University of Sheffield Archaeology department threat ‘blow to UK’
Category: Archaeology
The Archaeologist on the River Kwai
Cyler Conrad writes about Dutch archaeologist Hendrik Robert van Heekeren, who after being captured by the Japanese during World War II, managed to collect prehistoric artifacts while a prisoner-of-war forced to work on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai in Thailand: An Archaeologist on the Railroad of Death.
van Heekeren was born in Java in 1902 and became interested in archaeology while working on a tobacco plantation.
Through financing his own research and fieldwork, van Heekeren significantly contributed to the study of ancient Indonesia prior to the outbreak of the war. But, like many of his Dutch compatriots, he was captured after the Japanese invaded Java in 1942. By February 1943, he was forced to work on the Railroad of Death.
Cyler Conrad, Sapiens, May 5, 2021
The New York Times also wrote about the bridge and the archaeologist in 1972: The Kwai Bridge: The Reel and the Real
Dr. van Heekeren was working among stones dredged up from the Kwai for use in the construction of the bridge’s foundation when his experienced eye picked out an object that he immediately recognized as a Stone Age artifact. From that day until the day he was freed, he continued to find, and hide from his captors, numerous other artifacts. When he returned to the Netherlands after the war, he wrote a book about his discoveries in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province
Alvin Smith, The New York Times, December 17, 1972
van Heekeren’ books include The Stone Age of Indonesia (1957) and The Bronze-Iron Age of Indonesia (1958). He died in 1974.
Massive and Free Archaeology Book on the Onondaga Iroquois
The New York State Museum has just published James W. Bradley’s new book, Onondaga and Empire; An Iroquoian People in an Imperial Era. The book is available to freely download from the museum. At over 800 pages, it is a truly massive work and focuses on the Onondaga Iroquois and their interactions with Europeans over a fifty-year time span (c. A.D. 1650-1701).
Link to download: Onondaga and Empire
Featured image: Figure 7.16. from Onondaga and Empire depicts shell pendants and effigy figures from Indian Hill.
Visiting the Historic Site of Woodstock and the Bindy Bazaar
As the plaque above clearly shows, the 1969 Woodstock Concert is legitimately a site of historical importance. While the rule of thumb is that only sites at least 50 years old are considered for listing on the National Register of Historical Places, Woodstock was placed on the Register in 2017, only 48 years after the three day festival of music took place on Max Yasgur’s farm near Bethel, New York.
The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and the Museum at Bethel Woods maintain the Woodstock site with the goal of preserving the historic landscape. The actual stage and seating area are now open grassed areas. Across the road there is a small wooded area known as Bindy Woods or Bindy Bazaar. In 1969, trails were cut through the woods and rocks were gathered and stacked to create simple foundations where vendors at the “Aquarian Crafts Bazaar” could set up makeshift stalls to sell goods to the concert goers.
Send Texts in Hieroglyphics, or Do Some Serious Work
Fabricius is a Google Arts & Culture project to use AI to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Use it to translate your emoji-filled text messages to hieroglyphics with the Fabricius Text to Hieroglyphics Converter, or if you have some ancient hieroglyphics you seriously want translate, use the workbench (only works on desktops and Middle Egyptian).
The journey began with The Hieroglyphics Initiative, a Ubisoft research project that was launched at the British Museum in September 2017 to coincide with the release of Assassin’s Creed Origins. Working with Google and development agency Psycle Interactive, the project sought to identify whether machine learning could transform the process of collating, cataloguing and understanding the written language of the Pharaohs.
Fabricius: About. https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/fabricius/en/about
G.I. Joe Recovers the Lost Mummy!
Source: 1972 Sears Wishbook.
This 1972 set has all the essential/most fun archaeological gear: helicopter, ATV, machete, pick and shovel (the shovel is my pick), and … animal trap (what, is Roy Chapman Andrews coming along, too?). That mummy is not getting away from the Joes. With inflation, this $14.49 set would cost about $90 today – actual G.I. Joes not included.
Intro to Zooarchaeology and More Free Books
Publisher Springer has temporarily made hundreds of textbooks available to download for free during the coronavirus pandemic. For archaeologists, there’s Diane Gifford-Gonzalez’s ~600 page zooarchaeology book. A sample of other free books is below, and you can find all the rest at Springer. Thanks to @jriveraprince for pointing this out on Twitter.
An Introduction to Zooarchaeology
An Anthology of London in Literature, 1558-1914
ArcGIS for Environmental and Water Issues
Writing for Publication: Transitions and Tools that Support Scholars’ Success
Social Media Management: Technologies and Strategies for Creating Business Value
Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: An Introduction to Semiotics
Passenger Pigeons on New Hampshire Public Radio
How many is a lot? When you’re talking passenger pigeons, that question is more controversial than you might think.
I was fortunate to be able to participate in a discussion of passenger pigeon population numbers for the Outside/In podcast, which is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Author Charles Mann was also interviewed because his book, 1491, repeated an earlier claim that passenger pigeon remains are rarely found on archaeological sites and questioned whether passenger pigeons were truly abundant before the 1800s.
Listen to the episode, Tempest in a Teacup, at the Outside/In website, or wherever you normally get your podcasts.
“Doctorates are so weird”
Egyptian Artifacts at Glencairn
Some of the Egyptian artifacts on display at Glencairn, a mansion turned museum outside of Philadelphia.
That’s No Dog
Another example of why you should always hire a professional zooarchaeologist when you find animal bones on your site (in this case, the professional zooarchaeologist was Renee Walker):
Hart, John P., and Robert S. Feranec. 2019. The Dog That Wasn’t: An Historical Pig Burial on the Sixteenth-Century AD Klock Site, Fulton County, New York. Archaeology of Eastern North America 47:1-6.
Abstract. An articulated animal skeleton was found in a pit feature at the cal. sixteenth-century AD Klock site in Fulton County, New York during New York State Museum excavations in 1970. The skeleton was reported as a dog burial associated with the Native American occupation in Funk and Kuhn’s 2003 report on the site. Recent analysis indicates that the animal was a six-month-old domesticated pig. A radiocarbon date on the skeleton indicates the animal was most likely buried in the cal. nineteenth century AD, well after the Native American occupation of the site.