An encounter with the dark side of technology...or the dark side of archaeology?

For the past couple of weeks our class has been learning to use Microsoft Access and Excel to manipulate cemetery data. What started off seeming like a fairly innocent assignment turned into what Lou from Little Britain might describe as a “right kerfuffle” (wow kerfuffle is in Microsoft Word’s dictionary; isn’t technology grand?). Although this assignment caused me considerable frustration and much more time than I had originally anticipated some good things and some important points came out of it.

 This was my first time using Access and while I struggled with it being less ‘first-time user friendly’ than many other Microsoft programs such as Excel (although even my old friend Excel steered me wrong once or twice on this assignment); I found it to be a very valuable exercise. For one thing we live in the age of technology and keeping up with current technology is essential particularly for undergraduates who are soon going to be entering the workforce. While technological innovation is not always better it is important to accept when technology can be useful to you and figure out how to take advantage of it. I mean imagine if people living in the late Bronze Age had refused to learn the new iron ore smelting technology just because it was complicated! 

But I digress, getting back on topic I actually found the database we were using (Evergreen Cemetery) to be quite a useful and innovative idea. Creating a digital record of the cemetery makes it accessible to a much wider audience. I think too often archeology in the past has been inaccessible to the general public even though it is everyone’s history and everyone should theoretically have access to it. Popular understanding of archaeological discovery is often mediated through sensationalized stories (such as the “Gay Caveman", who was likely neither ‘gay’ nor a caveman) which do not accurately reflect the data or interpretations that can reasonably be made. In recent years some archaeologists have begun to take part in publishing their work in ways that are much more accessible to the general public than scholarly articles. Some excellent websites have been created for archeological sites such as the one for Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic site located in modern-day Turkey. So thank you to the archaeologists who are taking advantage of recent technology to bring their data and findings to a broader audience!

Here are the links for the cemetery database and the site for Çatalhöyük:

http://projectpast.org/gvogel/Evergreen/Evergreen.html

http://www.catalhoyuk.com/

Charcoal Burials

I was doing some research on different kinds of ‘deviant’ or non-normative burials and I came across a type of burial I had never heard of before that I thought sounded quite intriguing called charcoal burials. These burials have been located around Europe dating from around the 8^th- 12^th centuries (Thompson 2002). They vary quite a bit in composition but they all include a charcoal layer either above or the below the body, or in some cases both above and below. They also all seem to be associated with Christian burials (Thompson 2002).

 

http://tour.rammuseum.org.uk/tours-in-exeter/tour-of-the-quay/middle-saxon-cemetery/

Here is a photo of an adult Saxon charcoal burial from Cathedral Close in Exeter, UK

 

There does not seem to be any particular association with age or gender overall, however in specific cemeteries there does appear to be differential representation of sex in the charcoal burials (Daniell 1998). The main question that archaeologists have puzzled over is why these individuals? What is it about these people that requires differential treatment in death? While there is no definite answer some interesting hypotheses have been proposed including:

• ·         Reflection of a certain socioeconomic status

• ·         Representation of a particular family, community or religious group

• ·         Absorption of bodily fluids produced by decomposition (yummy!)

• ·         Symbolic of penitence and purity

The evidence does suggests that charcoal burials reflect a specific group of people because the numbers do not seem to represent a general burial trend that was introduced, gained in popularity and then declined and went out of fashion. The argument for the charcoal representing some kind of penitence or purity has been proposed based on similarity to sackcloth and ashes which have been documented as signs of penitence (Daniell 1998). It may also be a combination of these hypotheses or the meaning may have evolved over time. Similarly to what I was talking about surrounding the interpretation of Stonehenge in my last post; a burial tradition spanning a couple of centuries is likely to have evolved a good deal from the meanings associated with the earliest burials. Anyways that’s all, I just thought I would share a bit about charcoal burials with you because I think they are really cool!

Here are the references I used if you are interested in more information!

1. Thompson V. 2002. The body under siege in life and death. In, Death and Dying in Later Anglo-Saxon England, 4:92-131. Woodbridge: Boydell Press

1. Daniell C. 1998. Cemeteries and Grave Goods. In, Death and Burial in Medieval England 1066-1550, 6:145-172. New York: Routledge

 

Stonehenge, the Mystery Continues

Stonehenge, Amesbury UK (http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge)

Megaliths, cromlechs, henges, menhirs; what does it all mean? These names all refer to large standing stones which have been discovered in many different locations and time periods across the globe. While there are many different names for them, there are many more different interpretations of their purpose.  For class we read an interview with Ramilisonina, an archaeologist from Madagascar talking about his collaboration with archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson on interpreting the purpose of the sites of Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Bluestonehenge (see http://www.archaeology.org/1001/etc/conversation.html for the interview).

These archaeologists propose a theory that the stones of sites like Stonehenge and the megaliths used in Madagascar have similar purposes tied to ancestor worship and monuments of the dead.

In addition to the interview, we were also given a blogger’s response to this interview (http://lucianoaimar.blogspot.com). The blogger suggested that it was too much of a leap to assume that two cultures so temporally (Neolithic-Bronze age and still practiced today) and geographically (UK and Madagascar) separated have the same belief systems surrounding standing stones.

