Andy White Anthropology
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Crossbows and Banjos: Two Appalachian Technologies with Roots in West Africa (?)

8/9/2016

9 Comments

 
Yesterday I wrote a brief post about my visit to the Museum of Appalachia in eastern Tennessee. My main point was that it's a fantastic museum, different from anything I've seen before (and I've seen a lot of museums). You can read that post for my somewhat soppy overview paragraph about what makes this museum so interesting (to me, anyway).
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The first building that you visit at the museum is called the "Hall of Fame." The sign in the entryway explains pretty well what the goal is. This is one of the most interesting places in the museum, introducing you to the people and culture of the region though an incredibly varied display of personal artifacts, photographs, and anecdotes, with many of the placards written out by hand and signed by the museum's founder, John Rice Irwin. You can read about Viola Carter's cowbell, look at Felix "Casey" Jones' devil's head, and see a fiddle made from a horse mandible.

There's a lot in the "Hall of Fame," and the slower you move the more you will absorb. I was on medium speed, still having a lot of miles to cover that day to get back to Columbia. So I didn't read every word or every display. Some of the things I bring up here may well be in the museum, somewhere.

One of the things that makes this museum great, I think, is its affection for its subject: it's a museum about Appalachia and Appalachians, created by Appalachians. It is kind of an "inside" ethnography that embraces the distinctiveness of Appalachia, communicating and often celebrating characteristics that outsiders might see as strange, even embarrassing or depressing. The museum doesn't try to make an argument, or even to explain, it just gives you a chance to run your fingers over the fabric so you can maybe get some idea of its patterns, weaves, and textures.

Pride in the distinctiveness of Appalachian culture emerges loud and clear. Two items that jumped out at me from the "Hall of Fame" displays were the crossbow and the banjo. I didn't know much about the history of either of these items in American material culture. I left the museum with the impression that both were home-grown in Appalachia. A little online research, however, suggests the introduction of both to the region was via enslaved peoples from West Africa (the case for the African origin of the banjo is stronger than that of the crossbow). This is fascinating for several reasons, not least of which is that it's an interesting historical case of the transmission of technologies (one musical and one subsistence-related) between two very different groups. Appalachia remains one of the whitest regions of the county. 

The Crossbow

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The Museum of Appalachia has at least two crossbows on display, along with stories about the men who made and used them. I had never before heard of the tradition of "mountain crossbows," and there isn't a whole lot of information online (at least not that I've found so far).  I ran across a discussion on this forum and learned that there's a short section on crossbows in the book Guns and Gunmaking Tools of Southern Appalachia by none other than John Rice Irwin (future purchase).

Based on the few things I've been able to read so far, the consensus seems to be that crossbows were made and used for hunting because their use did not require manufacture of bullets or purchase of powder (or cartridges, etc.). In other words, they were inexpensive to operate. Th poverty angle makes sense for the "why" question.

But the question of why crossbows were used doesn't explain how they came to be used. Where did the crossbow tradition come from? It's possible it came from Europe along with the people (predominantly "Scotch-Irish") who settled the region: while the crossbow had largely disappeared from military use by the mid-1500's (replaced by firearms), the weapons were apparently still used for civilian hunting until the 1700's (unfortunately the only source I've got on that so far is Wikipedia). 

One alternative to the "brought them along" scenario that I've seen mentioned is the idea that the use of crossbows was transferred first from the early Spanish explorers in the southeast to Native American peoples, and then later from descendants of those Native Americans to the European settlers of Appalachia. Another is that crossbow technology was transferred to Native Americans and/or Appalachian Europeans from West Africans brought to the New World as slaves.  In his paper "Notes on West African Crossbow Technology," Donald Ball argues that a good case can be made for transfer of crossbow technology from Africans to Native Americans:

"Available descriptions of crossbows as they occur in western Africa and among Native Americans in the southeastern United States are sufficient to postulate the transmission of a type of this weapon into the New World by slave populations and the adoption of an altered form of that technology by various indigenous tribal groups. Despite featuring a crude facsimile of the gunstocks used by their Anglo neighbors, the utilization of a simplified notch string release system (less the split stock and release peg exhibited in west African examples) may be interpreted as a modification of a much older design which had effectively been abandoned in Europe by the time of the New World entrada yet continued to flourish western Africa until at least the 1920s (Powell-Cotton 1929). Though it is but a small example of transplanted technology, further research on this topic may potentially further reveal a heretofore unheralded example of African-American contributions to the cultural mosaic of the material folk culture of the United States."

