Here's my second attempt at privileging the quick over the perfect.

In this 2015 presentation (which we discussed this week in my Forbidden Archaeology class), Joe Taylor claims the following (starting about 55:20):

"Enoch says there were men . . . I think he says 1200 feet tall, or ells, or 450 feet, you know. I think there's evidence of a 450-foot-tall man that's been found. There's a tibia that used to be used as a bridge somewhere in the Middle East, somewhere.  Four hundred and fifty feet tall. There's a tiba,a human tibia, supposedly . . . there's no dinosaur on the whole earth with a tibia more than 10 feet long. Maybe there will be, but a 450-foot man has a 100-foot-long tibia. So let's say he's buried in the Flood, well there's a lot of bulk, a lot of fat and stuff around that. Maybe he's covered in a hundred feet of mud, well then in a few hundred years that erodes away. In a few thousand years he's down to his bones. They still have a lot of fat in them. And this one bone is long enough to make a bridge with. Okay, so . . . he had to have been buried in the Flood, so maybe that report is true. Maybe there were men 450 feet tall." 

I had never before heard the claim of a 100-foot-long tibia used as a bridge, so I tried to track down the source.

First, I found this 14th-century account by Bavarian traveler Johann Schiltberger (English translation published in 1879 in The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger; I copied this text from Jason Colavito's "Fragments of Giants" page):

​"It is to be noted, that in Egypt there was a giant, who was called in the Infidel tongue, Allenklaisser. In this country is the city called Missir, but the Christians call it Kayr [i.e. Cairo], and it is the capital of the king-sultan. In this same city are twelve thousand baking ovens. Now the said giant was so strong, that one day he brought into the city a bundle of wood to heat all the ovens, and one bundle was enough; each baker gave him a loaf, which makes twelve thousand loaves. All these he ate in one day. The shin-bone of this giant is in Arabia, in a valley between two mountains. There is a deep valley between the rocks, where flows a river at such a depth that no person can see it, one only hears its rush. It is in this same valley that the shin-bone of the giant serves as a bridge; and whoever comes there, whether they are riding or on foot, must pass over this shin-bone. It is also on a road where traders pass, coming and going, because the defile is so narrow, that people cannot pass by any other way; and the Infidels say that this bone is one frysen [i.e. parasang—about 3 miles] in length, which is equal to an arrow's flight, or more. There, a toll is taken from traders; with the same, they buy oil to anoint the bone that it may not rot. It is not a long time since a king-sultan had a bridge built near the bone; it is about two hundred years [ago], according to an inscription on the bridge. When a lord comes there with many people, he passes over the bridge, and does not pass over the bone; but whoever wishes to pass over this wonder, may do so, that he may say of it that in this country there is an incredible thing, and which is nevertheless surely true. And if it were not true, or had I not seen it, I would not have spoken or written about it." 

In The History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century (Henry Howarth, 1880) there is this passage describing a meeting between the Mongol ruler Berebe and some envoys from Sultan Bibar of Egypt (1223-1277):

​"They had several audiences with Bereke, who asked them many questions about Egypt, about elephants and giraffes, and one day asked if the report was true that there was a giant's bone thrown across the Nile which served as a bridge. The envoys replied that they had not heard of such a thing.*

*In regard to this report, M. Quartremere tells us it was founded on a very ancient Arabic tradition. In "The History of the Conquest of Egypt," written by Abd al Hakam, we are told that a giant named Auj, having been killed by Moses, his body fell across the Nile and made a bridge. Schlitberger, the Bavarian traveller, tells us that there was a bridge in Arabia made out of a giant's leg bone, which united two rocks separated by a deep chasm. Travellers to Arabia had to cross this bridge. A toll was charged, from the proceeds of which oil was bought with which to oil the bone, and thus prevent it decaying. (Op. cit., 218. Note.)."

