This is a quick update on what's been going on with my art.

What's For Sale

I added a new section to my website listing everything I've got for sale. I'll be adding to it as I make new things. I don't do a large volume of business, so there's no "cart" or automated system or anything like that. If you're interested in something just send me an email at [email protected]. As always, interesting trades considered.

The meat of Swordgate unwrapped itself from December of 2015 (when the claim was originally published) through the spring of 2016.  Since that time, many of the original blog posts, videos, and sound files used to attempt to support the claim have become unavailable. Even the link to the original story in The Boston Standard is now inactive.

I can only speculate as to why all of these original sources have apparently disappeared. I can say, however, that removing those sources has not removed the claim from the internet.  A Google search on "Roman sword Nova Scotia" still returns over 700,000 results; "Roman sword Oak Island" returns over 4 million. Although some of the highest ranked hits are skeptical blog posts by me, Carl Feagans, and Jason Colavito, the sources reporting the claim as a credible one predominate.

Clearly, the claim lives on. Someone searching for information about the purported "Roman sword" online will be shown numerous articles that breathlessly and uncritically report the central components of Hutton Pulitzer's claim: the shipwreck origins story, the nonspecific XRF results, the verification of the sword by a "Roman antiquities authority," the other evidence of a Roman occupation of Oak Island, etc. In this January 2016 Ancient Origins article we even get a part of Pulitzer's rebuttal to the growing number of swords that were being documented :

"The Roman sword found off Oak Island is believed to be part of a rare set of votive swords. Four similar swords having been recovered and verified, now in private collections and museums, including the Museum of Naples, Italy, which issued cast iron replicas of the sword. Many replicas of these rare swords can now be found on websites such as eBay and Amazon."

For the record, no-one has ever produced an image or a record of the supposed "Naples Museum" sword that is key to the argument for the sword's authenticity. The statements that such an item exists have remained simple assertions for years now, with zero evidence provided to back them up.

You will notice that the Ancient Origins article is completely unbalanced: it does not challenge the key elements in any real way, and it does not cite or quote any part of the contemporary evidence and analysis that suggested the sword claim was incorrect. Many many sources questioning the sword claim were available when the article was written, and yet none is included. This article is one of the top search results. 

The claim remains in other places as well. If you have the time, I recommend you listen to the entirely of this February 2016 interview of Hutton Pulitzer on Earth Ancients. In addition to a full-throated defense of the sword, Pulitzer describes his other evidence for the ancient Roman occupation of Oak Island, communicates his expansive, world-wide research agenda, and teases the publication of the elusive "white paper" and multiple books that will explode all of our outdated ideas about history. He concludes with these remarks:

"I'll take the heat. They can call me names. I will not back down. And we'll all do this together. . . . This is a war for truth, folks, and we need warriors for truth. You have to fight this battle and not let the system suppress it."

I suppose the subsequent disappearance of many of the videos, blog posts, and sound files arguing the case for the authenticity of the sword and an ancient Roman occupation of Nova Scotia could make one question the outcome of the "battle for truth." To the best of my knowledge, the vaunted "white paper" was never released and the books that were being produced were never distributed.

But, nevertheless, the claims about the "Roman sword from Nova Scotia" remain extant and active as long as the original articles and interview videos continue to be available. And as long as the claim is active, our engagement with that claim must also remain available.

If you're so inclined, I invite you to donate some material support to the effort to keep the counter-claim alive and accessible.

As my show at Tapp's winds down, I'm working on my next move. Most of the pieces in the show didn't sell (here is a page showing all of them), so they'll be coming home with me at least temporarily.  The show technically ends on the 29th but Tapp's in in full bug-out mode now as they prepare to shift to their new location. So I'll start moving my pieces out in the coming week.

I think my next move is to find a gallery somewhere in the region through which I can sell. I've sold pieces in Columbia and feel very supported here, but my guess is that I will do better over the long term with exposure in another area with a more developed art market (Charleston? Asheville?). I have zero experience in approaching galleries, so if anyone out there has any leads or advice I'm listening. Inventory is no problem, as I have many pieces of varying size and price point ready to go. If you a know a gallery owner that you think might be interested, please send them the link to the Dirt Dance Floor page or just my gallery. 

