Our topical focus this year will be "Cataclysm and the Lost World." I tried to cover three topical areas the first time around, and it felt like too much. So I decided to go with a single theme this year and use that as a lens to explore the social/political/historical threads that wind through various claims that (1) the cultural/natural world was a qualitatively different place in the ancient past; and (2) that "lost world" world was destroyed through some kind of incredible catastrophe.

As I start to think about what specific claims to focus on, I'm struck (again) by the overall staleness of the fringe world. There's plenty of "new" material out there, but much of it mixes around the same basket of stupid garbage that's been circulating since the mid-1800s. While there is still great value in going through these ideas and understanding (1) where they come from, (2) how they can be shown to be wrong, and (3) why people still cling to them, it would also be nice to explore something that's not essentially a re-casting of Victorian baloney. If you know of anything that really strikes you as a new claim based on new evidence that fits within the theme of the course, please let me know with a comment.

My wife thinks that finding a new nemesis would help to energize me. She may be right. It would fun to engage in a focused, prolonged analysis/debate of a specific claim or set of claims that revolve around material evidence. The key term here is "material evidence:" in order to have a meaningful back-and-forth, there has to be some kind of "thing" about which a claim/interpretation is made. One good artifact in archaeological context is all you really need to make a claim that actually has some teeth . . . so what have you got? What's the artifact that should change everything? (Note: discredited Roman sword advocates and rune stone apologists need not apply.) 

I suspect that elements of my arrival story to the world of "ancient mysteries" will resonate with others in my generation: I watched In Search Of . . . on TV, was fascinated by anything weird in the various Time-Life Books we had at home, and found myself drawn to the small paranormal section in the local library.  The "information" was out there, but it was up to me to find it. Commercial media was financially motivated to lend a helping hand.

Many of you who, like me, had to actively seek out pseudo-science during your formative years will be surprised to learn that the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is now apparently spoon-feeding it to high school kids in their classrooms. Here's a screenshot from the African American Voices Lesson Plan: 

Yeah, so . . . MDCPS has apparently interpreted the Florida state standard of "Recognize significant events, figures, and contributions of Islamic, Meso-American, South American and Sub-Saharan African civilizations" as a hyper-diffusionist's wet dream.  If reading through the tortured objectives, activities, and questions in this lesson plan leaves you confused about the focus, I refer you to the suggested readings: Ivan Van Sertima and Gavin Menzies. Pro tip for you MDCPS: add Barry Fell, the Book of Mormon, and some white supremacist crap about Atlanteans to round out this list. Then you'll have a unit really worthy of appropriating Native American cultures.

This is one of the four "Higher Order Thinking Questions:"

4. What peoples do the Olmec statue heads most likely represents? How can you tell?

MDCPS: leading the nation in meme-based learning?

The claim that there was any African "influence" on Olmec society is, as far as I know, not accepted by any actual scholars on Mesoamerican history and culture. In a quick search I could not find any other examples of Florida school curricula that interpreted ​SS.912.W.3.15 like MDCPS apparently has. It seems that MDCPS is alone in so baldly blending pseudo-scientific claims into its social studies program.

It's a shame for many reasons, and I hope someone in a position of authority sees fit to take a look at this. I agree completely that non-European aspects of world history need to be taught far more aggressively. But substituting a focus on European exploration and colonization with a raft of dubious claims about non-European exploration and colonization and casting it as a study of Mesoamerican civilization is absurd. I see nothing in the lesson plan that suggests fringe claims are being critically evaluated on the basis of evidence. Instead it appears that the claims are to be taken at face value and accepted as evidence that the history books are wrong.

Sound familiar?

You're not doing your students any favors. The History Channel will probably send a gift basket, though.

​I thank my friend Pablo Benavente for making me aware of this story via the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame.

Afternote:

​I found this page at Prairie View A&M University.