We were then sent home for the weekend to ponder whether or not we felt these diverse cultures could be interpreted in similar manners. As usual I find myself on the fence. I think it is really important for archaeologist to come up with hypotheses about the meanings behind the artefacts they uncover and not just focus on documentation and preservation. It is important to remember that it is not just the material culture itself that is important but what it can tell us about past life. On the other side I also think it is important to be critical about the scholarship we read. The past belongs to everybody and sometimes having a certain distance from a topic can help to be more objective. Basically I think it is important for archaeologist to come up with hypotheses about the meanings behind archaeological material culture. Ethnographic analogy can be a useful tool for trying to discern meaning as long as these theories are treated as a working hypothesis which is only one possible interpretation among many.

In reading another article about Bluestonehenge (Powell, 2010) I found an interview with Julian Thomas, a scholar involved in the Stonehenge Riverside Project (like Pearson), and Timothy Darville, a Stonehenge expert not part of the project. Both speak about their theories surrounding Stonehenge as ‘possible interpretations’. Darville says the discovery (of Bluestonehenge) reinforces the idea that Stonehenge was part of an evolving landscape."Stonehenge is really about constant change. There's not one architectural blueprint we can use to understand these sites. I'm sure there's more out there to be found." (Powell, E. A. (2010). Bluestonehenge. Archaeology, 63(1), 12-13.))

I also found an interesting video about some of the henges in England. The video has some cool computer reconstructions of the sites and illustrates the vastness of the Stonehenge complex/community. The video also offers an interesting hypothesis about the henge at Stanton Drew being an arena for blood sports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulpQqzO2EFA

I found this video informative because I often think of Stonehenge as being isolated on the landscape when really it is part of a vast network of sites that were built over at least a thousand years. The long-term creation of these monumental sites is important to their interpretation because when looking at the archaeological record we see snapshots of the past. It is important to remember that these snapshots may not be representative of a whole population, culture, or belief system. The complex at Stonehenge had many different phases of construction and as such may not represent one coherent plan or belief system. Additionally the discovery of Bluestonehenge reminds us that in the archaeological record we are only seeing a small fraction of the material history of a culture and as new material is found we can continue to get a better picture of a past culture however, that picture will never be perfectly clear.

So...after all this rambling I guess my main point is archaeology is not an exact, factual science (no science is completely objective and factual) but if archaeologists use different tools, such as ethnographic analogy, and continue to have various and evolving hypotheses that fit the available evidence we can increase our understanding of the past.

Getting Started

Hello all,

This is my first blog so I am still getting things figured out. I am a fourth-year Greek and Roman studies major, anthropology minor and I have started this blog as part of my archaeology of death class. My interests lie primarily in classical archaeology, gender archaeology and osteology however I am excited to learn about the varied traditions surrounding death from across the globe and throughout (pre)history. Since this blog will be addressing death I thought I would begin on a more serious note.

Dealing with human remains regardless of how separated we are from them in time or how valuable they might be to scientific inquiry requires the utmost respect and gravitas from the person(s) engaging with them. This week I have been pondering the ethics surrounding archaeology that deals with human remains and trying to figure out how I feel about this controversial topic. I read an interesting article for another class about the legal battle over the remains of the Kennewick man:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1169901-1,00.html

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Kennewick man he is a partial skeleton over 9,000 years old who was discovered in Washington in 1996. He has been the center of much controversy because he was initial described as having ‘Caucasoid features’ which some people took to mean that Europeans actually colonised the Americas first. He is in fact not European and is thought to have come from Asia. He is important not just because of his great age but because he may represent a separate group of people than the Native Americans we recognize today as the first to colonize the Americas which would support the hypothesis of multiple waves of colonization. Immediately after his discovery Native American groups began to petition for his repatriation without the desecration of scientific study. After much legal dueling some study of Kennewick has been allowed (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1169905-5,00.html).

The Kennewick man is just one example of what seems to be an alarming polarization between scientists, who wish to study archaeological human remains to increase the knowledge of humanity, and the advocates of the deceased individual(s) spiritual/cultural needs. I find myself torn between the two sides. As an avid consumer of knowledge with a love of history I certainly appreciate the desire to increase our knowledge of the past however I also understand that the study of human remains can be in direct violation of certain cultural beliefs surrounding the treatment of the dead. I realize there is no easy answer and as far as I can tell the best thing to do is try to reach a compromise and work on a case by case basis. For me personally the biggest problem I see in addressing ethical considerations in this field is how we can possibly know what the deceased would have wanted? This is particularly true the further we go back in time.  Perhaps we just have to accept that after we die we ultimately have very little say in what happens to our remains and even if we believe in an afterlife after a couple thousand years will we really care what happens to our earthly remains? I find myself wondering what would the Kennewick man have thought if he could see the controversy his skeleton has caused 9,000 years after his death? Would he approve of the name we have given him? Would he wish for us to know his story or would he just like to be left in peace?
If you have thoughts or ideas you would like to share on this topic or anything else please do!