This 1880 version of The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger contains notes (pp. 216-217) that attempt to reconcile the Schlitberger and Mongol versions of the bridge story:

     "We read in Abd-el-Hakam's history of the conquest of Egypt (Makrizi by Quatremere, I, i, 218), that the body of a giant killed by Moses fell across the Nile and served as a bridge. With this legend may be associated Schiltberger's tale, and his credulity need not be wondered at when we consider, that in the 13th century the story was thought worthy of being related; and some there were even bold enough to tell it to the powerful ruler of the Golden Horde, Bereke Khan, who enquired of the ambassadors sent to him in 1263 by the sultan Bibars, whether it was true that the bone of a giant, laid across the Nile, was being used as a bridge! The ambassadors, who had been probably selected from among the most enlightened of the sultan's minsters, replied that they had never seen it, and answer that may have been elicited by the nature of the question, because the strange bridge seen by Schiltberger must have been in Arabia and not in Egypt. It united two rocks separated by a profound ravine in the depths of which coursed a torrent, and as it afforded the only practicable means for crossing the ravine on the high road, travelers were obliged to pass over it.
     "I cannot believe that these topographic details were invented by Schiltberger, and am therefore inclined to think that he alludes to the neighborhood of the fortresses of Kerak and Shaubek, places that acquired considerable importance during the Crusades in consequence of their admirable situations. They are easily identified with "Crach" and "Sebach" mentioned by De Lannoy . . . 
    "Shaubek, the "Mons regalis" of the Crusaders, thirty-six miles from Kerak, was also a strong place. Burckhardt tells us that a ravine, three hundred feet in depth, encircles the citadel . . .
     "According to an Arabian author quoted by Quatremere (l. c. II, i, 245), the road near these two cities was so peculiar that it could have been held by one man against a hundred horsemen.  Another reason for the supposition that the bridge seen by Schlitberger was in one of these passages, lies in the fact that the same writer includes the tomb of Iskender among the holy places of pilgrimage in this ancient country; but he does not determine the individuality of that Iskender.
     On the hypothesis that "Allenklaisser's" limb was near the tomb of Iskender, I should be inclined to look in the same locality for the bridge that was constructed, according to the inscription it bore, two hundred years before Schiltberger saw it. . . . This circumstance, no doubt, induced the "king-sultan" to order the construction of a bridge for keeping up communication between two parts of his kingdom, the new bridge being near the old one that was kept smeared with oil, a condition that had the effect of persuading the guileless Bavarian that it was indeed a gigantic bone."

I haven't had time to look into the geography of area that the last writer identifies as a possible source of Schiltberger's tale of a giant bone used as a bridge. That will have to wait, as lightning time is over for the day.

As my Forbidden Archaeology course descends into the meaty part of the syllabus, the interesting "fringe" topics I'd like to write about are piling up to the point where I'm feeling buried. There was already a backlog, but now I'm finding myself listening to presentations and interviews (rather than music) on my walks to and from work. When I get to my lab, however, I've got people to manage and a hundred other things to do to move my actual research forward -- I just haven't been able to make the time to hole up and spend a few hours composing a thoughtful blog post. One of the reasons I like to write is that the process of writing helps me organize my thoughts. So it's a bummer that I'm finding less time to write during the semester when I'm most immersed in "fringe" claims.

Rather than let things remain unwritten, I'm going to try a "lightning round" approach where I quickly summarize an idea: short and (hopefully) to the point. These posts won't be works of art, but will (1) provide a place for discussion for those who are interested in a topic and (2) provide an organized summary that I can return to. So don't beat me up if I leave something out or fail to appreciate some nuance: it is what it is.

Now onto the topic.

Harold Edwards, a professional geologist and scheduled Forbidden Archaeology participant, sent me some information on the weathering of calcite as it relates to evaluating the age of the inscription on the Kensington Rune Stone (KRS).  Edwards told me that I could "use these pictures and this information as you wish." I'll quote Edwards directly when so you'll know which words are his and which are mine.

First, some definitions: 

Calcite is a common carbonate mineral that is one of the principal constituents of limestone and marble. It has a Mohs hardness of 3 and dissolves in acid.

Greywacke is a variety of sandstone. Sandstone has a Mohs hardness of 6.5 to 7. The susceptibility of sandstones to acid depends upon the minerals holding the sand grains together.