Ball observes that known Appalachian crossbows have a "trigger" mechanism more like western European crossbows than the "string-catch" system seen in West African and Native American crossbows.  I don't know how many examples of nineteenth-century Appalachian, Native American, and West African crossbows are known (my guess is not many), but it would be really interesting to find out what we know know about the age and provenience of New World examples and what could be learned by compiling data about their construction. I'm guessing someone (perhaps Donald Ball) has already done that work. I'm going to track down his "n.d." paper that he lists as "submitted to Tennessee Anthropologist."

The Banjo

The West African origin of the banjo is firmly established. Like many other people (I presume), I was under the false impression before last week that the banjo was an indigenous American invention. When I looked at the fascinating display of home-made and "early" banjos at Museum of Appalachia, I didn't see anything that made me question that. The museum displays what they claim is possibly the "County's Second Oldest Banjo" (dated to 1833), specifying that the oldest known 5-string banjo was constructed in 1831 by the Sweeney Brothers. 
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A few minutes searching online reveals that the history of the banjo in America doesn't start with the Sweeney Brothers -- not by a long shot. Joel Sweeney (1810-1860) was a minstrel performer who is known as the first white person to play the banjo on stage. He popularized the banjo among white audiences and played a prominent role in developing the five-string banjo, but he didn't invent the banjo or build the first one in the country. Historical documents make it clear that enslaved populations from West Africa brought the tradition of the "banjo" with them, creating instruments in the New World from whatever suitable materials could be found and utilized. Thomas Jefferson described slaves playing an instrument called the banjar in Notes on the State of Virginia (1781):

"The instrument proper to them in the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar, its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar."

Here is an NPR story on some recent research trying to trace the African origins of the banjo.

The five-string banjo is a fundamental component of bluegrass music, an indigenous American art form with a center of gravity in Appalachia. As far as I'm aware, the other stringed instruments that contribute to the distinctive sounds of bluegrass (e.g., the fiddle, the guitar, the mandolin) have roots in western Europe, the ancestral home of most of the settlers of the region. It's fascinating to me both that (1) the distinctively American sound of bluegrass owes much to the combination of European and African instruments and (2) I didn't already know that. 

The oldest banjo in the country wasn't made by Joel Sweeney, but by some African whose name we'll never know. It would be amazing if any of those pre-Sweeney, African New World banjos still survives, considering they were probably made with all (or mostly) perishable parts. I'm wondering if archaeology can contribute anything to fleshing out this story. 

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Travel Diaries: The Museum of Appalachia (Placeholder)

8/8/2016

19 Comments

 
Yesterday I spent several hours at the Museum of Appalachia in Clinton, Tennessee. I found this place to be intensely interesting and, frankly, at times surprisingly moving.  I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write over the next couple of weeks: I'm back home again from the last trip of the summer and we've got a lot to do as a family to transition to the school year. I wanted to put this post here as reminder of some of thoughts I had about Appalachia as I crossed the region several times this summer. I hope that I can circle back around and develop some of my thoughts at some point (no guarantees).

I became aware of the Museum of Appalachia through it's entry in Roadside America, which described the museum as having a "seemingly endless supply of oddities" including a wood burl devil's head and a Civil War-era perpetual motion machine. I would've enjoyed the museum just for those things, but the fact is that it is really much more than a collection of oddities. Many of the items in the museum (which sprawls across 65 acres and several buildings filled with artifacts) are attached directly to stories about the people connected to the material culture. The items (such as homemade crossbows, polka dotted furnishings, whittled toys, and unique musical instruments) and the narratives evoke peoples' lives and experiences in a way that I have never seen before in a museum, blending the personal and historical to create (in me, at least) the sense that I knew these folks. My own family history, flirting with the fringes of Appalachia, probably contributed to that sense of familiarity. This museum makes history both big and small at the same time, and gives a voice to the textures, rhythms, and trajectories of people, societies, and ways of life that don't get much play in the "big" narratives of history -- a remarkable achievement.