As I was responding to yet another absurd comment on my review of the terrible book Species With Amnesia, I realized it has been over a month since I have written a blog post. I take that gap as a win for my struggle to take a summer pause from the world of academia, etc. Over the past month and change I have been on a family vacation to Edisto, SC, spent a lot of time with my kids, attended my first Comic Con (Atlanta), gotten a few things done around the house, done some art, and begun the long struggle to regain my proficiency at doing a cannonball off the diving board. I have paid relatively little attention to politics, archaeology, and the pseudo-archaeological fakers clamoring for attention. I am better off for it.

I have a list of things to write about when I start sitting down regularly at my computer again in a couple of weeks. I won't list them, because chances are good that I won't actually write about most of them.

I did want to take a minute to pass on links to some content related to the artwork I've been doing over the last month. I have completed several small pieces and have several other projects in progress. If you want to see what I'm up to as I'm doing it, I post regularly to my dedicated art page on Facebook and to my art-only Instagram account.

Here are some images and videos of some of my recent pieces (images will link to gallery pages on my art website):

And now I need to go get the towels and fill up the kids' water bottles.

I'm going to start with a point of order: my fascination with roosters goes deep into my childhood on an Ohio farm, and far predates any association with the University of South Carolina. I'm not a big fan of college sports, and over the last several years I've stopped paying any attention to any sports. So when I make a rooster it isn't out of any desire to cheer on the Gamecocks. And it isn't because I think cock-fighting is cool. It's because I find roosters to be intrinsically interesting.

I also like rooster art. And for a town where the gamecock is king, a lot of the rooster art falls somewhere on the spectrum between "bland" and "dumb." As Exhibits A and B, I present to you the sculpture that greets visitors at the Columbia airport and the $85,000 statue that graces the campus.

Eighty.

Five.

Thousand.

Dollars?

Moving on . . .

​"Pinwheel" started with trying to capture the lines and feel of a shape in motion. I used some arcs of round steel from an old outdoor table (curb find) to start outlining the crescent shape of a rooster back-pedaling into the air. The feel of the piece emerged over the course of the month as I triangulated what I envisioned with the materials I had and my technical abilities. It wanted a twirling, spinning, somewhat gritty, mechanistic-yet-on-the-edge-of-control feeling, like being on a beat-up carnival ride. I also wanted an out-of-balance display, part show and part genuine menace. "Pinwheel" is a summer evening's trip down the midway and through the gauntlet of posturing carnies trying to goad little boys into demonstrating their manhood. It's the perpetual motion machine of flashing lights, trampled grass, fried food, and the music of AC/DC blaring from the Matterhorn.

It's also for sale.

I think this piece turned out great -- it's perhaps the "best" thing I've created so far. I'm selling it because I don't really have the space to display it inside the house (it's an inside piece) and because I honestly think it is a piece that can be enjoyed and appreciated by a lot people. Of course it won't evoke the same basket of memories and feelings from everyone that sees it. That's okay. I did what I set out to do, so my job is done.

I think "Pinwheel" would look great over the bar in a high-end restaurant in Columbia or some other city. "Pinwheel" has a wingspan of 38," a height (from the base to the highest wingtip) of 41," and a length (from beak to tail) of 30." The base is a steel ring with a 16.25" diameter. The base could be changed but there would be engineering involved.

I'm asking $8000 for it and a display that includes my name. If you've got the cash, the space, and the desire to ditch your cartoon chicken and sit at the adult table, please send an email to my art account: ​andy.white.zpm@gmail.com.  I'm always ready to consider interesting trades or other offers, but please don't email me to ask if I'll take $200 for it.

I'm going to put two old radio tubes in the sockets of the light fixture after I apply a clear coat to the piece to lock in the patina.

Here are some more photos (and more here; video coming soon):

Update (6/22/2018): Yes, it's as dangerous as it looks.

Soundtrack.

I think my decision to "just say no" to art commitments for a while is already paying off. Changing the question of "what do I need to do" to "what do I want to do" felt like removing the handcuffs yesterday when I got out to my garage, and I busted out a quick piece that I'm really happy with: "Music Box."