The different hardness and weathering properties of calcite and greywacke are important to evaluating the age of the inscription on the KRS.  I have modified an image of the KRS (taken in 1995 and sent to me by Edwards) to show the location of the calcite deposit on the front face of the KRS.  According to Richard Nielson and Scott Wolter (The Kensington Rune Stone: Compelling New Evidence, 2006, p. 17), the calcite layer is 1-2 mm thick and was deposited millions of years ago "along the joint fracture system [while the rock was still attached to its parent] in solution, parallel to the face side of the stone." (In his email, Edwards stated that the calcite layer was about 3 mm thick).

The inscription on the KRS extends into the calcite deposit.  Given that calcite is more susceptible to weathering than greywacke, one would expect that the portion of the inscription in the calcite would be more weathered than the portion in the greywacke.   Neilsen and Wolter (2006: 17) say this is, in fact, the case:

"Microscopic examination using reflected light revealed that the characters carved into the calcite were less distinct and appeared to be more weathered than the characters carved into the graywacke. . . . Further study of the weathering of the characters within the calcite area might yield additional information about the relative age of the inscription, but currently the only tests available are invasive and would deface the inscription."

​In his email, Edwards claims that the portion of the inscription in the calcite is much less weathered than one would expect had the carved runes actually been exposed to 500 years of weathering:

"The inscription is about as sharp as the day it was carved.  Look at the word spacer--the colon-like double dotted letter.  There is an almost perfect impression of a conical punch. The surface of the calcite layer shows the granular texture that is typical of weathered calcite so it was weathered for some time.  The letters are smooth showing virtually no weathering."

Edwards also sent me some images of marble tombstone from 1881 to illustrate the effects of above-ground weathering on calcium carbonate rocks. Edwards wrote the following:

"Marble is almost completely made of calcite.  Rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide from the air to become slightly acidic and over time dissolves away the calcite.  In the Kensington area this happens to marble tombstones at a rate of 6mm/1000 years.  In other words in the 500 years between 1362 and 1898 the calcite layer would have been obliterated."

My Forbidden Archaeology students will be watching this 2015 video of Joe Taylor over the weekend so we can discuss it in class on Monday as part of the section on giants. I chose the video because Taylor, a Young Earth Creationist, is an active advocate of the idea that demonstrating the existence of giants would prove the Bible to be true and the theory of evolution to be false. 

In the preamble to his presentation of his evidence for giants, Taylor provides an "update" on the ongoing activities of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum. Those activities apparently included a trip to investigate Lovelock Cave (Nevada) firsthand (beginning around 7:00 in the video). Lovelock Cave is one of those sites that holds pull for just about every element of the "fringe:" giantologists, alien enthusiasts, Bigfoot believers, etc. I've written a little about the human remains from the Lovelock Cave area before (here and here).

Taylor's brief discussion of Lovelock irked me for two reasons. First, he uncritically repeats the mistaken notion that there are Paiute legends of "red-headed giants" inhabiting the cave. Second, he describes activities during his "investigation" that probably violate laws protecting archaeological sites on federal land. 

Sarah Winnemucca's "Red-Headed Giants"

Talking about his visit with some Native Americans to discuss the cave, Taylor says the following:

​"This gal here is a descendant of Chief Winnemucca, and Sarah Winnemucca was her great great aunt, I guess. This is Sarah Winnemucca, who wrote a lot about the red-headed giants -- wrote the whole story."

No, she didn't: the often-repeated claim that Sarah Winnemucca wrote about cannibalistic, red-haired giants is false.

​The source of the "red-headed giant" claim is the 1883 book by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins titled Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims.  The people paraphrasing this book should take the time to actually read it: nowhere does Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins discuss "red-headed giants." The part relevant to Lovelock is the last paragraph of Chapter IV.  I'll reproduce that whole paragraph for our convenience:

"Among the traditions of our people is one of a small tribe of barbarians who used to live along the Humboldt River. It was many hundred years ago. They used to waylay my people and kill and eat them. They would dig large holes in our trails at night, and if any of our people travelled at night, which they did, for they were afraid of these barbarous people, they would oftentimes fall into these holes. That tribe would even eat their own dead – yes, they would even come and dig up our dead after they were buried, and would carry them off and eat them. Now and then they would come and make war on my people. They would fight, and as fast as they killed one another on either side, the women would carry off those who were killed. My people say they were very brave. When they were fighting they would jump up in the air after the arrows that went over their heads, and shoot the same arrows back again. My people took some of them into their families, but they could not make them like themselves. So at last they made war on them. This war lasted a long time. Their number was about twenty-six hundred (2600). The war lasted some three years. My people killed them in great numbers, and what few were left went into the thick bush. My people set the bush on fire. This was right above Humboldt Lake. Then they went to work and made tuly or bulrush boats, and went into Humboldt Lake. They could not live there very long without fire. They were nearly starving. My people were watching them all round the lake, and would kill them as fast as they would come on land. At last one night they all landed on the east side of the lake, and went into a cave near the mountains. It was a most horrible place, for my people watched at the mouth of the cave, and would kill them as they came out to get water. My people would ask them if they would be like us, and not eat people like coyotes or beasts. They talked the same language, but they would not give up. At last my people were tired, and they went to work and gathered wood, and began to fill up the mouth of the cave. Then the poor fools began to pull the wood inside till the cave was full. At last my people set it on fire; at the same time they cried out to them, "Will you give up and be like men, and not eat people like beasts? Say quick – we will put out the fire." No answer came from them. My people said they thought the cave must be very deep or far into the mountain. They had never seen the cave nor known it was there until then. They called out to them as loud as they could, "Will you give up? Say so, or you will all die." But no answer came. Then they all left the place. In ten days some went back to see if the fire had gone out. They went back to my third or fifth great-grandfather and told him they must all be dead, there was such a horrible smell. This tribe was called people-eaters, and after my people had killed them all, the people round us called us Say-do-carah. It means conqueror; it also means "enemy." I do not know how we came by the name of Piutes. It is not an Indian word. I think it is misinterpreted. Sometimes we are called Pine-nut eaters, for we are the only tribe that lives in the country where Pine-nuts grow. My people say that the tribe we exterminated had reddish hair. I have some of their hair, which has been handed down from father to son. I have a dress which has been in our family a great many years, trimmed with this reddish hair. I am going to wear it some time when I lecture. It is called the mourning dress, and no one has such a dress but my family."

Cannibals? Yes.

Red hair?  Yes.

Giants?  No. 

In fact, the word "giant" is only used once in the entire document, when the author tells us that tales about giants are "make-believe stories:" 

The inconvenient fact that Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins never discussed red-haired giants in Lovelock Cave has not stopped numerous "researchers" from proclaiming that she did. Taylor apparently made a field trip to Lovelock to search for evidence of these imagined "giants" for himself, which brings me to the second (and more troubling) part of Taylor's discussion.

The Defacement of Lovelock Cave

Joe Taylor apparently took it upon himself to deface the site during his visit.

Here's what Taylor says:

"Inside the cave -- this is inside the walls of the cave -- and the whole ceiling has been blackened. I took a little scraping of that stuff to have it analyzed.  We also . . . it looked like there's a big hand print on the wall. They were thinking it was an impression, and I said well I think it's just a . . . it's like someone put their hand in paint and smacked the wall. The hand print was a whole 12-14 inches long, you know, five fingers. So I molded that thing, on the wall, which is dang near impossible to do.  And about twenty of these BLM guys started coming up and we go "we're cooked." So they came in, looked around, and we just chatted with them a while and they went in the cave and came back out and "how do you do" and went on."

Taylor scraped deposits off the ceiling and he used some kind of molding material on what was apparently rock art. Those are not things a person is allowed to do without a permit on a publicly-owned, federally-protected archaeological site. Here are some relevant sections of 43CFR7, which covers the protection of archaeological resources on federal land:

Section 7.4 "(a) . . . no person may excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface, or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any archaeological resource located on public lands or Indian lands unless such activity is pursuant to a permit issued under Sec. 7.8 or exempted by Sec. 7.5(b) of this part."

Section 7.5 "(a) Any person proposing to excavate and/or remove archaeological resources from public lands or Indian lands, and to carry out activities associated with such excavation and/or removal, shall apply to the Federal land manager for a permit for the proposed work, and shall not begin the proposed work until a permit has been issued." 