​For now, I'm just going to post some photos I took.
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Homemade crossbows appear in several places in the museum.
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This artifact and the associated stories really brought home to me the importance of preserving local color.
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A display of home-made banjos. The museum has what it claims may be the second-oldest banjo in the country, dating to 1833 (I think). Because of its association with bluegrass music, the banjo is often thought to be an indigenous American instrument. There are multiple racial elements to the introduction and spread of the banjo, however. I don't know much about it yet, but the banjo was apparently brought to the Americas by slaves from West Africa. Appalachia is largely white ("Scotch-Irish"), and I didn't see much mention of African Americans either in connection with musical traditions or any other aspects of Appalachian life.
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Asa Jackson's perpetual motion machine. Like so many other technological artifacts from Appalachia, it is largely carved from wood.
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Some carved toys. Many of the descriptions in the museum highlight the large sizes of families, making me wonder about infant/child mortality rates and the contributions of children to Appalachian subsistence economies.
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The tiny house occupied by Tom Cassidy until his death in 1989. Tom Cassidy was sitting on his porch playing the fiddle while the XB-70 was crusing at Mach 3 in the upper atmosphere. The furnishings in the house are still intact.
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There were millstones and grinding stones all over the place. Some of the millstones were composite, but many were one piece with a round hole in the center. This stack of stone cylinders made me wonder how the millstone holes were created -- did they use some kind of tubular drill? So far I've found no evidence of that online, and I'm guessing the stone cylinders are from cores taken for the purposes of mineral exploration. Any thoughts? One of the reasons I'm interested in this is because of the "fringe" claim that circular holes in hard stone (e.g., in ancient Egypt) could not have been created without some kind of advanced technology, despite the existence of copper tubes used in conjunction with sand to drill though granite.
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There was no story attached to this gun, unfortunately. I'm sure it was a good one.
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I bought some souvenirs to use in the triceratops head I'm working on.
19 Comments

"Roman Sword" Advocate Wants Me to Debate Data I'm Not Allowed to See

8/7/2016

87 Comments

 
The comments on my post from the other day about the Wolter-Pulitzer "plan" for excavating what they claim are giant human remains have largely shifted to a discussion about Pulitzer's "Roman sword" claim. The only substantive statement that Pulitzer made about their purported giant was this: 

"we can assure you the individuals involved are ALL at the University Level, very well respected, far and wide published and heralded within their field. Even more exciting than the discovery is all the incredible academic talent attracted to the find. The way this works, is there are countless experts, scientists, academics, archaeologists and anthropologists who have seen our work on TV and Books."

You can add that promise to his tab, I guess: many incredible, respected academics all clamoring to work with him on giant bones. We'll see how that goes. 

But on to the "Roman sword." 

The subject of Pulitzer's sword claims naturally comes up whenever he makes an evidence-free assertion, as it speaks directly to his credibility when he says "trust me." You're welcome to wade though the comments in the previous post, but I thought I'd pull from the weeds and reiterate my response (moderately edited but substantively the same) to his goading attempt to get me to debate him about the sword.

I'm open to the idea of having a debate (or some kind of structured conversation) with Pulitzer about the "Roman sword" and the other Hercules-hilted swords. It would probably be a more effective and less problematic way to communicate my thoughts to a different audience than my proposal to publish a piece in Ancient American magazine.  I have two main concerns that would have to be addressed in order to move forward with the idea of a "debate, both having to do with transparency. 