Carolina wrens are among my favorite parts of living in Columbia. If you've never been around these birds, you probably don't truly appreciate how loud and bold a pocket-sized bird can be. They sing all day, starting before sunrise. Sometimes they sing all night. If you leave your lawn chair for five minutes you may find a nest in it by the time you get back. They often fly into my garage even while I'm working, completely unfazed by the noise, sparks, and smoke.

"Music Box" was scaled around the neck of a trashed mandolin that one of my local supporters, Susan James, gave me. The body is shaped around a piston from an automobile engine, and the head and shoulders are made from a doorknob. The wings are made from some of the mandolin body and a clock gear. I used the strings (in need of being changed years ago) from my own guitar.

I'm still thinking about what exactly this one "means," beyond the obvious connection between wrens and their songs. As I was working on this and thinking about it, I found myself listening to REM's "Everybody Hurts" over and over again. It's a song about hanging on, especially though long, lonely nights. I think what resonates for me is the unending, self-contained spirit of these tiny, fearless birds whose morning songs signal that the day is right around the corner.

​The second bird is "The Red," an owl made from an old red gas tank I bought from a junk store in eastern North Carolina during a trip this spring with my daughter. I bought the tank for $5 (I tried to get it for $2, but Windy could tell I wanted it) not knowing what it would be. "The Red" by Chevelle popped into my head on the way back from TAG and it the piece was there to be made.

I had a few art lessons as a little kid. One of the things that one of the teachers said that stuck with me was "nothing is ever one color." The water is blue, but it's not all the same blue. The shadows are dark, but they're not the same dark. Seeing the variation is one thing; capturing it in art is something else altogether.

One of the things I wanted to do with "The Red" is take that simple little "red" gas tank and let loose the different shades and textures. Emotions, like objects that we can see and touch, are complex, variable, and never all one color.

I perched this one on an old 1930's lamp stand, cut so the owl is about at eye level.

I'm kind of fascinated by this one because of its connection to internal combustion. It's made from a gas tank. It has the glass fuel petcock inside. It has spark plugs. It's a post-steam creature that produces power by burning within. I kept thinking of that line from "Red Dawn" where the guy says that the anger inside keeps him warm. 

I captured the making of "The Red" on video. Enjoy!​

It was busy spring for me and my family. Part of what made it busy was the convergence between the end of the academic year and art-related commitments I made to make things, ship things, and exhibit things. Although each of those obligations was worthwhile on its own, the cumulative effect was a feeling of being over-booked. It was a buzzkill. 

Art is a glorified hobby for me. Now that I've been successful selling some pieces, of course, there's also an economic utility. But I don't need to always have something for sale, always have a show on the horizon, always have a deadline looming. What I do need is get out in the garage and let my mind and body make what I want to make for a while. So that's what I'm going to do with the time I have this summer. I'm going to say "no thank you" to commitments through the fall. My gut tells me that what I make will be better as a result and it will make me happier to make it. And that would be the main point.

My wife and I went out to dinner last night before going to the EcoFAB show at Tapp's. We went to The Oak Table (for the first time) and learned that it was the last night the restaurant would be open. I had beef Wellington, which I have been wanting to try since I saw Gordon Ramsay getting pissy about it over and over again on Hell's Kitchen years ago. It was pricey, but it felt serendipitous that it was on the menu on what was the restaurant's last day and what felt like the first day of the real summer to me. Plus I just sold "Naked Flank," so it was a gift to myself to pull the trigger and order a $50 dish. And I didn't take a picture of it. Because that's dumb.

The show at Tapp's was a lot of fun, with some really interesting and creative work on display in both wearable and stationary form. A year out from my Afterburner show last May, Tapp's is one of the few places in town where I can go and feel like I know a few people who know who I am and like when I stop by. They don't know or care what I actually do for a living, I'm not defined by which kids are mine, and none of the interactions are torqued by the weird power hierarchies that permeate academic culture.

I'm happy to be involved in the art scene here in Columbia, and I'm determined to keep it that way. That means saying "no thank you" more often.

