Our tenth day in the field was unusual in that the focus of the day (for me, anyway) was a site visit by the board of the Archaeological Research Trust (ART), the landowner and family, and other guests. As I wrote last December, funds supplied by ART are supporting staff wages in the field and laboratory, as well as the costs of expendable field supplies and the lumber required to build protection for the vulnerable parts of the site. It was my pleasure to show them their money in action and try to communicate why what we're doing is worthwhile.

In terms of the archaeology, we're now to the point were we need to dial in the exit strategy for the semester. We've got four field days remaining, weather permitting.

"Upstairs," the last day will be spent backfilling the units and making sure everything is buttoned up and protected until the next opportunity to excavate. The second-to-last day will be devoted to drawing profiles of all the unit walls. That leaves us just two more days to excavate. Although I'm very curious to see what the deposits look like below the Mack zone, I'm not prepared to alter the piece-plot strategy at this point in order to speed things up. I think continuing to gather high resolution information as we excavate the Mack component will pay off during analysis. At the rate we're going, we may finish just one more 10 cm level in each of Units 4, 5, and 6.

"Downstairs," the end game will include cleaning, photographing, drawing, and describing the 5 m-long, 2.2 m-high profile that will be exposed when Jim Legg completes the excavation of Unit 9. With only one or two more levels to go to expose the base of the profile in Unit 9, we hope to be prepared to remove the wooden buttressing from Units 1 and 2 and clean and photograph the entire profile after one more day in the field. Drawing the profile will take at least a day. Constructing the buttressing to protect the entire 5 m will take at least part of a day. With luck, we'll be done with the downstairs before we're done upstairs.

I'm also starting to formulate my future plans for work at the site. I'll write about those plans when they're done cooking.

I've spent the last few days in the thick of a lot of data collection, data entry, and strategic planning. I haven't had much time for writing, but I did manage to cobble together this 3D model of the hilt of Fake Hercules Sword No. 23 (original post here). Enjoy!

From time to time I get contacted about potentially playing the archaeologist in this or that reality television production. It was flattering the first time it happened. Now I find it to be annoying.

To be clear, I'm not against the idea that professional archaeologists can do good by appearing on television. I'm an advocate of professionals engaging with the public and being part of the conversation about what archaeology is and what we do and do not know about the human past.  A quick look at the proliferation of pseudo-archaeology online and on TV will tell you that our de facto strategy of non-engagement hasn't worked particularly well. We need to be in the mix.

So, sure, if the right project comes along I'm open to it.

Last week I got an email "reaching out because we’re currently working on an adventure show and we’re looking to cast an archaeologist, anthropologist, or adventurer." 

The email explained that they were going to look for another "lost city," in a part of the world where I have no experience or expertise.

Thanks, but no thanks. What could I possible contribute to this project except an unmerited gloss of credibility because I have letters after my name?

Maybe the food and the scenery would be nice.

If you're a television producer and really want real archaeologists to be excited to participate in what you're doing, you'll have to actually do some work. Believe it or not, most of us don't want to be on television just for the heck of it. I hope that someday someone can figure out how to blend responsible archaeological science with a hook that can draw in viewers and sell enough advertising to create a good program. That would be a nut worth cracking.

Good luck finding that "lost city." I have other things to do.

A 3D model of the hilt of Sword 22 (first posthere) is now available on Sketchfab. Enjoy!

The much ballyhooed journey of Fake Hercules Swords 22 and 23 from Italy to Germany to New Jersey to South Carolina is over: they are now safe and sound in my office. You can exhale.

These swords, currently produced and for sale online by the Ferrara Store (Italy), were spotted by alert Swordgate aficionado Hartman Krug (here are the pages for Sword 22 and Sword 23). The store doesn't ship to the U.S., so I imposed upon a relative in Germany to purchase them for us and then ship them overseas. You can thank Stephen Bridges for his willingness to conspire.

This was an expensive endeavor, draining $187 from the Woo War One war chest. It was money well spent.

I've only had time to take a quick glance at these, but I can tell you we are going to learn a lot from them. There are many features on the swords, and differences between them, that I think will move us a way down the road to unraveling the history and chronology of these things.

I'm not going to do any in-depth analysis in this post: I just wanted to throw some preliminary photos and make a couple of baseline observations up so we can start discussing these.