1) First, there is no way I would collaborate with Pulitzer on something that he controls and that would be part of his "brand." Why? Because he has repeatedly shown himself to be untrustworthy. He has shown that using distortion, misrepresentation, and outright lies is part of his standard operating procedure: his silly behavior has no place in an honest discussion. I've been in a lot of disagreements with colleagues, but none of those professional colleagues has ever questioned my credentials, my expertise, and my intentions. That sort of thing is just not a normal part of a professional discussion about facts, evidence, and interpretation. But Pulitzer does it frequently (including in the comments on the last post, where he implied that I was an anti-Semite). In short, Pulitzer has not provided any reason for me to take his word on anything and plenty of reasons to be skeptical. It would be stupid to trust him with producing content that is unbiased, and it would be wrong to give him control over how that content is made available.  

2) Second: data! When professionals have a debate, they refer to data. I have been open with mine, but Pulitzer has never provided his. You cannot have a debate where one side says "I have that data but I'm not going to show it to you, so you'll just have to believe me" (there's that credibility issue again). It may work that way in "forbidden truth" circus, but it doesn't work that way in the real world. Pulitzer has made reference to his XRF data numerous times to support his claim(s), but has not provided it. How could I fairly evaluate claims about his data when I don't actually have access to the data? That would be like agreeing to a poker game where I show my hand at the end but Pulitzer just gets to state what's in his without actually revealing it. Why would anyone agree to those rules? In order for me to have a real discussion about the sword with Pulitzer, he'll need to provide his data ahead of time so that we both have access to the same information. And I'll need a copy of Commodus's Secret so I can refer to Pulitzer's argument about the sword there. If he wants to have a discussion about evidence, he needs to stop being so slippery and put his cards down so we can see them.

If Pulitzer really wants a sword discussion, it will have to be something that isn't controlled by him and he'll have to (finally) let us all see the fabled XRF data that he's been hanging his claims on. And he needs to provide his interpretation(s) of the sword in a stable format (i.e., in his book, which he says is now complete) where the claims are in black and white and can be evaluated on their merits. Those are reasonable, fair, and logical conditions. Without transparency in the medium and data, a "debate" would be nothing but an empty exercise. Without transparency, I'll pass.
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Travel Diaries: The XB-70A

8/6/2016

4 Comments

 
It's been a long day, mostly spent driving. This time I'm en route from Detroit, MI, to Columbia, SC. The main goal is to get me and the truck back home, but (again thanks to my wife) there's some extra time built into the journey. I was on I-75 for most of the day and am now in an Econo Lodge in an undisclosed location in eastern Tennessee with some KFC and beer. I'll skip over my stories about the new Against Me! song and sob story hustlers at a rest stop in Kentucky and get to the most interesting part of the day: an awesome technological artifact on display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
The XB-70A Valkyrie

If you're interested in military aviation history but you've never been to the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio, you owe to yourself to get there at some point. As the official museum of the Air Force, they have access to a lot of unique aircraft that you just can't see anywhere else. I made my second visit today, specifically to visit the newly-opened fourth building housing the only XB-70 in the world. The "X" designation is given to aircraft that are experimental.
PictureXB-70A in the National Museum of the Air Force, Dayton, Ohio.
​The XB-70 is a captivating aircraft: graceful, powerful, and unlike anything else that was every built (well, with the exception of the Soviet's attempt to copy the design). It was the result of a perceived need in the 1950's for a long range heavy bomber to deliver nuclear weapons from an altitude and with a speed that would make it immune to being intercepted. The B-70 program was killed by the double whammy of the development of ICBMs (inter-continental missles could deliver nuclear warheads more efficiently than manned aircraft) and the development of increasingly effective surface-to-air missle technology that could bring down even high altitude aircraft. Although the bomber program was killed, two XB-70's were built as research aircraft. They flew from 1964 to 1969, one being destroyed in an accident in 1966. You can read about the development and history of the XB-70 on Wikipedia. This video also tells the story.

I've been fascinated by photos of the XB-70 since I was a little kid and it was a thrill to see it in person (I was delighted to find that many other unique experimental aircraft that I'd only ever seen in pictures were also on display in the new building -- really amazing). As a technological artifact, this vehicle marks the endpoint of the evolutionary trend of bombers going faster and higher. It was designed to fly at Mach 3 with a ceiling of 70,000-80,000 feet (depending on the source). Just over sixty years after the Wright brothers first flew their aircraft a total of distance of 120 feet at about 6.8 mph, humans had produced a flying machine that could surf through the stratosphere on its own shockwave at three times the speed of sound. 

