I like aviation for several reasons.  For one, the history of aviation is a fascinating entanglement of history, technological change, and cultural transformation.  The century following the first powered flight in 1903 was one of immense change on many levels:  the development and growth of aviation articulated with economics, politics, conflict, communication, science, and many other aspects of that change.  Powered flight was and is a big deal.

That is my analytical interest.  On a more visceral level, flying and the technologies we use to fly exert an emotional gravity on me.  I just like airplanes.  Period. 

This weekend I went to the annual air show held at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The “war bird” show at Willow Run traditionally leans toward World War II-era combat aircraft (both flying and on static display).  There were a lot of interesting things to see and think about at this show, both in terms of the aircraft that were present and the cultural dimensions of what was going on.   I can think of a few other kinds of events where large numbers of people gather to look at examples of obsolete technology (car shows come to mind first), but it is kind of an odd practice if you think about it.  Why does this happen?  What attracts us to celebrate specific classes of technological artifacts but not others?  It clearly isn’t just “impact factor:” the rise of computer/digital technology has had an astounding impact on the world, but we don’t gather annually to watch a TRS-80 saving a file to cassette tape or to listen to the hum of a Commodore 64 booting up (or maybe "we" do but I don't -- I'm prepared to be proven wrong on this).

Based on the conversations that I heard around me, many people at the air show weren’t there because they knew a lot of aviation history or cared about the technical specifics of what made a particular aircraft “interesting” or "significant." Sure, many people (myself included) probably were there at least partially because of some technical or historical interest.  But I think that air shows exist as a cultural phenomenon because people connect with something that is kinetic, dynamic, and beautiful in these machines.  Or at least some of these machines.  I’ll try to illustrate my point with a comparison of what I saw in the reaction of the crowd to two different aircraft: a B-17 (beautiful) and a B-24 (not beautiful).

The B-17 “Flying Fortress” (top schematic) and the B-24 “Liberator” (bottom schematic) were large, four-engine heavy bombers of World War II.  Both were very important in the narrative arc of the war.  I would say the B-17 is the better known of the two. One could argue, however, that the B-24 was more “important:” it was produced in significantly greater numbers than the B-17, was faster, and had a greater range. It was used in both theaters of the war.  The B-24 is an especially significant aircraft in terms of the cultural heritage of southeastern Michigan: the plant created to build the bomber at Willow Run was the largest industrial manufacturing facility in the world at the time and helped shaped the history and identity of this region.  This is the land of Rosie the Riveter and key elements of the Arsenal of Democracy.

Of over 18,000 built, there are only two remaining airworthy B-24s. One of them was at this year’s air show at Willow Run.  Seeing it fly was one of the reasons I went.  It flew. I saw it.  I expected to be thrilled, but I was not.  It was kind of boring.  I think many of those around me felt the same way. No matter how much excitement the announcer tried to drum up, it seemed to a lot of the crowd like a good time to visit the port-o-john or fetch more lemonade. Why?  Why did the sight of one of the last surviving examples of this immensely important aircraft produce such a big collective yawn?  I’ll tell you what I think:  I think it’s because it is ugly.  This aircraft is a collage of mismatched features that, while perhaps important to its functional characteristics, make it an aesthetic nightmare.  The long, slender wing (which helped the B-24 achieve its great range) is married to a fuselage that looks like a cement truck.  Somehow the aircraft appears both clunky and fragile, like it could break apart at any moment just from the stresses imposed by its own homeliness. It's ugly.

The B-17, in contrast, is a beautiful aircraft.  First flown in 1935, it is to aviation what the Chrysler Building is to architecture:  a bold Art Deco icon that exudes power, grace, solidity, symmetry, unity, modernity, purpose.  The aircraft that is flown by the Yankee Air Museum out of Willow Run is meticulously restored and polished, gleaming like a diamond.  The four large radial engines (each with 9 cylinders of 202 cubic inch displacement and 0 mufflers) produce a fantastic rumble that is audible from miles away.  The aircraft played an important role in history, but it is a crowd-pleaser because of the way it looks and sounds.  Because of the way it makes you feel.  Because it is beautiful. (Here is some video I put on YouTube  - it doesn't do the sound justice; you just have to hear it live).

I’m guessing many people have thought/written about the emotional connections (or lack thereof) between human cultures and their technologies, so I would be surprised if I’m saying anything new here.  It would be interesting to try to understand why we connect emotionally with some machines and not others, why some machines emerge as icons or symbols and some do not, and how that affects technological change.  It isn’t all in the historical significance or the minutia of what constitutes innovation or improvement.  Those things may play a role, but there are aspects of human cultural affection that I don’t think you can ignore.  Technological development is a human enterprise.

Finally, I’m sorry if I offended anyone by saying the B-24 is ugly.  But that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.  If it makes you feel any better, I think the Bell P-63 Kingcobra is even uglier.  There are only four of those left flying, one of which was at Willow Run this weekend.  Interesting aircraft with an interesting history; emotional appeal of concrete.