You'll notice right away that the Hercules figure on Sword 22 (the one with the pugio blade) is both larger and more detailed than the hilt figure on Sword 23. Without picking up a pair of calipers or doing a close side-by-side comparison, my initial off-the-cuff guess is that the Hercules on Sword 22 may be both larger and more detailed than the Hercules on the California sword. It certainly includes at least a few things we haven't seen before (such as dimples on the guard rivets). Although the blade is clearly not the same as that of Sword 21, the pugio shapes are a notable point of similarity. I'm wondering if the currently-produced Sword 22 isn't a design from a generation that pre-dates the California sword.

Sword 23 appears to be superficially very similar to the Design Toscano swords. The figures are about the same size and have a comparable lack of detail, and the blades are very similar (but not identical) in size and shape. My first guess is that Sword 23 and the Design Toscano swords (Sword 5 in the database) are closely related.

There will be more to come on these new swords. I've got Sword 22 on my 3D scanner right now and will make the model available as soon as I can get the data processed.  In the meantime, here are some photos:

After a week off for spring break, the field school returned to the Broad River to continue excavations at 38FA608. We're in the thick of things now. Unfortunately, the student who brings a coffee maker was absent.

It's slow going in the excavation block. During our previous day in the field, we began getting into what appeared to be a Late Archaic / Early Woodland deposit in Units 4 and 6. That day ended with numerous artifacts marked in place on the floors of those units. The crews in those units spent most of the latest field day dealing with those artifacts, plotting and collecting each one. ​

Unit 6 (upper left in the photo above) produced the bases of two heavily reworked Mack points in context, along with numerous pieces of chipped stone debris and fire-cracked rock. We've seen nothing yet in those units that suggests a discrete feature. Unit 4 has produced some ceramic debris in the "Mack" deposit, but I have yet to see any large pieces or pieces with decoration (that doesn't mean we won't found them or even that we haven't already -- the students are plotting hundreds of artifacts and I'm not looking at each one as it comes out of the ground).

Progress in Unit 5 was slowed by the presence of two small features (Features 7 and 8). Feature 7 was a small deposit of dark, charcoal flecked sediment that appears similar to Feature 6 that we encountered in Unit 6. Only a portion of Feature 7 was visible in the floor of Unit 5, with the remainder extending into the unexcavated portion of Unit 3.  We documented and removed the portion in Unit 5, and we will catch the profile of the feature in the wall of the unit.

Feature 8 was a circular area of light sediment. We documented it in plan and then bisected it. It appears to be a circular pit with relatively straight sides that extend at least 15 cm from the depth at which the feature was defined. Based on the light fill of the feature, its shape in plan and profile, and the fact that it appeared within Zone 2 (the buried plowzone), the feature is almost certainly a historic period post or auger hole of some kind. We'll need to scoop out the remaining fill to keep any intrusive artifacts from plowzone from contaminating the prehistoric deposits.

Work resumed on the "downstairs" portion of the site with the return of Jim Legg. Jim and a student continued excavating Unit 9 to produce a straight profile wall. There were no diagnostic artifacts and no sign of any features associated with the presumed Middle/Late Archaic deposit, which was a bummer.  There's still a chance we'll find something in what's left of Unit 9 that can give us a firm handle on time/culture deep in the profile, but it's not looking good at this point. Jim wore black instead of paisley, and I can't completely let go of the idea that his wardrobe choice might have hurt our efforts. (Update [3/21/2017]: Legg has promised to return to paisley when we go in the field this Friday.)

I used most of my garage time this weekend to work on a bunch of different stuff to prepare for my upcoming (May) show. I fixed my rabbit's head, finally cut and attached plates on a stegosaurus that has been on the back burner for months, and cleaned, wire-wheeled, and clear-coated the rabbit and the triceratops head. I also managed to finish my heron.

This one seemed to go quickly and I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out. There are a few things I will do differently if I make another heron (I'm planning on selling this one). Here is the finished product without the final base and less the slight patina it will get by sitting outside for a while:

Last night I has happy to learn that my rooster sculpture was awarded an honorable mention at the local Trenholm Artists Guild show in Columbia.

I had never been to one of these shows before, so I didn't know what to expect. I was prepared to deliver at least a portion of the speech from Boogie Nights if I was handed a microphone.  That didn't happen, so . . . no speech, no karate moves. Maybe next time.

