By the luck of the draw, my city of Columbia, South Carolina, was within the 70-mile-wide path of the totality during yesterday's solar eclipse. We hosted friends and family from southeast Michigan, northern Georgia, and Washington, D.C. There where some large clouds in the sky, but we had an unobstructed view from about a half hour before totality until well after. I didn't have to leave my front yard.

It was the strangest, coolest natural phenomenon I've ever seen. No question.

Knowing that there would be thousands of experienced photographers training their cameras on the sun, I made the decision to focus not on trying to take a good picture but on soaking up the sensory experience. I think one of the things that makes this so different from other natural wonders was its transitory nature. While there were gradual changes in light leading up to totality that signaled that something different was happening, the period of time that the sun was completely blocked by the moon was brief (in our location, about 2.5 minutes). There's a lot to experience during that short window.

I was in Bloomington, IN, for the annular solar eclipse on May 10, 1994. I remember walking outside from working in the lab and noticing the dappled lunate shadows on the pavement from the partially-obscured sunlight passing through a tree canopy.  That was about it. There may have been some other subtle changes in the light that I didn't notice because I was inside working. The only thing that made an impression on me was the strangeness of the shadows, the result of the leaves creating a fabric of natural "pinhole cameras."

Yesterday was different. No offense to my friends outside of the path of the totality who enjoyed yesterday's eclipse, but . . . nothing compares to being centered in the crosshairs of the moon/sun dance. As the last sliver of the sun slides behind the moon, multiple senses get triggered simultaneously. The light changes dramatically, the noises around you change (birds, insects, etc.), the air cools down. The sky wasn't as dark as I thought it would be (it often looks pitch black in photos -- it's not). Instead it was about as bright as twilight but with a totally different feel, perhaps because the sun was so high in the sky so there was no "direction" to the twilight. And it was more crisp than twilight. The sight of the black-hole sun blazing away high in sky, Venus off to one side, a yellow glow on the horizon so far removed from the light source. . . it is truly bizarre. I've never seen or experienced anything like it. It was absolutely qualitatively different from a partial eclipse.

Experiencing the totality was both communal and individual. Each person in our front yard did his or her own thing. With eclipse glasses off and no cars on the street, there was conversation, staring in wonder, pointing, exclaiming, and at least one kid (my six-year-old) running around yelling about apocalypse and alien invasion.

When the sun began to peak out from behind the moon I looked down on the asphalt and saw shadowbands racing across the road.

As an anthropologist and archaeologist, I was really curious to experience this for myself so I could try to think about what it would have been like for societies with no foreknowledge that something like this was going to happen and no scientific way to explain it. Because the sun is so bright, you have no warning that the moon is near it (you just can't look up in the sky to see what's happening). I was first sure that I could detect a change in the quality of the light at about 20-25 minutes before totality -- even though it was sunny it felt like I was wearing sunglasses, like the light was direct (i.e., not shade) but dimmed unnaturally. I think it was around 10-15 minutes from totality that we were all noticing the lunate shadows. The dimming effect grew more rapid as totality approached, but sped up dramatically in the last minute or so. 

Without over-analyzing it, I will just say (from my perspective) that the changes felt so bizarre and so unlike anything "normal" that I have a hard time seeing how people attuned to the regular rhythms of the seasons, day/night, etc., could have experienced something like this without interpreting or explaining it to themselves somehow. Even having had described to me what to expect, even knowing something about the physics of what was going to happen, and even being told by scientists when it was going to happen -- down to the second -- I still was unprepared for what it actually felt like.

I highly recommend the experience if you can swing it.

I offer the above photograph as demonstration that, contrary to what proponents of the "100% confirmed Roman Sword" maintain, Pablo and I are not the same person. I can vouch for the fact that I am real and that Pablo is also real. And that he has a very long day of train travel ahead of him. He does like coffee, and beer, and walking around taking pictures just like I do, only his pictures are much better than mine. It was great to have him as a guest, and a real pleasure to hang out with another veteran of #Swordgate, which remains perhaps the most epic debunking of a ridiculously fraudulent archaeological claim in the internet era. As long as sword proponents continue to claim, for whatever reason, that all skepticism about the sword comes from me posing as different people on the internet, you can (and should) rightfully discard as false everything else they say by applying the legal principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.  When your opponent's case rests on easily disproven lies, you know you've won. It's a 100% confirmed victory for the good guys. 

Part of the wave of discussion about the fate of monuments to the Confederacy concerns various state laws designed to make it more difficult for local communities to make their own decisions about removing or modifying statues and memorials that reside in their communities. The irony of these "red state" laws is inescapable. Since when do conservative principles include the open embrace of top-down, Big Bother-style control over the symbolic decisions of local communities? When it's convenient, I suppose.

