I hate to be the "we told you so" guy, but that's what I'm going to be: 

We told you so.

Those of us who have studied the recent resurgence of pseudo-scientific ideas about the human past have been saying for years that this stuff isn't just entertainment. Conceptions about what happened in the past matter deeply to the present, as our orientation toward the world (and particularly its peoples) necessarily depends on an understanding of how the world got to be what it is. We explain the present by reference to the past. That's why getting it right matters. That's why we've developed scientific methods for understanding the past that employ mechanisms to determine if our interpretations are right or wrong.

With the Trump administration barely a week old, you're already seeing seeing the effects of disregarding evidence-based reality and crafting federal policy based on ideologies about the human past. So . . . it's "funny" when it's on the History Channel but not so "funny" when it's keeping real humans detained in airports indefinitely.

As alarming as it is to see it materialize at the highest levels of our government, the white supremacist ideology that we're now watching surface is nothing new.  It's been around since long before any of us was born -- at least since the age of European exploration and colonialism- -- and has manifest itself in different forms at different times and places. The "white people are naturally the best people" assertion has been a steady constant in pseudo-scientific claims about the human past from the early 1800's right up to the present day. Some of the current proponents of Victorian-age baloney ideas about Atlantis, Aryans, giants, and the pre-Columbian colonization of the Americas by white people are unabashed racists and neo-Nazis.  And now we've elevated them from selling factually inaccurate, heavily plagiarized books on CreateSpace to whispering in the president's ear.

If you want to know what the alt-right thinks about the origins of race and what it has to do with government and economics, listen to this podcast titled "The Origins of the White Man." In it, Richard Spencer (an alt-right figure most famous for leading Trump supporters in a Nazi salute immediately following the election, and, more recently, getting punched in the face twice in one day while celebrating Trump's inauguration) interviews Kevin MacDonald (a retired psychology professor and current editor of the Occidental Observer, a white nationalist publication).

The pair discuss the origins of white people, what makes white people special, and why they think white people need to stick together to protect white people interests. What was most astounding to me was not the factual inaccuracies (there were many) or the ridiculous facade of scholarship manufactured by having a former professor pontificate on a subject he doesn't really understand, but the cartoonish quality of the conclusions of these clowns. It's a ridiculous conversation, only one step removed from attributing the perceived greatness of white people to their special origins in an Aryan Atlantis. Try having a 45-minute conversation with a four-year-old about how electricity works -- maybe that would be a good simulation of what's it like for a professional anthropologist/archaeologist to listen to this nonsense. Unsurprisingly, the origins story that they fetishize isn't original, but resonates with white supremacist mythologies that have been around for a long time (and that constitute the barely-submerged thesis of many "alternative archaeology" programs promoted in places like The History Channel).

One thing I did learn from listening to the interview is that the white supremacist ideology of the alt-right does have a logical connection to their ideas about government, economics, and immigration. If your reaction to the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies that we're seeing is that "it's all about hate," I will tell that it's more than that. I encourage you to listen to the interview that I linked to above and hear for yourself how the alt-right's ideas about race, society, government, and economics are inter-linked.  Speaking in the context of claims that the success of white European societies can be attributed to their tripartite structure (a merchant class, a warrior class, and "those who pray"), Spencer identifies what he thinks is wrong with the United States (about 25:00 in): ​

That quote, I think, helps explain why traditional Republican approaches to "pro-business, pro-growth" policies have been relegated to the kids' table while the white supremacists in the Oval Office try to engineer a re-making of government that restores a mythological tripartite balance to our society. They see liberal immigration policy as something deferential to the role of the merchant class and harmful to the cause of producing an ethnically-strong nation. They see in Trump someone who will use flamboyant signature to "guard the gates" and elevate those in the warrior class who are willing to confront "the other."