The chess game of military aviation took design in new directions after the 1950's, leaving the B-70 as a design that was strangely both ahead of its time but also obsolete. The B-52 (which the B-70 was supposed to replace) is still in service, and emphasis is on producing bombers that can fly low  (such as the B-1B) and/or use stealth technology (such as the B-2) to avoid radar detection. The newly announced B-21 is a stealthy, sub-sonic design that aims to evade detection rather than outfly it.

I think the phenomenon of advanced "orphan" designs like the XB-70, produced at the very edges of technology but also not terribly useful, may be more common than we might guess. Technologies change, and once common ways of doing things often persist in niche roles. The "survivors" however, are not the most developed expression of a technology.  I had a 1987 Dodge Colt, for example, that had a very complicated feedback carburetor. Fuel injection has replaced carburetors in automobiles, but carburetors are still used in numerous other applications. But neither my chainsaw nor my lawnmower has a feedback carburetor like the one on a  1987 Dodge Colt. I can think of other examples. The most "advanced" examples of technology occur not at the end of a technological tradition, perhaps, but at the "peak" of its use. Just a thought.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to see a perpetual motion machine from the Civil War. It's going to be hard to top finally getting to see the XB-70.


Here are a few additional photos I took of experimental aircraft on display in the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Here is a map of building four showing the locations of the aircraft. Many of the "X planes" on this list are present.
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View of the ailerons and six engine outlets of the XB-70A. The X-4 (1948) is hanging from the ceiling to the right.
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A Bell P-59B, the first operation U.S. jet aircraft. It was developed during WWII but not deployed.
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The XF-85, a small jet aircraft that was used to explore the practicality of "parasite fighters" that could be carried to defend large bombers such as the B-36. The plane would be dropped from the bomber to fend off enemy fighters then recovered back into the bomber via the large hook on the front. Once mid-air refueling became possible, the "parasite fighter" idea was scrapped.
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Lockheed YF-12. The well-known SR-71 was developed from this aircraft, originally designed as a Mach 3 interceptor that would be used to protect the continental U.S. from Russian nuclear bombers. As that perceived need diminished in the late 1960's, the interceptor program was cancelled. The derived SR-71 continued to be used as a high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.
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Tacit Blue, a stealth research aircraft that was declassified in 1996. It was used to demonstrate how stealth aircraft could be used in air-ground battles and, apparently, how things shaped like bricks could actually be made to fly in a controlled fashion.
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VZ-9 Avrocar.
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Back of the YF-23, which lost the design competition to what is now the F-22. To the right is the X-36, a small aircraft used to experiment with tailless flight.
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So What ARE Wolter and Pulitzer Planning On Doing to Search for Giants?

8/3/2016

160 Comments

 
Many of the readers of this blog are no doubt aware of the debacle that unfolded on Jason Colavito's blog regarding the plans of Scott Wolter and Hutton Pulitzer to investigate a site that they claim contains the remains of giant humans. I recommend reading through Colavito's post and the comments (388 as of this writing, a large number of which are by Pulitzer) for the background and some insight into how the Wolter-Pulitzer show handles criticism. I'm not qualified to speculate on what might be underlying Pulitzer's inconsistencies, insults, incoherence, puffery, threats, and evasiveness, but I'm pretty sure it's not an over-abundance of professionalism and competence. It's a bizarre display, to say the least.

Generally, I'm not of the opinion that Pulitzer is worth paying a whole lot of attention to anymore. Any credibility he might have had was flushed away along with the decisive demonstration that his "100 percent confirmed Roman sword," which he claimed would change the history of the world, was simply a 19th or 20th century piece of tourist junk. He was easily fooled by it and continues to stick with his original claim to this day, despite a mountain of evidence that clearly shows his claim is wrong. His inability to accept (or perhaps even understand) contrary facts is fundamentally incompatible with the most basic tenets of science. I have yet to see any evidence that he even understands what "science" is, let alone that he is capable of practicing it.