The relevant law here in South Carolina is called The Heritage Act of 2000 (Act 292, codified as Section 10-1-165 of the South Carolina Code of Laws). In recent days, I've seen it said many times, by our politicians, our citizens, and our media, that the Heritage Act prevents the monuments on the State House grounds from being moved or modified without a 2/3 vote of the General Assembly. 

I disagree. By my reading, the list of monuments, things, and places that the act covers does not include the Tillman statue. Here is what it says:

"SECTION 10-1-165. Protection of certain monuments and memorials.

(A) No Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, War Between the States, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, Native American, or African-American History monuments or memorials erected on public property of the State or any of its political subdivisions may be relocated, removed, disturbed, or altered. No street, bridge, structure, park, preserve, reserve, or other public area of the State or any of its political subdivisions dedicated in memory of or named for any historic figure or historic event may be renamed or rededicated. No person may prevent the public body responsible for the monument or memorial from taking proper measures and exercising proper means for the protection, preservation, and care of these monuments, memorials, or nameplates.

(B) The provisions of this section may only be amended or repealed upon passage of an act which has received a two-thirds vote on the third reading of the bill in each branch of the General Assembly.

HISTORY: 2000 Act No. 292, Section 3."

This law clearly does not protect all monuments (only "certain" monuments), specifying two classes of things that are protected on public property: (1) "monuments or memorials" related to a laundry list of wars as well as Native American and African American history; (2) streets, structures, parks and other public areas "dedicated in memory of or named for any historic figure."

The Tillman statue is not covered by either of those.

The Tillman statue is not related to any war: he did not serve in the Confederate army, the monument itself makes no mention of the Confederacy or the Civil War, and Tillman is depicted in civilian clothes. This is not a war monument, plain and simple, and is not a monument or memorial to Native American or African American history. The Tillman statue is not covered under the first sentence of part (A) of the code.

The second sentence of part (A) of the code doesn't apply to statues at all, but to a "street, bridge, structure, park, preserve, reserve, or other public area." And before you try to argue that the statue could be "structure," I will point out that this sentence prohibits renaming and rededication. This sentence isn't about monuments and memorials, but places and things that have been named after famous persons. The Tillman statue is not covered under the second sentence of part (B) of the code.

So what, then, in the law requires a 2/3 majority vote to remove or alter the Tillman statue? I'm no lawyer, but I'm not seeing it here. Perhaps there is some other part of the law that I haven't seen yet. If so, I hope someone will point it out to me. This part of the code clearly doesn't apply to the statue of Benjamin Tillman (or the statue of J. Marion Sims, or, for that matter, Strom Thurmond). Any lawyers care to weigh in?

As the complex dialogue about the place of "Confederate" monuments in our communities lurches forward, I wanted to take a minute to point out that, no matter where you may be or what guy-on-a-horse may be in your park, South Carolina's State House pantheon of white supremacist monuments probably blows yours away.

If you think I'm proud of this, you haven't been paying attention.

The argument that "monuments are history" rings hollow to me for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. Ironically, however, I'm finding that I actually am learning -- indirectly -- about the history of the state through the statues of the individuals that are honored on the State House grounds. While the monuments themselves provide nothing but names and platitudes, primary documents and scholarly historical analysis abound for those who want to understand context and meaning.

This week I learned a bit about James Marion Sims (1813-1883), the "father of modern gynecology." A monument to Sims sits at the northwest corner of the State House grounds. ​

The inscription on the left side of the monument reads:

"The first surgeon of the ages in ministry to women, treating alike empress and slave."

Apparently "treating alike" means "treating both" rather than "treating the same." The controversy about Sims revolves around his use of enslaved women and children as subjects for the experimental surgeries that made him famous. According to critics, he neither used anesthesia during his surgeries on black women, nor did he obtain their consent (but see this paper for a counter view). I invite you to watch this short video by Columbia resident Wendy Brinker, whom I just met online a few days ago in a discussion about removing the statue of Benjamin Tillman. 

While Sims does have vocal defenders (especially in the medical community, and there is a statue of him in Central Park), those in our local area who would like to see the Sims monument removed from the State House grounds are numerous and include Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.  There is an extensive recent medical/ethical literature on Sims (e.g., here, here, here) that I have only just begun to look at. 

In my opinion, the core issue of the controversy about Sims -- the use of powerless women as research subjects -- can't be disentangled from the white supremacist society in which he operated. What does the Sims monument mean in that context? This is what we have to wrestle with. 

The recent events in Charlottesville have amplified the dialogue about the resurgent boldness of white supremacists in this country. Condemnation of what unfolded there -- including the murder of a woman protesting against the "Unite the Right" rally -- was generally swift and strong. A notable exception, of course, was the milquetoast reaction of President Trump. He shot an air ball on the political equivalent of a layup. It's part of a pattern of top-down weakness on this issue.