It's about intolerance, sure, but it's a philosophical, strategic intolerance that goes well beyond some kind of visceral reaction to all non-white people. I think we need to understand that. And I don't think it's irrelevant that the blueprint for society that we're now seeing stamped across our political and economic landscape is drawn directly from claims about the human past that are demonstrably baloney. I winced when Rachel Maddow showed Spencer's post-election speech and kept smirking at his use of the phrase "Children of the Sun."  Neither she nor any other member of the mainstream media caught the deep historical connection to the white supremacist rhetoric of hyperdiffusionism. If you don't know what it is, look it up.  Fringe history is in the White House now, and you should know where the "harmless" ideas come from -- it matters.

This mockingbird is the smallest sculpture I have welded so far. I started it right after I finished the MiG-15, on a rainy day when I couldn't push my crane and my unfinished stegosaurus outside like I normally do (to make room to maneuver).​

I don't have many "in progress" shots of this one because I did it in only two sittings. The base is made from part of a coil spring and the perch is the tine from a pitchfork. The bird is made from nails and bolts, steel rod from an oven rack, and sheet metal from a lawn mower (black), filing cabinet (grey), curtain rods (white), and a patio table (white). The shiny piece at the rear end of the bird is the top of the tea kettle lid I used to make the top of the head of Owl #1.

The winter weather here is really unbelievable: for the third straight Friday we had a nice, sunny day in the field (cooler than last week -- mid-50's -- but still great weather to work outdoors).  One downside to the warm winters here is that you can encounter ticks and mosquitoes even in January. That's a fair price to pay, however, for the ability to do archaeology all through the year without employing heroic measures like temporary structures and heaters.

We got lucky with the weather last Friday, as it rained pretty heavily on Saturday and Sunday. So the first thing we had to do this morning was bail out the units. Everyone needs to learn how to bail out units.

Excavation of the block units continued with completion of the first level, ending at 40 cm below datum (cmbd) in Units 4, 5, and 6. The Unit 5 crew had significantly more roots to deal with, so their Level 1 took longer (they wrapped it up by the end of the day today). In Units 4 and 6, I had them excavate Level 2 (40-50 cmbd) as an arbitrary 10 cm level across the whole 2m x 2m unit simultaneously. The point of having them excavate Level 1 in 1m x 1m quadrants was to give everyone some repetitions taking elevations, excavating, making bags, and filling out forms. I felt like they had grasped the basic methods and procedures after the first level, so it was appropriate to have them try their hands at a 2 x 2. Unit 6 was done with Level 2 by the end of the day; Unit 4 still has a final trim and clean-up to go.

With the 1000 E profile line laid out, Jim Legg and his crew could start excavating Unit 9. They started this from both the top and the side, first cutting the walls of the unit from above and then using a shovel and dustpan to come in from the profile wall itself. The strategy was to remove the first sediment zone as a natural level (using the existing profile as a guide), paying particular attention to the interface between the upper zone and what was below it. In the profile, there is a darker zone visible immediately beneath first zone.

When Jim and his crew got to the base of the uppermost zone, it was apparent (as we suspected) that it is a plowzone. There are linear plow scars running across the unit. This diagnosis of the uppermost zone as a plowzone is consistent with the mixture of historic and prehistoric artifacts we've been finding in Levels 1 and 2 of the block units. 

I've created a website as part of the field school I'm teaching this spring:

www.broadriverarchaeologicalfieldschool.weebly.com

I have two main goals in creating the site, both related to communication between professional archaeologists and the public. 

First, I hope that the website will be a way to communicate a good example how field archaeology in this part of the world is actually done. While there are many non-professionals out there who have a fairly sophisticated understanding of how and why professional archaeologists go about collecting data in the field, there are many others that, I think, have a pretty inaccurate picture in their heads.  Putting time and energy into writing about the field school and explaining what we're doing and why we're doing it that way is part of my ongoing effort to provide a realistic picture of what real archaeology is and how it's done.

Second, I think it's critically important to our future that students learn how to effectively communicate about archaeology with the public. It is my impression that our field has done a generally poor job representing ourselves in ways that are accessible to the general public. Without public support, much of the work we do would not exist, and interest in the preservation and management of cultural heritage resources (such as archaeological sites) would evaporate. It's important that we train the next generation of archaeologists to talk to the public.

