early settlers who crossed from Asia to the New World.

The bones represent the earliest human remains discovered in the Arctic of North America, a "pretty significant find," said Ben A. Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

While ancient Alaskan residents were known to hunt large game, the newly discovered site shows they also foraged for fish, birds and small mammals, he explained. "Here we know there were young children and females. So, this is a whole piece of the settlement system that we had virtually no record of."

The site of the discovery, Upper Sun River, is in the forest of the Tanana lowlands in central Alaska, Potter and his colleagues report.

Read more here

Global warming reveals more archaeology

Not really a silver lining to the possible destruction of the earth...but new archaeology discoveries in any case...sigh...

Melting ice patches in Colorado have revealed archaeological remains that have been preserved for thousands of years. 10,000 year old weapons have been discovered by archaeologist Craig Lee of the University of Colorado.

Researchers have little choice but to collect all of the finds as they find them as, otherwise, the items will very quickly degrade due to their fragile condition.

You can read a bit more about the weapons here.

I think, therefore I search Google

A google search has led to the return of a long lost letter written by Descartes. Stolen over 150 years ago by an entrepreneurial count in Italy, the letter found its way to a university in the states (who have since returned it to France).

In return, the French Institute awarded Harverford College a €15,000 grant. Win win!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100608/lf_afp/franceushistorysciencedescartes

Maritime Archaeology - Historic Shipwreck

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/05/oldest.shipwreck/index.html?hpt=C1

A ship found by a treasure hunter...sigh...

But at least the local North Carolina archaeology troop are going to attempt to preserve the vessel. It dates from the 17th century and is the oldest shipwreck found in the area.

This discovery shows that you don't need to excavate to discover archaeology - a storm can do all the digging for you!