This Fall I'm going to be writing a review essay about the challenges and potentials of employing complex systems approaches in "four field" anthropology.  While much of complex systems science was developed (and is practiced) in fields other than anthropology (ecology, biology, chemistry, economics, physics, etc.), use of the tools, concepts, and approaches of complex systems science to address a variety of anthropological issues and questions is increasing.  As I have discussed in the sections on complexity science, social networks, and Eastern Woodlands prehistory in this website (as well in some blog posts that discuss modeling, technological change, and Middle Paleolithic families), I am one of those who believes that complex systems science is potentially very useful to anthropology.

One of my goals in the essay will be to "take the temperature" of complex systems science in anthropology.  As an anthropological archaeologist, I'm most familiar with complex systems approaches to archaeology.  I would like to cast a much wider net for my review, incorporating and synthesizing as much up-to-date information as possible about how complex systems approaches are being used (or not) in the other sub-fields: linguistic anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology, and physical anthropology.  I'm particularly interesting in identifying recent scholarly work that uses the approaches of complexity science to integrate data, models, and theory that cross-cut the traditional territories of the sub-fields.

Know of something I should be aware of?  Please leave a comment here or send me an email ([email protected]).  Thanks!

I just returned from several days at the DINAA (Digital Index of North American Archaeology) workshop that is happening at Indiana University South Bend this week.  The first two years of the DINAA project have focused on building a comprehensive, accessible database of archaeological sites in Eastern North America.  What the PIs and their core team (Josh Wells, David Anderson, Eric Kansa, Sarah Kansa, Steve Yerka, R. Carl DeMuth, Kelsey Noack Myers, and Thad Bissett) have accomplished to date is pretty remarkable:  in the pilot phase of the project, the team has assembled and made available primary data on over 340,000 recorded archaeological sites from ten states (with more data on the way).  This endeavor required navigating numerous technical, logistical, and political challenges.  What a great job they've done.  Bravo!

The DINAA project will benefit the archaeological community (and other constituencies) in a number of ways.  Some of those are obvious now, and some will become apparent as we become able to think in practical terms about the power and potential of a large, unified dataset that integrates and crosscuts the traditional (i.e., state-level) territories within which archaeological site data are managed. 

The benefit that I am most excited about is the potential of DINAA to act as a "bridge" among otherwise disconnected datasets. The key to this inter-linking is DINAA's granularity:  by making the archaeological site number the primary means by which information is organized, any datasets that reference a site number could be inter-linked through DINAA regardless of what primary information about the site is held by DINAA.  I'm compiling data on prehistoric house structures, for example, that could be linked, through DINAA, to other datasets using the key attribute of "site number."  Imagine being able to click on the site number associated with a structure in the Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project (EWHADP) database and being led to a record in DINAA that provides links to a database of radiocarbon dates, or a spreadsheet of feature contents, or images from museum collections or field note archives, or bibliographic references for reports, dissertations, or academic papers that are also associated with that site number.  Or imagine being able to make a query for floral remains from Middle Woodland features within a 100 km radius of the site with that structure.  To say that that kind of inter-linking would be a powerful tool for research and scholarship is a great understatement.  As I argued in a presentation via Skype to the DINAA workshop that was held at the University of Tennessee in March, inter-linking of datasets would: (1) allow us to greatly expand the scale of questions we can address; (2) allow us to gather data for addressing those "big scale" questions much more efficiently; and (3) be a catalyst for developing and testing new interpretations of the past.  Engineering a system of links to connect diverse datasets would be a game changer.

At the workshop this week, we spent some time thinking about ways to actually accomplish such a linking.  The structure data I've been gathering is a good "test case" primarily because it spans the same area as the DINAA data and includes information from many sites (and is also open and freely accessible).  Information needs to flow both ways.  First, when a site record is called up in DINAA, it should be able to make a call to the EWHADP (and any other linked datasets) to see if there are records associated with that site number.  Second, site/structure records in the EWHADP should include a pointer to the appropriate record in DINAA.  The second part is simple: since the URLs associated with site records in DINAA are "stable," I can just put hyperlinks in my database that point to the DINAA record.  The second part is a little trickier.  Our first step was to put the current (as of March 2014) EWHADP database on GitHub (here) so that it would be open and accessible.  GitHub automatically tracks when changes are made to a file.  The next step (I think) will be to configure the GitHub page so that it sends a message to DINAA when the dataset changes.  This will allow the records in DINAA to be updated as new records are added to the EWHADP. 

It is the linking mechanisms that are important.  The EWHADP data do not become a "part" of DINAA but are simply referenced by DINAA.  I maintain control and responsibility for the EWHADP part of the equation.  This is important because compilation of that dataset is ongoing:  it's a database of records that I'm still collecting rather than something like a static set of measurements that relate to a single assemblage or site.  I hope others who are developing similar datasets think about how we might link them all together through DINAA.  The corpus of scholarship relevant to archaeological work in this part of the world is simply too large and diverse to live in a single place.  A distributed approach using a "bridge" such as DINAA to link datasets is going to be much more effective and useful than trying to house everything in one central place.

We all have a lot to gain by supporting the construction of this tool.  It is going to unleash the potential energy stored in the work we've already done and provide a "living" structure that will significantly increase our capacities to find, share, utilize, and build on archaeological information.  The DINAA project needs to move forward in a big way.