Pulitzer's well-established silliness is not what is important to me in this case: it's that his silliness leaves us with a a lack of clarity about what the pair are actually planning on doing. To me the significant issue is what appears to be a plan by the pair to go beyond rhetoric and start messing with the actual archaeological record. Their latest audio discussion of a past episode of America Unearthed, the subject of Colavito's blog post, features them discussing what sounds like an excavation they plan to undertake with the intent of finding and unearthing what they believe to be gigantic human remains but without involving the authorities in the traditional way (listen between about 16:00 and 24:00). Pulitzer and Wolter first discuss an image, sent to them by a third party, of what they have determined to their satisfaction is a very large human bone. They say the following, among other things:

16:30 Pulitzer: "With any researcher or explorer, the only thing that confirms it is when you, yourself, your team, your documentation team can physically take them out of the ground yourself, and can document it themselves. And that's what's been missing is a lot of these have been found by people, but when they feel they're doing the right thing and calling the local authorities and state archaeologist and some of these others get involved, literally everything disappears."

18:15 Wolter: "This is not in your typical situation, where archaeologists have control of the site. There is, this is a site that is completely unknown, it has not been studied in any specific detail. [... ]This opportunity is once in a lifetime, we are going to seize that opportunity."

23:00 Wolter: "Believe me, if that bone turns out to be as big as it was, and the rest of the bones turn out to be as big, if they match this then we'll have something big to report."

The original brouhaha about Colivito's blog post concerned his use of the phrase "announce plans to rob presumed Native American grave" in his headline describing what Wolter and Pulitzer planned to do. Pulitzer accused Colavito of libel for using the term "rob" (which he argued implied a criminal act) and Colavito subsequently changed the language to read "dig up." Objectively, "rob" was a poor choice of word and I think Colavito did the correct thing by making a change. His quick word change amicably resolved the issue and we all rode off on on our rainbow-colored unicorns, satisfied that the world was populated by reasonable people. The end.

Oh no, wait, that didn't happen. My bad.

What did happen was that Pulitzer commented many, many more times after the word change, responding to challenges and questions about their plans by creating the crazy quilt of conflicting questions and explanations which you just have to read for yourself to fully appreciate. Nothing squares with anything else -- it's just a big mess that leaves the impression that there really is no plan. In their audio presentation, Wolter and Pulitzer clearly stated they think they're dealing with giant human remains (or else what would be the point of excavating them?), and I think any reasonable person would conclude, based on what they said, that they intend to dig up those remains. In the audio, they told us that professional archaeologists and "local authorities" are the problem, and they are going to "seize the opportunity" of a situation where they can "physically take [the bones] out of the ground" themselves. In his comments, however, Pulitzer appeared to walk that position backward several steps (albeit in a confusing zig-zag), disingenuously asking many others who commented where they possibly could have gotten the idea that he and Wolter were going to dig up human remains themselves. I'll tell you where: from what you said! I fail to see how a reasonable person would draw any other conclusion from the audio.

But maybe all of us somehow got it wrong? Fine -- then tell us what the plan is. I (and others) repeatedly asked Pulitzer to clarify what exactly he was talking about in terms of what he and Wolter intended to do.  Eventually we got this response:
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Pulitzer also stated that the local sheriff indeed had been notified and shown the bone (or the images, it's not clear which):

"Andy, for your information. The photos show what could easily be a human bone, but the size of it caused the local sheriff to poo poo it. Was too big. Thus case closed. Path open, thus why we are bringing in our own research and medical team. Cant force the locals to deal with now can you. All bases covered."

I responded:

"Ah . . . So now we have learned something. You and Wolter satisfied yourselves (based on a photo) that it is a human bone, but the local authorities satisfied themselves that it isn't. Therefore you argue that you have a green light to do whatever you want? Is that accurate? Perhaps if this photo is so convincing you should let the world see it. I would be willing to bet you were not looking at a genuine photo of a giant human bone. You did, after all, identify brass on your "Roman sword" as gold."