I'm not a lawyer, but I think what Taylor claims he did probably violates 43CFR7. Taylor's comment about his worries when officials from the Bureau of Land Management approached suggests that he knew, or was at least concerned, that what he was doing was illegal. Both of Taylor's activities (the scraping and the molding) permanently altered the cave, which is an important and well-known archaeological site (if you want to learn more about the actual archaeology of the site, the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start).  And for what purpose? To chase imaginary giants he supposes were discussed in a book that he apparently has not even bothered to read closely.

What a dumb thing to do.

Here is a webpage by someone named Ron Morehead who was apparently on this trip with Taylor. He wonders what happened to the "giant hand print" after they attempted to make a mold of it -- apparently it's no longer visible.

Imagine if every person with some kind of unsupported theory about the past took it upon himself to scrape archaeologicaldeposits from ceilings to satisfy their own unfocused curiosity, or to throw chemicals on rock art (apparently just to show it was only rock art and not an impression?).  What if every bozo with a ridiculous idea about the "Mound Builders" grabbed a shovel and went out to investigate on his own? 

Archaeological resources are irreplaceable. Do you think Joe Taylor's vigilante "investigation" of Lovelock Cave helps us learn more about it? There's obviously a cost to the permanent alteration that happens when people move things, or scrape the ceiling, or put chemicals on the wall, but what's the benefit? Archaeological sites like Lovelock Cave belong to everyone -- they are a public resource. Your privilege to "investigate" imaginary giants ends when you start having a real physical impact on things that don't belong to you.

This kind of crap isn't harmless.

If you're interested in the issue of stone holes in the Upper Great Lakes and whether or not some of them were made by members of a medieval Norse expedition, you are probably familiar with the work of Bob Voyles. As I wrote last Friday, I've invited Voyles to prepare a guest blog post about his ideas, perhaps the first in a series of "Forbidden Friday" posts. There has been some back and forth in the comments on that post, so I thought I'd make a new post to pose some of my own basic questions/thoughts about the stone hole issue prior to Voyles' guest post. I want to make it clear that I'm not a stone hole expert, and I haven't spent a lot of time looking into Voyles' claims (i.e., it's possible he or someone else has already addressed these questions).

Confronted with the claim of a Norse origin for some of the stone holes, my first question is "how do you know the holes were made by the Norse?"  You can't directly date a hole in stone, after all, and there are several possible reasons for creating holes in stones in the first place.  The leading "mainstream" explanation for most of the holes, as described in this 1998 article by Tom Trow, is that they were created for the purposes of blasting the rocks apart so the pieces could be used for the foundations of buildings. Trow (pp. 127-128) quotes an older resident's description of how and why the stone holes were created, by hand, with iron or steel chisels:

"Gee, whiz, I had to crank the grindstone for ’em to sharpen them chisels. You know, you had a chisel this long [showing about a foot and a half]. And then it was about as big as your finger. And then it was sharp, you know, sharpened, and then you took it like this and then you held it on the stone and then you gave it a crack and, you know, they were experts at turning it, see? And then they turn it, and then they gave it another crack, and that’s the way, after a while, the chisel went down in the stone. And then they dug the scrap out and they kept on drilling until it was about this deep [showing about eight inches]. Then they put powder. . . . in there, black powder, and then if it was a big stone you’d have to make another hole over here and another hole over there. And then they set fire to it and blasted it. And it cracks nice."

Trow's informant (Emil Mattson) was born in 1897, and therefore would have been describing creating stone holes using hand chisels in the early 1900's. 

If I understand Voyles correctly, he claims that one can differentiate stone holes created in the 1800's and 1900's from those created by the Norse because of differences in (1) weathering and (2) form. With respect to weathering, Voyles states that the edges of what he interprets as medieval stone holes show significantly more weathering on their edges than those that were obviously made by modern drills. On this page he shows what he describes as aging differences between a "modern" stone hole and one created by the Norse. 

With respect to shape, Volyes points to differences in the regularity of holes created with modern drilled versus those created by hand chisels.  In a January 2016 article titled "In Defense of the Kensington Runestone: Stoneholes," Voyles makes the following statement:

"The medieval stoneholes are slightly triangular because it is not possible to make a perfectly round stonehole with a hand chisel. Later modern drilling could make perfectly round holes, and this is how old and new can be distinguished from one another."

