It already sounds like a paper title -- just replace what's after the colon with "A Model-Based Approach."

I'm coming up on the end of my second year in South Carolina. I think it takes a few annual cycles before you start to "get" the rhythms and tempos of seasonality in a new environment. Prior to coming here I had lived in the Midwest for most of my life, so there's a lot to learn. 

As an archaeologist, I don't try to understand the environment just so I can give it a round of applause (if I had to pick what to applaud here, however, it probably would be the birds, flowers, and insects). Human societies and natural environments are inter-linked in numerous and  complex ways -- figuring out those linkages and understanding how the "social" and "natural" parts of those coupled systems affect one another is an intrinsically interesting and profoundly important part of understanding how human societies work and how they changed in the past.

My point in writing this isn't to compose a fully-formed, well-researched argument, but rather to jot down a few observations/ideas/questions that have struck me since I transplanted myself into a region of the country with environments that are, in many ways, dissimilar from those of the Midcontinental interior with which I am most familiar (i.e., the Ohio Valley, the Till Plains, the Great Lakes). I don't have time to pull all these strings yet -- I'm just noting them.

First, the Deer . . .

Early on, I commented on what must be differences in the demography and behavior of a key Holocene large game species (white-tailed deer) across the different regions of the Eastern Woodlands. One would expect that those regional differences -- whatever they are -- would have articulated somehow with the behaviors of the human populations that exploited them.  Generally, we presume that periodic (i.e., seasonal) aggregations of hunter-gatherer populations are useful to those societies for a number of demographic and social reasons. Logically, aggregations of large numbers of people have to take place when and where the resource base can support them. I would guess that most archaeologists in the north have a "fall aggregation" model in their heads, based in part on when deer are the fattest and least cautious. Are those conditions different in the Southeast, where the seasonal gradient is much less severe than in the north?  Do deer populations go through boom/bust cycles? If so, are those linked to periodicities in mast production? Do those periodicities differ from region to region in the Eastern Woodlands? Deer hunting isn't everything, but it's surely something.

​Second, the Sea . . .

At some recent conference, I had a conversation with a colleague who has been working in this region for a long time. It was clear he had had a few drinks, so he was probably telling me the truth. He said that the rhythms and tempos of hunting and gathering on the coast are very different than in the interior. I've never done coastal archaeology -- when I go to the beach it's usually to let the kids play, watch birds, and look for shells.

We were at Edisto last year during the time when the loggerhead sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. These are big animals, with adults weighing about 300 pounds (up to about 1000 pounds). The females come ashore at night during the summer to lay about 120 eggs in a nest in the sand. 

Watching the Edisto turtle patrol identify and check nests every morning, I became curious about how turtle nesting behavior articulated with prehistoric coastal hunter-gatherers in this region. The nests are easily spotted by the tread-like path that turtles leave as they move across the sand. Caught in the act, the adult turtles are large packages of meat, sitting in the open, defenseless. Presumably a couple of people could flip one on its back and return later for an on-the-spot feast or to butcher the animal.

How much archaeological evidence is there of sea turtle exploitation on the Carolina coast? Does it change through time? Where would sea turtles rank in terms of a seasonally-predictable resource that could be used to support periodic aggregations? Were sea turtles part of coastal Carolina hunter-gatherer cosmology (perhaps in connection with the summer solstice)? I don't know the answers to any of these questions.

Third, the Air . . .

The birds here are beautiful, plentiful, varied, and constant. Of the 914 species of birds documented in the United States, over 400 occur in South Carolina. That's a lot of birds. Some sing all year round. Some even sing at night. It's fabulous.

One bird I have learned about since I moved here is the Mississippi Kite. It is a smallish, grey raptor that winters in South America but breeds in the southeastern United States.

These birds eat mostly flying insects, and you can see them circling over my neighborhood during much of the summer. Their appearance in the region seems to coincide with what I interpret as the "high" insect season -- the cicadas are hatching in force and there are things buzzing around everywhere. They're a signal of a season change here, perhaps much in the same way as the yearly arrival of Turkey Vultures north of the Ohio River. 

However the annual long-distance migration/breeding pattern of the kites evolved, I would guess that the dense insect populations of the Southeast are a key to making it viable. That got me thinking about the effects of longer-term periodicities, particularly the those of the 13-year and 17-year periodical cicadas. The emergence of buhzillions of cicadas at the same time would surely make for easy living for the kites, as well as for game animals with an insect-based diet (e.g., turkeys). The periodical cicadas tend to damage trees, however, which reduces mast production (and hence could have a suppressing effect on deer populations). Did any of this factor into the characteristics (social, behavioral, cosmological, etc.) of the prehistoric human societies of this region? I don't know.