And that is where the conversation effectively ended. I am left still not knowing exactly what Pulitzer and Wolter intend to do. The cowboy tone of their audio conversation and Pulitzer's unwillingness to provide a simple answer to the "what exactly are you planning on doing" question is troubling to those of us who care about stewardship of archaeological remains. We don't know where this "site" is, and we haven't been shown the images of the object that Wolter and Pulitzer have decided is a human bone. We do know, however, that they think they are dealing with human remains and they apparently suppose they are working within the letter of the law but somehow in a way that will allow them to act  as "warriors for truth" outside of customary or established procedures. Yes, I'm using the word "act" intentionally. I'm concerned that Wolter and Pulitzer's cavalier conspiracy-theory-laden discussion will encourage others to go out and become "warriors for truth" armed, this time, with shovels to accompany the sense of outraged entitlement that Pulitzer attempts to instill in them.

My bet (and my hope) is that these guys give up on this idea, whatever the hell it actually is, and leave the physical archaeological record to professionals. This is not because we want to suppress the truth about anything, but because doing good archaeology in the field requires a skill set that takes years to develop and hone. It requires much more than TreasureForce costumes and empty rants about "forbidden history." As it turns out, technology patents, lawyers, and authorship of copy-paste treasure hunting books are of little utility when trying to read and interpret subtle variations in sediments and deciding how to pick apart overlapping features so you understand what you're looking at. In short: you guys don't know what you're doing. You can talk all you want, but when it comes to archaeological fieldwork you haven't demonstrated that you're qualified to stick a single shovel in the ground. You may have been on TV, you may have a lot of fancy toys, and you may have an A-Team van and an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, but I'd be willing to bet that you couldn't out-perform a single one of my field school students in your knowledge of basic excavation methods.

Rant all you want about your "Roman swords" and your "fight for truth," but please leave the excavating to those of us who understand where show business stops and scientific work begins. And please leave human remains alone. These are the remains of people, not props to be used to try to build an audience for your tragicomic attempt at "rewriting history."


One simple step here would be to show the photo of the alleged "giant human bone" to someone who is qualified to make a credible, indpendent judgement about whether or not it could be human. You're completely wrong if you think it's always a simple task to determine what's human and what's not --  there are numerous examples of highly educated people making mistakes in the past, and well-meaning people in law enforcement and medicine continue to make mistakes today because they are not trained in comparative anatomy. What you need is someone who understands both human and animal anatomy and is familiar with archaeological materials. I suggest you send the image to me. If I can't figure out what I'm looking at, I'll find someone who can. That's a sincere offer. I'll give you an honest opinion, and I won't publish the image without your permission. If I think what I'm looking at is human, I will advise you to revisit the issue with the local law enforcement officials that you claim to have already dealt with. This is the point at which the responsible thing to do is to check the bravado and offer some transparency.

I have more to say about this, but I'm on the road again and my time is limited. I'll just say that my sincere hope is that what sounds like a "let's go dig something up" plan, in whatever form we're now supposed to think it will be operationalized, is piled on the scrap heap with Pulitzer's other unfulfilled promises (remember the "smoking gun" Minoan artifacts of Tennessee? remember the "Indiana mummy"? remember the "white paper" that was promised in spring 2016?).

Finally, I'd like to close by saying something positive about Scott Wolter. Despite our recent issues connected to his withdraw from participation in my class and my disappointment that Pulitzer is apparently now speaking for Wolter, I continue to believe that Wolter and Pulitzer are fundamentally different. The contrast comes through clearly in the audio conversation that is the subject of this post (the only one of their America Unearthed reviews that I've listened to so far). Wolter is articulate and has a command of the issues that easily exceeds anything I've ever heard from Pulitzer. Their partnership is none of my business, of course, but  I continue to wonder why Wolter would choose to make his equal someone who so clearly is not. I remain puzzled by the mismatch. 

I welcome any comments by Pulitzer or Wolter that will help clarify what is going on here: I'm genuinely unsure. I'll delete any comments that I deem unconstructive. 
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