Here is what the judge (Dwight Rose, out of Spartanburg, South Carolina) had to say about the rooster:

My rooster was the only sculpture in a field of canvas and photographs. It was gratifying to have my work recognized among so many nice pieces. It was a good feeling, also, to get a lot of of positive reaction from one of the scrap metal art groups I participate in on Facebook. In my estimation, most of the people who do this kind of thing are, like me, "folk" artists with no formal artistic training or background. If you look at Making something new out of a bunch of old nothing is fairly pure creativity. I like it, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Following the spring break hiatus, the Broad River Field School will be back in session tomorrow. We'll be shifting gears a bit to carefully work our way into what appears to be a buried Late Archaic/Early Woodland component. I'm also anticipating continued work on the deeper deposits at the site. Hopefully it will be an eventful day. It's supposed to be sunny and in the mid 60's. I'll just leave it at that.

Here are a few quick updates on other things for those playing along at home: a new modeling paper about the minimum size of demographically viable hunter-gatherer populations, new Fake Hercules Swords en route, and an identification of last Friday's whatzit. 

Finally, following up on yesterday's post about Against Me!, I would like to encourage you to listen to the song "Rebecca" if you like the rock'n'roll music. It's on repeat in Andyland. 

Anthropology is the biggest, baddest science on the planet. Humans, human societies, and human cultures are far and away the most difficult things one can try to understand: they're complex, chaotic, layered, and historically and environmentally contingent. They're a pain in the ass to study. They're also a whole lot of fun.

I've been meaning to write a post about Against Me! since the summer of 2015. That July, I took my daughter to see them in Grand Rapids, Michigan (you can see a photo of me with Laura Jane Grace after the show here). I knew next to nothing about the band at the time, but was blown away by what I saw and heard. I became an instant fan. Two of their albums went into heavy rotation on my walk-to-work soundtrack. 

I never found the time to write the original post.  I wanted to write about the binary oppositions/tensions/categories (life/death, male/female, etc.) I heard embedded in the lyrics, the influences I detected in the music, and the extraordinary energy I felt in that room in Grand Rapids. In case you don't know, Laura Jane Grace was born Thomas James Gabel, coming out publicly as a transgender woman in 2012 (you can get an outline of the band's history here). Listen to 2014's Transgender Dysphoria Blues with that history and context in mind, comparing it what you hear on 2010's White Crosses. If you just want to dip your toe in the water, listen to "White Crosses" and "Bamboo Bones" from 2010 and then "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" and "Black Me Out" from 2014.  Compare "Because of the Shame" (2010) with "Dead Friend" (2014). 

There is something amazing, unmistakable, and unfakable about artistic honesty. I've been listening to music, playing music, and going to concerts for much of my life. Against Me! is the real deal. Period.

I took my daughter to see them again last weekend, this time at the tiny Throne Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina. Because of that, I now "get" the appeal of the communal energy in live punk music in a way that I never did before. Near the stage all night, I was simultaneously shoved and supported, lifted up and pushed down. There were strange hands holding on to my shoulders and resting constantly against my back. Everything was moving, all the time. In the interconnected crowd, you can physically feel the ripples of energy because you're a part of it, as is everyone else. And once I got used to the culture, once the touch of strangers was no longer strange, it was exhilarating. Someone always, literally, had my back.  I knew I wouldn't fall down because I could feel an anonymous hand there to hold me up. 

As a person who grew up on hard rock and heavy metal, this sense of community was new to me. The crowds at the big concerts I went to as a kid (AC/DC, Metallica, Guns & Roses, blah blah blah) skewed hostile. To me, it seemed like most of the people there were angry and hoping to take it out on each other. You passed time before the show watching people get hauled out by security. I tried not to look anyone in the eye. I'm pretty sure the guy behind me at an AC/DC concert flicked his cigarette ashes on my hair -- I wouldn't know, because I didn't turn around for fear of getting punched in the face.

Being in that crowd at the Throne also helped me understand why there's so much bad punk music: because it doesn't matter. As long as there's a beat, the crowd takes care of itself. It does its own thing, even if there's no melody, even if there's not a catchy hook, even if the lyrics are a bunch of shouted garbage. This has always been a mystery me. I've watched a lot of documentaries about punk music, and I never "got" the appeal until I was in a crowd myself. That's anthropology for you. (See that? Participant observation -- get in there and experience it to learn about it -- this post actually is about anthropology.)

If you liked rock music in the 90's but have checked out, I urge you to check back in for a few minutes and give this band a try.  Against Me! is bigger than the sum of its parts. The energy is there, but so is the music, so is the honesty, so is the bravery.  It's not a sob story or a pity party. It's a force for good.  It's gender, it's anger, it's tenderness, it's human, and it kicks ass. Rock and roll isn't dead.

Here are some videos I took of some of my favorite songs. The camera moves not because I'm unsteady, but because the whole crowd is in motion. Enjoy!