I think Voyles is correct that are groups of holes made using different techniques. My issue comes with equating "triangular" or "hand-chiseled" with "medieval." A little searching online turned up some descriptions of early American stone quarrying methods that are useful, I think.  The first quote is from the 2005 book The Art of Splitting Stone: Early Rock Quarrying Methods in Pre-industrial New England 1630-1825 (Mary Gage and James Gage) in a section titled "Hammer Drilling or Triangular Hole Method" (page 48):

​     ". . .Triangular holes are documented at archaeological sites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Great Britain. Archaeological, historical, and experimental evidence has demonstrated that the triangular holes were cut with a straight edge chisel being rotating approximately 60 degrees between hammer strikes. These holes come in a wide variety of diameters and depths.
     Frederick Pohl in his book The Lost Discovery has documented and researched several triangular hole sites found in stone outcroppings along the tidal waters and bays on Cape Cod . . . Mr. Pohl felt a straight-edged chisel rather than a plug or star drill was used to drill/cut the triangular hole. To verify his theory, he conducted an experiment. He and two other people, "taking turns leisurely cut a hole 1 1/4 inches deep in five minutes. We found we could not make a round hole with a straight-edged chisel. All our attempts resulted in triangular holes with the corners rounded.""

Gage and Gage point to other interesting accounts of using hand chisels to create stone holes. A 1904 book by Halbert Powers Gillette titled Rock Excavation: Methods and Cost is quoted in this report by James Gage:

​"Hammer Drilling. – The common weight of hammer for one-hand drilling is 4 ½ lbs; for two-hand or three-hand drilling 10 lbs. The striking face must be flat or slightly rounding, and smaller than the stock of the hammer. The hole is started on a solid and squared surface, with a short drill, for the longer the drill the less effective the blow. Light blows are struck at first. The bit is turned one-eighth of a revolution after each blow to insure keeping the hole truly circular. But in spite of this precaution most hand-drilled holes are three-cornered, or “rifled.”"

Based on the fact that we've got multiple accounts demonstrating that hand chisels were commonly being used to produce holes in rocks in the northern United States at least into the early 1900's (including in Minnesota), and that such methods typically produced triangular holes . . . on what basis could one claim that some triangular/irregular stone holes were created by the medieval Norse?  What is the positive evidence? How could you separate out the Norse holes from all the others that we know were being created?

As Voyles suggests, weathering could be a way to go. If similar tools were used to create similar holes, there's still at least the theoretical possibility that one could differentiate stone holes created in the 14th century from those created in the 19th or 20th centuries by looking at the weathering of exposed surfaces. As Voyles stated in his comments on my blog about the Sauk Lake Altar Rock, "multiple hand-chiseled holes in this rock can be compared to the mineral or mica decomposition of the late 1800's stoneholes to see that they are extremely aged by comparison." I think there's potentially a significant difficulty here, however, if we depend on macroscopically-observable "weathering" to assign relative age. The descriptions of steel chisels "dancing" around in the holes as they're created suggests to me that the edges of hand-chiseled holes might be battered as they are created (rather than smoothed gradually by mechanical weathering). To my eye, for example, the triangular hole shown by Gage and Gage in Figure 20 (page 49) appears to have a battered/smoothed lip.  Perhaps there would be a way to look at some microscopic characteristics of the stone and say something about aging.  You'd have to have good controls for that, however. If I were trying to build a case that some of these stone holes were created by medieval Norse, I'd start working on that aspect and looking for other ways to differentiate them from modern holes.

That's my two cents on stone holes for today.

We're now into the fourth week of the semester here at the University of South Carolina. As usual I've been writing for this blog less than I'd like (I have several unfinished draft posts and ideas for several more, and there's currently a backlog of Fake Hercules Swords). A good chunk of my time/energy is going into the Forbidden Archaeology class (you can follow along on the course website if you like -- I've been writing short synopses, and student-produced content will begin to appear a few weeks from now). Much of the remainder has gone into pushing forward the inter-locking components of my research agenda. This is a brief update about those pieces.