Because I still work in my garage, I have low overhead. The profit from the pieces I sell generally goes into my daughter's college fund. Given recent events, I may start diverting some funds into the legal war chest that I'm building to defend myself and my blog.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them! I'm going to keep on creating no matter what, but I need to get better at getting my work in front of the right people. I'm not a professional artist, but I'm still better at that than I am at being a salesman.

NEWS FLASH: #Swordgate is back!

Although those heady days of swords raining from the sky are long gone, the effects of the debacle continue to reverberate. As you probably figured out from my post earlier this week, content related to Swordgate is at the heart of the threats against me and my blog. As I plan my defense strategy, I won't go into exactly what those threats are and how I'm going to counter them. I will say that I'm not going to sit on my hands.

Swordgate was a team effort: that's one of the things that made it fun and probably the main thing that ultimately made it successful. It was about way more than just me digging in -- it was about a community of people who shared a passion for the adventure of finding the real answer to the mystery.

The defense of all that we did is also not just about me. This blog is controlled by me, but the Swordgate content is the result of the work of many, many people.  While I remain friends online with some of you, there are many of you that I don't know personally.  I'm asking all of you, however, to think about the importance of Swordgate and your role in it, and consider stepping up to the plate again. It ain't over.

I made a quick video to hopefully help get the word out about the situation. If you support the truth and think it's important to continue to have open and honest discussions about these kinds of claims, please consider contributing something to the Woo War Two campaign I organized on GoFundMe: the money will go to legal fees as the situation develops.  Thank you for your support.

I'm happy to announce that my archaeological field school is on the books again for the Spring 2020 semester. Assuming everything goes according to plan, I'll be taking students to excavate at 38FA608 each Friday next semester, beginning in mid January and running through April. I plan to once again produce weekly videos and have the students write blog posts.

I have several goals for the 2020 season. First, I plan to continue straightening "the wall" by excavating a Unit in the vicinity of Unit 13 (excavated in 2018). Unit 13 gave us our first real look at the Savannah River component of the site, producing several points in situ and a complex of deposits that included a shallow pit feature and several possible posts. At this point we know the stratigraphic location of the Savannah River component, at least in the "wall" portion of the site.  I'm hoping that an additional unit will help boost our sample of Late Archaic diagnostics as well as recover more detailed information about the components pre- and post-dating the Savannah River component. 

Second, I will continue work in the block. With removal last season of the two discrete features exposed in the floors of Units 4 and 6, we're set to continue pushing downward. One of the features was radiocarbon dated to Savannah River times, and we have a Savannah River point from the screen. While it's possible that the Mack and Savannah River components are somewhat mixed, the dated feature suggests we may already be below the Late/Terminal Archaic Mack component. It's possible that we'll hit a relatively heavy Savannah River component to match was discovered in the wall unit. It's also possible that the Savannah River component in the block is relatively light, and perhaps already mostly or partially removed. Lower than the Savannah River component, the next component that we know exists at the site is Middle Archaic in age (Guilford). It will be interesting to see what comes next in the block.

Three of the block units (Units 3, 5, and 12) are still above the Mack component. Work will continue in one or more of those units.

Thirdly, we will be searching for the Early Holocene component at the site. Two Early Archaic projectile points have been recovered from the site vicinity: one from the dirt road and one from the disturbed area immediately adjacent to where we have been excavating. Given that we know Middle Archaic materials are deeply buried at 38FA608, the presence of Early Archaic diagnostics suggests that buried Early Archaic deposits exist there also. We may have first encountered these with the excavation of Unit 11 after the close of the 2018 season. I applied for and received an internal grant from USC to fund a professional excavation in the "basement" area of the site to search for Early Holocene and/or Late Pleistocene deposits. That excavation will be concurrent with the field school.

I would like to once again thank those that contributed to the GoFundMe campaign I organized to support the 2019 season of the field school. As I have already discussed, that field school didn't happen. With the blessing of the donors, I retained the money donated for the 2019 effort. I have used a portion of the money to support the creation of 3D models of the lithic tools we've recovered from the site so far (many of the models are available on this page of the Broad River Archaeological Field School website), but the large majority will be used to support this field school. I plan to use the money to hire two people as staff and purchase the requisite expendable supplies.