I spent this week along the Broad River with colleagues from the South Carolina Heritage Trust and some of my own students doing fieldwork associated with a research grant I received from USC. The grant, titled "Finding the Family in South Carolina Prehistory," was focused on exploring the potential for buried archaeology in alluvial landforms in the vicinity of 38FA608. Several seasons of hand excavations there have revealed about 3 m of stratified cultural deposits spanning at least 6000 years, all protected within a sandy "natural levee" deposit.

I believe I've mentioned the grant before, but only in passing. In brief, the strategy was to use a backhoe to excavate a series of short trenches spaced about 100 m apart along about a mile of deposits. The sediment sequences revealed in the walls of those trenches provide information about how the alluvial landscape along this section of the river formed and developed and which areas have (or have the potential to contain) well-preserved archaeological sites. We cleaned, drew profiles, described sediments, and photographed a wall of each trench. Carbon was scarce, but I obtained a few small samples from buried strata that I think will help me construct a preliminary depositional chronology. I'm most interested in locating sites with good potential for preserving evidence of family- and group-level behaviors in the Early and Middle Holocene (hence the name of the grant), but I want to be able to tell the rest of the story as well.

The weather was not our friend early in the week. We got soaked by heavy rain all day on Monday, and intermittently on Tuesday afternoon. The remainder of the week was better, perhaps even relatively pleasant by the standards of South Carolina in late May. 

It was a hectic week, but we got everything done and learned a tremendous amount in a short time. I owe a huge debt of thanks to Sean Taylor at the South Carolina Heritage Trust for kicking in resources (both human and machine) and expertise at his disposal. I'm also thankful for the continued generosity and hospitality of the landowner. The analysis of the materials and information will begin immediately, starting with cleaning/cataloging the artifacts we collected, digitizing the profiles, and selecting samples for radiocarbon dating, etc. I still have a day or so left in the field to map in some trench locations and take a few final notes. I'll write about it as I have time, and will produce one or two videos showing what we did. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy some photos from our week and some of my initial thoughts on what we saw:

Followers of my blog know that my year is starting to settle into a seasonal cycle of 9 months of archaeology and academics and 3 months of art. The lines aren't that sharp, but summer is the time when I get to exhale a little bit and spend time thinking about something other than the human past. I don't get paid by the University over the summer, and it has been nice to begin getting some economic utility from my art. So far I'm nowhere near being able to live off what I make selling sculptures, but it helps.

There are many different aspects of my art that I think are worth writing about and that I'd like to write about, but I find that when I have a window of discretionary time the last thing I want to do is sit down and write. So here are a few bits of super-condensed thoughts and news items from this spring.

ArtFields 2018 Has Come and Gone

If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit competitive. One of the main reasons I was interested in ArtFields was to see if I could get in, and, passing that bar, see if my entry would win anything. I got in, but I didn't win. What I did get was a better sense of how the competition works and the space my work occupies in the context of other contemporary art.

I wish I could have spent a bit more time in Lake City while with event was in full swing, but there was just too much going on at home and at work. I did manage to spend a couple of hours in town on a Wednesday (perhaps at the mid-week low point of attendance) and check out a couple of galleries and wander around town. I saw some art that really impressed me (clearly ArtFields ain't the State Fair) and some that seemed so boring and stale that I wondered how in the hell it got juried in. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course. The quietness of my personal experience on that Wednesday bummed me out a bit -- the density of people was so low that I didn't really get to talk to anyone about anything substantive. The longest conversation I had was with one of the docent volunteers who seemed also to be looking for someone to talk to.

After feeling like I didn't really exist there, I was happy to see that a quick shot of my piece made it into the final official video (at 3:41). The warm feeling I got seeing a bunch of kids around "Beauty and Grace" reminded me that seeing other people engage with and enjoy what I do is far more important to me than winning anything. I got a number of shouted compliments as Chris Gillam and I were taking the piece apart and loading it onto his trailer. That makes it worth it.

TAG

As I wrote back on the 11th, I took a carload of sculptures down to this year's Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference at the University of Florida. It took me about 6.5 hours to get to Gainesville from Columbia. Make no mistake: the Coastal Plain is vast.

I blasted music the whole way down, but drove most of the way back on Sunday silently. I came away from TAG with some mixed feelings, but I realized that driving silently for hours meant that I wanted to be able to think about things. Leaving a conference full of thoughts is, in my book, the mark of a good conference.