Charlottesville has catalyzed a conversation that we need to have in this country. White supremacism is a scourge that's been present since before our country was founded. It's a chronic illness. While the problem isn't new, however, one could argue (persuasively, I think) that what's happening now has new elements that need to be discussed and factored into strategies for dealing with the problem. Social media is one. The current political climate is another.

It's a relatively simple thing to express disgust and outrage at the ideas, goals, and behaviors of white supremacists. I've seen it all over Facebook and Twitter, as well as in statements by officials at all levels of government. Some of the archaeologists I know have latched onto various memes showing Indiana Jones punching a Nazi.  We are forever entangled in a love/hate relationship with Indiana Jones (looting graves = bad; punching Nazis = good).

That's all well and good, but we can do much better. Sharing a meme is -- literally -- the least you can do.

I'd like to challenge my friends in academic anthropology, archaeology, and other social sciences and humanities (e.g., sociology, history, psychology, political science, etc.) to integrate discussions of white supremacism into your classrooms. I expressed similar sentiments the day after the election. I have seen nothing in the past six months that has persuaded me that I was wrong.

As an archaeologist, my expertise lies in interpreting the human past through material remains. When evaluating a claim about the past, it is always fair and necessary to ask "how do you know?" Being a good archaeologist means being able to consider multiple explanations and interpretations and generate expectations that can be evaluated based on material evidence. It's a process that can be tedious, complex, sometimes fruitless, and often unsatisfying to those who want quick, easy answers. As disappointing as it may be to those who want archaeologists to be like Indiana Jones, developing and using scientific frameworks to figure out what, why, and how things happened in the human past is central to the project of archaeology. It's how we know what we know.

So what does that have to do with white supremacism?

White supremacist ideology, like many ideologies, is warranted in part by claims about the past. For a taste of what underlies the modern Alt-right's basket of baloney, see this post I wrote in January about Richard Spencer's interview of Kevin MacDonald.  The old-school German Nazis loved Atlantis, as do modern Aryan enthusiasts (like this one and this one). Slavery in the early United States was justified based in part on Samuel Morton's polygenist racial hierarchy, which he constructed using cranial data. Colonialism, empire-building, use of the Mound Builder myth to justify the forced removal of Native American populations . . . the list goes on and on. Claims about the past are entangled with claims about the inherent superiority of white people in all of these cases.

While many of the most racist misuses of archaeology can be traced back to the Victorian era, they aren't ancient history for the white supremacists who inhabit our social, cultural, and political landscape today. As professional archaeologists, we need to understand where those ideas come from, what basis they claim in fact, and why they gained traction. And we need to be able to explain why they are incorrect, not just assert that they're incorrect.  We need to be able to teach others to independently and critically evaluate the claims about the past that are presented to them. I don't have any specific data, but when I look at pictures of the white supremacists in Charlottesville, I see a lot of young faces. Much of the crowd was of college age. That's the age demographic we interact with.  

In my opinion, it's not enough for us as archaeologists and anthropologists to simply repeat the mantra of tolerance. We need to dig in our heels and use our expertise to expose students to the information and processes that give us such confidence that white supremacism has no basis in fact. This is something that all four branches can participate in. Physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistics . . . they're all relevant to the discussion and there's plenty to go around.

This is a four-field problem if ever there was one. I think Franz Boas would agree with me. I understand the visceral reaction of wanting to advertise that you'd like to punch Nazis. I'm asking you to think about your syllabus, also. Can you fit in a discussion of the the early history of physical anthropology? Can you find time to talk about one or two examples of how archaeology is abused for the sake of nationalism?

I'm not sure exactly what Papa Franz would do if he was alive today, but I'm sure he wouldn't have been silent. 

Summer is almost over, and the beginning of the academic part of my year looms in the near future. I was able to spend quite a bit of time on my art hobby this summer, beginning with stocking up for my May/June show at Tapp's and continuing to make stuff at a pretty rapid clip up until our family vacation. I won't be putting my workshop into mothballs, but archaeology will put the brakes on the art until the spring.

I've spent some time at the end of the summer taking photographs and creating a store on Etsy for the items that are for sale. I've also entered some pieces in upcoming shows and contributed one piece to a nonprofit auction. The "Art" section of my website is reorganized (and still under construction). Here's the rundown: 

And now you are up-to-date. As always, you can follow work in progress on the Zero Point Mechanic page on Facebook.

This photograph, used to illustrate a four paragraph story in the Jersey Evening Post yesterday, sparked a heated conversation in the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame group on Facebook. The admins watching the situation turned off commenting to keep the temperature down but left the originally post up, with the rationale that it was an important discussion but just not on topic for the group.  I thought I'd write a quick blog post to provide a place to continue the discussion here if anyone is interested.