Stay tuned!

I have spent many hours and much effort over the last few years creating content on this blog that deals with pseudo-archaeological claims. That content -- and, really, ultimately my right to engage in an open and honest discussion about "fringe" claims -- is currently under attack. 

If you appreciate the content that I've produced and published here, I hope that you'll consider contributing to the Woo War Two GoFundMe campaign that I created to offset the costs of defending this blog (and the Argumentative Archaeologist website). I have always tried to play fair, and I believe that this blog is a valuable educational resource that is protected by law.  The content that I and my readers/contributors have produced over the years is too valuable to simply let go. And so I don't intend to simply throw my hands up and surrender.

I won't go into any details at this point, but my longtime readers are smart and will probably be able to figure out some of what's going on. I'll communicate about the details as I'm able upon the advice of my attorneys.

I hope you'll join me both for the sake of preserving what is here and for the general principle that we don't decide vigorous debates about claims related to the human past by threats of lawsuits.

I spend all day yesterday at SEAC (Jackson, Mississippi) in the Paleoindian symposium organized by Scott Jones. There were lots of interesting papers -- among the best parts of these kinds of gatherings is being able to sit in a room and watch person after person talk about what they've been doing, what they've learned, what they think is important or interesting, etc. It's not necessarily the best way to get command of all the minutia of the work we do, but it is the best way to get a feel for what's going on across multiple regions, what people in different research programs have been working on, etc.  

One of the interesting aspects of a symposium like this is that you can see patterns of interest emerge -- different people working on different parts of the same problems in different regions.  As the discussant for the session, Joe Gingerich organized his thoughts on the papers along three main lines: landscape, technology, and issues of society. These articulate with one another in all kinds of interesting ways. The papers in the session as well as the "after session" discussions I had at the bar and at dinner made me optimistic that maybe we really are heading into an era where we can have some substantive discussions about Paleoindian societies that make innovative use of all the new data that have been gathered over the last few decades.

Anyway, I think my paper went well. I basically set out to ask if/how we can gain some traction on understanding how Paleoindian societies were organized internally in terms of their constituent "building block" parts: families, foraging groups, maximal bands, etc. This is a question where multiple lines of evidence can be brought to bear. That doesn't mean, however, that it's easy to answer. I think we have enough in front of us now from across the Eastern Woodlands, however, that we can take a hard look at it and try to move the ball forward. Here is a pdf of my presentation. I also put it in on my Academia page.

Also, for the record: as far as I can recall, the Jackson, MS, airport is the only airport I have ever been in where the coffee shop also sells cold bottles of beer. 

I'm currently in Jackson, Mississippi, for the annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference meeting. Between the time change last week and then the shift from the Eastern to Central time zones, my body has lost track of what time it's supposed to be. I guess that's what clocks are for.

Anyway, I'll post more about SEAC later. I've been having a good time chatting with colleagues. I give my presentation on the size of Paleoindian social groupings later today. 

The downside of being here is that I missed the second First Thursday of "Dirt Dance Floor" at Tapp's. Tapp's announced yesterday that they will be moving their operation to Five Points after they vacate their current Main Street location at the end of the month. It looks like there was a good crowd there for the last hurrah.

I took some time last week to go through my show before the pieces get scattered. Believe it or not, I did have a fairly coherent vision of what I wanted the show to be. I still can't fully articulate that -- if I could put it into a few simple sentences I wouldn't need to have an art show -- but I can say a few things about the individual pieces that I'll likely not remember a few years from now. So that's the point of this video:

It's nothing fancy, but I think it gets the job done.

I've created a page on my art website that shows all the pieces in the show, and I've gone through the whole lot (one per day) on my Instagram account.

Reading the Tapp's story let me to this story by Tom Mack in the Free Times. It's a really nice write-up and I appreciate the author's thoughtfulness and keen eye. Enjoy!