Small-Scale Archaeological Data

At the beginning of the summer I spent a little time in the field doing some preliminary excavation work at a site that contains (minimally) an intact Archaic component buried about 1.9 meters below the surface (see this quick summary).  Based on the general pattern here in the Carolina Piedmont and a couple of projectile points recovered from the slump at the base of the profile, my guess is that buried cultural zone dates to the Middle Archaic period (i.e., about 8000-5000 years ago).​

My daughter washed some of the artifacts from the site over the summer, and I've now got an undergraduate student working on finishing up the washing before moving on to cataloging and labeling. Once the lithics are labeled we'll be able to spread everything out and start fitting the quartz chipping debris back together. Because I piece-plotted the large majority of the lithic debris, fitting it back together will help us understand how the deposit was created. I'm hoping we can get some good insights into the very small-scale behaviors that created the lithic deposit (i.e.,perhaps the excavated portion of the deposit was created by just one or two people over the course of less than an hour).

When the archaeology faculty met to discuss the classes we'd be offering in the spring semester, I pitched the idea of running a one-day-per-week field school at the site. Assuming I can get sufficient enrollment numbers, that looks like it's going to happen. The site is within driving distance of Columbia, so we'll be commuting every Friday (leaving campus at 8:00 and returning by 4:00). The course will be listed as ANTH 322/722. It's sand, it's three dimensional, and it's pretty complicated -- it's going to be a fun excavation. I'll be looking to hire a graduate student to assist me on Fridays, and I'll be applying for grant monies to cover the costs of the field assistant's wages, transportation, and other costs associated with putting a crew in the field. 

Large-Scale Archaeological Data

Some parts of my quest to assemble several different large-scale datasets are creeping along, some are moving forward nicely, and some are still on pause.

Complex Systems Theory and Computer Modeling

Complex systems theory is what will make it possible to bridge the small and large scales of data that I'm collecting. Last year, I invested some effort into transferring my latest computer model (FN3_D_V3) into Repast Simphony and getting it working. I also started building a brand new, simpler model to look at equifinality issues associated with interpreting patterns of lithic transport (specifically to address the question of whether or not we can differentiate patterns of transport produced via group mobility, personal mobility between groups, and exchange).  

As it currently sits, the FN3_D_V3 model is mainly demographic, lacking a spatial component. Over the summer I used it to produce data relevant to understanding the minimum viable population (MVP) size of human groups. Those data, which I'm currently in the process of analyzing, suggest to me that the "magic number of 500" is probably much too large: I have yet to find evidence in my data that human populations limited to about 150 people are not demographically viable over spans of several hundred years even under constrained marriage rules. But I've just started the analysis, so we'll see. I submitted a paper on this topic years ago with a much cruder model and didn't have the stomach to attempt to use that model to address the reviewers' comments. I'm hoping to utilize much of the background and structure of that earlier paper and produce a new draft for submission quickly. I also plan to put the FN3_D_V3 code online here and at OpenABM.org once I get it cleaned up a bit. I also discuss this model in a paper in a new edited volume titled Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis in Archaeological Computational Modeling (edited by Marieka Brouwer Burg, Hans Peeters, and William Lovis). 

It will be a relatively simple thing to use the FN3_D_V3 model in its non-spatial configuration to produce new data relevant to the Middle Paleolithic mortality issue I discussed at the SAA meetings a couple of years ago. I'm also going to be working toward putting the guts of the demographic model into a spatial context. That's going to take some time.

I think anyone who puts blood and sweat into making something can empathize with simultaneously loving and hating what you're creating. There are so many parts of the process of making something new that I love, and yet what I end up with is never what I see in my head. There are always compromises, my skills aren't what I'd like them to be, and I always have to work just with what I have on hand (or wait and see what I'll have tomorrow). The trick for me is finding some way to stop at a point that I like. And then I move on and try again. Or try something else.

I've put about 20-25 hours of fairly strenuous labor into this triceratops head. I wasn't sure where I was on the love/hate continuum with it yesterday: something about it just bugged me and I couldn't let it go. I figured out what I wanted to do overnight and was fortunate to be able to put in another hour today making it happen. It's still not what I see in my head, but I'm more securely on the "love" side of the see-saw now, so I'm going to call it good and move on. 