For that reason, over the course of the semester each student in the field school will write several blog posts about his/her activities and experiences. I've assigned days to each student, so you should expect to see three new blog posts in the student blog section of the website each week. I hope you enjoy them. 

I plan to add more content (photos, artifact pictures, etc.) as I have time and as things progress. I hope you'll stay tuned and check in to see how things are going as we work our way through the semester.

Information about Fake Hercules Sword 20 comes to us from Michael Castagne, who reports that he was given the sword around 2007 by a friend who purchased it for $5 at a Toronto yard sale.

I've added the sword (a "J") to the database, estimating some of the basic dimensions from the scaled images.

Alert readers will have noticed that I have added slots for Swords 22 and 23 to the database.  Those are going to be interesting. My gut tells me we may be nearing another "tipping point" in the saga of the Fake Hercules Swords.

Oh wait, we're in a new era now so indulge me while I reframe the issue:

First flown in service in 1949, the MiG-15 was one of the earliest successful swept-wing aircraft. It is also, in my opinion, a beautifully-proportioned aircraft. So I made one.

After getting our excavation areas cleared and our units set up on Day 1, we were in good shape to start excavating first thing on Friday morning. I gave the students a brief tour of the unit excavation forms we'll be using and explained how redundancies in the information recorded on their forms, in the field specimen (FS) log, on the bags, and in their notes help catch paperwork/provenience errors early in the process. Each student was issued two Sharpies with the challenge of keeping track of them for the duration of the field school.  The first one is free, but replacement Sharpies cost $100/each.

Most of the students worked with me and DuVal Lawrence in the "upstairs" part of the site, excavating the first levels of the units in the 4m x 4m block. Jim Legg and one student worked "downstairs," beginning excavations with the goal of creating a 5m profile wall along the 1000E line. Here is the updated unit map showing the placement of Unit 8 in the "downstairs" portion of the site:

Unit 8 is a 1m x 2m unit, the east side of which is on the floor of the "downstairs" and the northwest corner of which cuts into the existing vertical wall. Legg established the unit outlines using the two permanent datums that I put in downstairs (designated by the circled x's in the map above). He excavated through the deposits in 20 cm levels, screening the sediments that were removed. The darker zone associated with the presumed Middle/Late Archaic component is clearly visible in the freshly-excavated wall.

As you can see in the photograph of the Unit 8 excavation, the profile is capped by a sediment zone that contains abundant roots. That zone provided the students with their first "shovels in the ground" excavation experience as we began excavation of three of the units (Units 4, 5, and 6) in the 4m x 4m block that we laid out on Day 1.

I split the students into three groups and gave each group the task of excavating the southeastern 1m x 1m quadrant of their 2m x 2m unit. We went over the basic procedures of getting paperwork set up, labeling bags, double checking coordinates, and taking beginning depths. For the block excavation, we're controlling elevation using a rotating laser level sitting on a concrete block of known elevation (designated Datum 2017A).  Level 1 of Units 4, 5, and 6, will end at 40 cm below datum. I chose that depth to produce a level surface across the block that is still within the upper zone at the site -- these were the first ever levels excavated by these students and it's important to give them some experience with basic unit/level excavation techniques before we get into the intact deposits that (I think) will begin pretty close to the surface.

As of now, my plan is to concentrate our efforts on Units 4, 5, and 6 for the time being. With two sides exposed in profile, Unit 3 could then be excavated by natural/cultural sediment zone rather than in arbitrary levels, and could also serve as a "step" to get down into the other units. This would let us avoid putting stress on the southern and eastern sides of the block, preserving those walls for profiling.

In terms of artifacts, the first levels in block yielded low quantities of historic-period debris (a shotgun shell, a couple of pieces of iron, etc.). The first level of the NW 1/4 of Unit 4 did produce a prehistoric body sherd, however, which was a bit of a surprise. Based on the profile revealed in the vertical cut, I didn't expect to encounter prehistoric material until we penetrated what appeared to be a recently-deposited "cap" of lighter-colored sediment. I really don't understand the upper zones of the site yet, so these first levels will be interesting. It's possible that there's a well-preserved Mississippian or Woodland component near the surface, and it's also possible that material from deeper has been brought closer to the surface through natural mechanisms (animal burrows, tree falls, etc.). I hope to be at least starting level 2 in the block units by the end of next Friday. 