It has been a busy fall. It seems like our family has been going going going since before the final push in late September to get my solo show set up at Tapp's. The kids had entries in the State Fair, we've had family in town, my wife and I attended the Gervais Street Bridge Dinner (they used some of my art, which was great), and there has been the usual run of birthday parties, school events, etc. My introvert side is operating in deficit territory.

I'm really proud of my show. It's not everything I imagined it could be, but it's more than I ever thought I'd get to do. Given that art is still a weekend/evening enterprise for me, I feel very fortunate to have the flexibility in my life and the family and friend support necessary to have dreamed it up and pulled it off.  My wife deserves a lot of credit for backing me up, especially during the last couple of weeks before the opening. I owe Chris Gillam for helping me move the big stuff (again). And I really appreciate the support of Caitlin Bright and the others at Tapp's: they gave me rope and let me do what I wanted to do.

I'll post a few pictures I took before and on opening night. I thought the turnout was good, and I had a great time talking to those who wanted to talk. It's a really nice feeling to have others come out, look at, and appreciate what you have done.

It's still under construction, but here's a page on my art website that shows most of the pieces in the show.  I neglected to take pictures of several of the pieces (including all the big ones) before I moved them -- those will be added soon. I plan to do a video tour of the show at some point before I take it all down.

As promised, Jim Vieira visited Columbia earlier this week to participate in my Forbidden Archaeology (ANTH 227) class. I gave him the floor on Monday to talk to the class about whatever he wanted to. The students were required to write a short (2-3 page) summary/critique of his presentation and prepare several written questions for Wednesday's class. I tried to mostly stay out of the way.

Overall, I think the whole thing went pretty well. Vieira's presentation gave them plenty to chew on, including things we had discussed in class (Atlantis claims, the nature of science, the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis, the nature of myths, the cross-cultural comparison of iconography) and things we hadn't (androgynous fish gods, quantum theory, ayahuasa, Linus the cat), and they asked some good questions. I videotaped the whole thing if you're interested. There's only one camera and Vieira is the only one with a microphone, but you can still get a pretty good idea of how it went down.

The main goal of this course is for the students to come out of it with some skills evaluating claims about the human past: how do you determine if an explanation is credible or not? how do you evaluate evidence that's offered or bring new evidence to bear? can you derive expectations from a claim that you can compare to what you can observe in the world? what assumptions are embedded in a claim and are those assumptions reasonable? given two different explanations, can you determine which one is more credible? how?  These questions all have to do with the nature of archaeology as, ultimately, a material science.

As I tell my students and anyone else who will listen, the key to being in the scientific loop is having/finding/using some mechanism to evaluate whether your ideas make sense or not. As long as you're doing science, it ultimately doesn't matter where an idea originates: an idea that comes to you in a dream may be right or wrong -- the trick is knowing how to figure out which it is. In most cases, the stories we tell about the human past are linked to things that happened in the material world and therefore are accessible through archaeology. Whatever the real story is, it ultimately has to be consistent with all the material evidence that's available. Misinterpreting evidence, ignoring evidence contrary to your story, and using fake evidence are all tickets to getting the story wrong.

It is my experience that many on the "alternative" side are so invested in the stories that they're selling that they are unwilling to change their stories as new evidence is produced, old interpretations are shown to be incorrect, and some "evidence" is shown to be fraudulent. Generally, those are not people that are wiling to have a conversation about evidence. 

​Jim Vieira is not one of those people. He and I land in different places on any number of subjects, but we have yet to find a topic that we can't discuss. Outside of class, he and I spent a lot of time talking about a wide range of subjects connected to the ancient past. The conversations were always easy and almost always entertaining, and Jim and I both think that there would be outside interest in listening to that kind of communication between a professional archaeologist and someone coming from the "alternative" side of things. I proposed that we do an occasional YouTube program something along the lines of "The Mystery Hour with Andy and Jim." Hopefully we can make that happen in some form.

And here are some photos from our hike in Congaree National Park: a water moccasin along the trail and Jim using his supernatural fish god powers to levitate an acorn. I will not share with you the esoteric life coaching I received during this three hour adventure. You're welcome.