This sculpture is mostly made of things I've picked up over the last couple of months. The frill and a lot of the frame for the head are made from a discarded chair I picked out of someone's garbage during my trip to Topsail Island. The nasal horn is from a pickax head I bought for a few bucks when I visited the Museum of Appalachia, as is a plate on the forehead. The sheet metal pieces on the far corners of the fill come from an old seed spreader I bought at an antique store in Charlotte. The cores of the brow horns are legs from a chair I pulled out of a trash pile at my kid's school. The spiral pieces come from some kind of old light fixture that my mom gave me, Some of the brake pads are old (from a previous sculpture I tore apart) and some are "new," donated from the Midas shop in Cayce where we recently spent a small fortune getting our truck fixed. The brake rotor and bearing on the stand as well as some of the sheet metal pieces on the horns are also from that Midas shop. Parts of the mandible, head, and frill were made from parts of an lawnmower that my ever-vigilant neighbor snatched from the curb for me (thanks Chris!). I used burner pans and heating elements scavenged from a couple of electric ranges discarded by an apartment complex I walk by on my way to work. 

This triceratops head is obviously far more elaborate than the first one I constructed.  I've taught myself some tricks as I've built things over the years (in fits and starts), and I've become more confident in my ability to create shapes from scratch. But this still isn't the triceratops head I want to make: it's closer, but it's not there yet. 

"We all can't shine at the same time."

The timeless wisdom of Rapper Juicy J. becomes reality with Fake Hercules Sword 16: "The Brassy One."

JA Sterling (freelance writer, Friend of Swordgate, and frequent contributor to the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame group on Facebook) stumbled upon Sword 16 on this blog (you'll need to scroll down a bit in order to see the original photo) while searching for something else. Here is the only image we have so far, cropped and rotated:

Note (Andy White): My hunch is that, unlike the other swords, a heavy artificial patina was never applied to Sword 16. It seems that the "fake" patina was applied to the other swords to increase their appeal as antiques (perhaps so they could be marketed not as authentic ancient Roman artifacts but as relics related to the nineteenth century Grand Tour). This makes Sword 16 very interesting: why was no fake patina applied to this particular sword? Where was this sword "found" and photographed? 

I've got another idea.  Some of you will like this idea and, I'm sure, some of you will not. It came to me while walking home though South Carolina's piece of Hurricane Hermine, so it may be terrible. Here it is:

On Fridays, I'll feature a guest blog post on a non-mainstream archaeological topic. The guest author will present some aspect of his/her research in an evidence-based framework (i.e., using evidence to support or refute a claim) and will be responsible for answering questions and defending the claim in the comments. I'll have some standards and ground rules, but will try to remain open to any claim that (1) has to do with the human past and (2) is tied to material evidence.

What do you think?

While there is no shortage of things that I think are fun and interesting to discuss, I'm not able to write nearly as much as I'd like. During the academic year, I probably average 2-3 posts per week. That leaves plenty of dead air. Why not open up some space for some of my readers or others who might want to reach a different audience? 

In the spirit of the Forbidden Archaeology class I'm teaching this semester, the important thing is that you orient your claim within some kind of scientific, evidence-based framework.  The rest of us, then, will scrutinize your claim, your assumptions, and your evidence and work it over in the comments. It will be a virtual dojo, where evidence-based point-counterpoint plays out in the same space for all to see.  If building things up by trying to knock things down geeks you out, you'll like it. If it hurts your feelings to have someone ask you hard questions or refute you, you probably won't like it. 

While I've had guest posts on my blog before, they've all been related to #Swordgate (there are more swords coming, by the way). The idea for "Forbidden Friday" came to me as I was corresponding with Bob Voyles (aka Gunn), who often comments on this blog about stone holes and what calls the "Norse Code Stone." It's obvious that Voyles cares deeply about his work and has put a lot of time and effort into it -- why not just offer him an opportunity to explain it himself? As I and others have commented before, my first question when I read about the stone holes is "how do you know they were made by Norse explorers?"  It's a reasonable, logical first question, and a great place to start: (1) construct the null hypothesis such as "all the stone holes in Minnesota are modern and were created to break up rocks;" (2) try to falisfy it. Voila, you're well on your way to doing some science. Voyles has accepted my invitation, so we'll see a guest post by him some time in the future.

Is anyone else out there interested? Giant skeletons? Ancient navigation? Sunken cities? Alien technology? ​