Finally, from the Periodic to the Anomalous . . .

The completion of my second year in Columbia will be marked by a total solar eclipse that I'll be able to experience from my backyard on August 21 at 2:41 p.m. I've never seen a total eclipse before, and I may never see one again. Most people don't see one in their lifetime. I'm really looking forward to it. Thankfully I won't have to stay up late at night to see it.

Obviously, it's now old hat for us to predict these "anomalous" astronomical alignments with a great deal of accuracy (business depends on it). Given how infrequently these things occur and the low probability of any one person accidentally being in the right place at the right time to witness it, it's natural to wonder what prehistoric peoples would have made of this sort of phenomenon. I'm really curious as to what it will feel like to experience it firsthand (I'd also like to know what's it like to be in a hurricane, to break the sound barrier, to be close to a tornado, to fly at the edge of the atmosphere, to experience zero gravity, etc., in case your looking for ideas for my birthday).

So What?

Somewhere in all this mess, there's a question to be crystalized about how human societies "tune" themselves to the predictable and unpredictable fluctuations in their environments. What are the feedbacks? What are the dampers? What are the common denominators? What is the range of risk/variability that societies create cultural rules or behaviors to respond to? What happens when the needle moves outside of that range? Which parts are robust? Which parts break? How do responses scale to the size and predictability of perturbations across time and space?  I have no answers right now, just questions.

And now I've got to move on and do other things.

I admit that I have not done a good job this summer keeping up with the pseudo-archaeology. I continue to think there is utility to actual archaeologists and anthropologists being part of a constructive discussion about what we know about the human past and how we know it.  The sameness of the "fringe" chatter gets boring sometimes, though, and I've been taking a break.

I wanted to take a minute, however, to point out yet another misrepresentation/lie by our friend Hutton "100% Confirmed" Pulitzer, pointed out to me with this screenshot from Facebook:

This is old hat to those of us who engage with these "forbidden history" types online.  When they have no positive evidence to support their claims, it's common for them to invoke "conspiracy to conceal evidence by _____" to explain the lack of evidence (fill in the blank with academic field, government agency, or religion of your choice). When multiple people assess the situation and come to the same conclusion (that the claim is bogus), they frequently sound the "I'm being attacked by paid shills with fake profiles" alarm. In this case, Pulitzer is reiterating his frequent claim that I'm involved in some sinister plot to discredit him by "hiding behind a fake profile."

There's no need to discredit him any further -- he's already done that to himself.

For the record, I have only one profile on Facebook. It's really me. It's my real name. I keep my profile "private" because most of what I post is stuff about my family. 

I'm really an assistant research professor at the University of South Carolina, where I teach and do research for 9 months of the year. That's it.

Just like his baloney stories about the "Roman sword" and so many other things, Pulitzer cannot and will not produce a shred of evidence to back up his claim that I'm "hiding behind a fake profile." I'm not. It's a lie, like so many other things he's said. 

And now I'm going to go back to doing interesting things. Right now I'm on my way to pick up a load of scrap, then I'm going to take care of a few things at the office and then hopefully have some time this afternoon to work in my garage. Tomorrow I'm planning on taking the kids to the beach. I've got more real archaeology stuff in the works, and I'll be writing about it as I have the time and inclination. Summer!

I didn't think it would happen, but it did: after my final push to finish new work for the Afterburner re-opening, I needed a break from the garage. I busted my butt for several sweaty, grimy weeks and got seven new things pushed out of my head. The Tapp's people helped me move them, and they did a wonderful job rearranging everything to integrate the new pieces. The place looked great on opening night, the weather cooperated, and there was a steady stream of people coming through. I enjoyed talking to everyone I met.  

I didn't make any new sales that night. The show isn't over yet (it runs until the 23rd), but it looks like I'll need to find homes for some of the larger pieces (I love them, but my backyard can only support so many large animals). If you're interested, have a look at what's for sale. If you like one of the larger ones and have a good plan for what to do with it, I'll talk turkey on price (contact Tapp's) and may be willing to discuss donating after the show is over in cases where a piece could be displayed in public (or in a business, etc.). In any case, this experience has helped me learn how to look forward to what's next in addition to looking back. That makes it easier to let things go. 

I haven't taken the time lately to write individual "how I made it" blog posts, but I did update the Gallery page with some photos of recently completed work. 

​And who knows what's next. I spent a few days shoehorning my old record player and 8-track into a sewing table.  Then I reorganized my workshop.  Then yesterday I started working on an owl made from an antique roller skate.