The debate revolved around whether this photo was appropriate for the story, or whether the view was intentionally selected as "click bait" to draw viewers who might not navigate to a story illustrated by a mammoth tooth. This is the only photo.  The story says "the tooth" is pictured in the photo, but what I see is an empty pedestal where the tooth presumably used to be. 

Faithful readers of my blog may remember several posts from 2016 and 2015 (here and here) about the production of a movie titled The Solutrean. My interest in the movie centered mostly around the question of how much, if any, of the storyline would revolve around the central claim of the Solutrean hypothesis (that Late Pleistocene Europeans colonized eastern North America). I was also interested in the film for the possibility that we'd get a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.

The trailer for the film (now named Apha) was released in mid July. I've watched it three times and haven't noticed anything in it that screams "boat trip across the Atlantic ice." I also haven't been left with much hope it will be a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.  

Here is the trailer: watch it yourself and then we'll discuss.

I see all the things you'd expect to see in in a "caveman" film: campfires, a saber-toothed cat, mammoth-skull houses, people flintknapping in a circle, etc.  The lifeway depicted seems focused on hunting terrestrial large game, with one scene showing our Solutrean friends attempting some kind of bison hunt by throwing spears into an amazing precise line in front of the charging herd. (It's hard to tell if the intent of the hunt was to drive bison over a cliff -- the cliff appears to be about a mile high, so . . .). 

Apparently something goes awry with the plan, as the protagonist gets tossed over a cliff and separated from the group. He is then chased by wolves and befriends one that is injured, creating the first human/canine bond and forever changing the world (hence the title Alpha). 

To my eye, what's shown in the trailer is unexciting. The actors look like A-listers who need a bath, and the scenery looks more like the sterile CGI landscape of 300 and The Phantom Menace than the real natural world shown in films like The Black Robe.

​I give the trailer a score of three bored yawns (out of five, not ten).

My review of Lost City, Found Pyramid (2016, edited by Jeb Card and David S. Anderson) has been published in the July issue of American Antiquity.  Like most of American Antiquity's content, unfortunately, the review is in a "member's only" area not accessible to the public.

(Side note: I wonder if it would be feasible for the SAA to have a cut-rate "non-professional" membership rate that could open the content of the journal to a much wider segment of the public?  What if membership rates and benefits stayed the same for those of us in academia but there was a lower tier -- say $5 or $10 per year -- that was open to anyone who wanted to access journal content but not go to meetings, etc.? I think we'd be doing ourselves a big favor by working harder to expose the general public to what it is we actually do and talk about.)

I can't print the whole review, obviously, but here is my first paragraph:

"Lost City, Found Pyramid is about understanding and engaging what Kenneth Feder (following Glyn Daniel) affectionately terms “bullshit archaeology.” (I am more polite than Feder, so I’ll use the term “pseudoarchaeology.”) It’s timely and relevant: while current events have focused the public on the importance of actively defending our system for creating an evidence-based reality, those of us who track pseudoarchaeology know that the “alternative facts” and “fake news” are not new at all. "

I liked the book, and I enjoyed reading each of the chapters.  The University of Alabama Press correctly describes the book as "A collection of twelve engaging and insightful essays" that "does far more than argue for the simple debunking of false archaeology."  The strength of the volume clearly lies with its emphasis on the “how” and “why” aspects of the creation, packaging, and consumption of pseudoarchaeological claims.  Much less attention is paid to the "so what" questions.  There surely could be, and should be, a companion volume that focuses on illuminating why the simple dismissal of pseudoarchaeology by professionals as "all in good fun" is both naive and (one could argue) unethical. 

I'm happy to announce that I'm contributing a piece of sculpture to be auctioned off as part of the ZOOfari event at Columbia's Riverbanks Zoo and Garden. The event is on September 22. Proceeds go to support the zoo's programs.

While I agreed to participate months ago, it has taken me a long time to decide what to contribute. I have finally made peace with letting go of "Old Ben," a hermit crab sculpture I made this summer.

"Old Ben" is made mostly from discarded things I picked up in my neighborhood, including a golf club, the blade from a garden lopper, nuts and bolts from lawnmowers, and part of a staple gun. The whelk shell is one I collected from the beach myself -- probably from Edisto.

It's difficult for me to let go of any of the things I've made, and this piece is no exception. I'm going to miss this guy. I hope he finds a good home.

I've spent the last couple of weeks on a family vacation to northeast Ohio, southeast Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula. I'm back in Columbia now, armed with a long mental list of things I'd like to do and talk about over the next few months. As I know from past experience that my eyes are often bigger than my stomach, I'll keep the specific list to myself for now. I'll just say it includes some real archaeology, some fake "archaeology," some ecological observations, some politics, some music, some art stuff, and possibly some ponderings about a spaceship cult.

Here's some real archaeology to start.