Up until now, I haven't utilized YouTube to any great degree. While I'm still not sure that I will, I took a few minutes today to consolidate the few videos that I've previously put online (they were in several different places). This is my channel.  So far all I have on there is a bit of video from an air show, some videos of dragonflies, a snippet from Jim Vieira's visit to my class last semester, and a video of the owl sculpture I just finished. 

I anticipate posting some raw video from my field school this semester, and I'd like to produce some more polished content at some point.  In the meantime, enjoy this video of a slowly rotating scrap metal owl:

Yesterday I finished the owl sculpture that I've been working on since the end of December. There a few minor things I would change, but generally I'm pretty happy with it. I originally set out to make a great horned owl at the suggestion of a local resident who was interested in buying it for her garden. After I started working on it, though, I realized I wasn't having a lot of fun trying to anticipate what someone else might or might not like. So I through the "for sale" idea out the window and focused on just having a good time making an owl. Here is how it turned out (here is a video):

And here is how I made it.

This blog post brought to you by insomnia.

A comment by Graham on yesterday's blog post about the newly-discovered Sword 21 raised the possibility that Sword 21, with it's fullered/ribbed "xiphos" blade was a member of the parent generation to the Type F swords (California [Sword 3] and Sonja [Sword 8]):

"Interesting. That design with the full length rib running down the center of the blade looks like the 'fullers' on the California and Sonja blades. Could one of these 'daggers' have been broken in two near the hilt and then used to cast those blades."

I think that's a reasonable working hypothesis.  

One mystery that it would explain is the origin of the partially-fullered blade on the F swords . . . those swords have fullers that begin at the guard but end just a few centimeters down the blade.

The hypothesis that Sword 21 is a representative of a pre-F generation of swords raises several expectations. As I discussed in this post from last January, we can presume that successive generations of swords will be smaller and less detailed.  Loss of both size and detail would have been the expected results of the process of making successive new molds from swords.  If Sword 21 is earlier than Sword 3 (the Type F sword about which we have the most detailed information), we would expect the hilt to be larger and at least as detailed as Sword 3.

Unfortunately, we have only a single photograph of Sword 21. It isn't scaled, so we can't say anything about size. Comparison of the Sword 21 hilt with those of other generations of swords does seem to me to be consistent with the idea that it is early in the copy chain.

Even with the low resolution of the photo, several features are visible on Sword 21 that are absent from the later swords (e.g., the Type J's and the current Design Toscano version).

• Log Bumps: The two pronounced bumps visible on the top of the log are important, as the California sword also has them but they are absent in later generations. The J and CS versions have a single pronounced bump; the Design Toscano version has a very muted bump.
• Lion Paw Digits: The individual digits of the paws of Hercules' lion skin are visible on Sword 21. They're also visible in the California sword. They're less discernible on the J swords; by the time you get to the Design Toscano swords the lion's paws are just blobs.
• Fullers: As Graham pointed out, if you chop off the blade of Sword 21 near the hilt, you've got a blade segment that appears from the photograph to be more-or-less identical with the fullered blades of the Type F swords. The fullers are lost completely in later generations as the blades become shorter and cruder.

I didn't fully appreciate the possible significance of Sword 21 when I first looked at the image -- I thought maybe it was a bizarre side-branch. But now I think it could be closer to the root. I wish we had some better pictures of the thing. I wonder if it would be worth following up with the auction site to see if they know anything else about the sword (perhaps even who purchased it).

I'm looking forward to seeing what my fellow Swordgate fans think of the idea that Sword 21 gets us closer to the elusive Mother of All Fake Hercules Swords. My plan today is to take the kids to the beach. ​Hopefully you guys can solve the mystery while I'm looking for shark teeth.