The interactions to my work at TAG seemed to me to range from indifference to aesthetic appreciation to deep curiosity.  I wish there had been more of the latter. I have a lot to say about the meaning, experience, and process of what I do, and I can speak the languages of both art and archaeology/anthropology. Fewer people than I expected seemed to want to talk about it.  The conversations I did have, though, were really nice and I learned a lot from them.

I spent my Saturday evening wandering up and down University Avenue, picking up whatever metal bits and pieces I could fit in my pocket. The campus was between semesters and eerily empty. I'm planning on making something out of the small assemblage I collected and calling it "Left Behind."

"Zero" and "One"

I finished a pair of small winged rabbits that I named "Zero" and "One." I wrote a little bit about them here. I steered myself heavily back into the music of Social Distortion as I was making them, and I think it was because those "shortcuts" of binary oppositions that we use so often to understand and describe the world loom so large in Mike Ness' lyrics. Winners and losers, good and evil, lovers and haters, strong and weak, saints and sinners, cowards and heros, angels and devils, beggars and choosers . . . you get the idea. The guy has been singing about the same things since I was in elementary school. It resonates with me since I've lately realized that I'm fixated, still, on the same themes, shapes, questions, and animals that I've been fascinated by since I was a little kid. I want to keep pushing myself to explore through art, but there is nothing wrong with being curious about long-standing questions and themes that remain relevant and slippery. When something bugs you, you get to keep poking at it. On a "Michael" continuum, I'm probably about 95% Ness and 5% Angelo. 

Here's a video showing some of the making of "Zero" and "One."

ecoFAB and Re-Current Shows

I'll be participating in the upcoming ecoFAB and Re-Current shows at Tapp's, organized by my friend Flavia Lovatelli. ecoFAB is a fashion show on June 2; the clothing from that show will be displayed in the windows of Tapp's along with related art through June and July. I saw part of the fashion show last year (Afterburner was running at the same time, which is how I met Flavia) but this will be my first year as a participant.

I'm bringing "Zero" and "One" (see above) as well as "Naked Flank." I'll post pictures of the show after it happens as well as the window displays. If you're in the Columbia area you should check it out.

I feel like I've been starting every blog post lately with "it's been a busy week." I'm too busy to go back and check. 

I'm travelling to Gainesville, Florida, this weekend to participate in the 2018 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference at the University of Florida. I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of new people and hearing about their work and ideas (many of which I suspect will be pretty far removed from what I spend most of my time thinking about).  I'm going as one of the featured artists, which means I'll be travelling with a car full of metal creatures rather than a Powerpoint. ​

When Ken Sassaman originally approached me about TAG, I strongly considered giving a paper. Even though much of what will be discussed is probably outside my theoretical wheelhouse, I thought I could contribute some insights into how/why/when materials in the "functional" realm can move into the "symbolic" one. I was planning on speaking from my own personal experience as an artist, tempered and informed by my training as someone who studies humans through their material culture. But with everything else going on this spring I gave up on the idea of doing a presentation and just decided to go with a scrap metal crow riding shotgun. 

I'm looking forward to some good conversations! Catch me early in the day for the best chance at coherence, later in the day for a more rambling dialogue.

The second full season at 38FA608 is in the books. Last Friday, we backfilled the block (almost) and finished up with Unit 13 (excavated one last level and re-drew the profile to include the lower deposits). Chris Moore and Mark Brooks visited the site to enjoy JJ's fish fry and collect a column of sediment samples from the profile. We recovered a Morrow Mountain point in context in the last level of Unit 13, in the "correct" position below the Guilford component.

We didn't have time to get everything buttressed up, so DuVal and I will spend tomorrow putting the site to bed and schlepping equipment back to campus.

Cheerwine is now the official drink of the Broad River Archaeological Field School.

At some point I'll probably edit all the videos together to make a feature-length film to show to next year's students.

This was a good group of students and I'm proud of all of them. Enjoy the video of our last day in the field!