mineral or vegetable?

Hello again everyone...

Over the past week or so, I've been reading and processing the first few chapters of Bruce Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought (2nd Edition, 2006). It came recommended to me from some colleagues I met while traveling through South Asia, and I figured I'd try to knock it out before classes start in the Fall.

Anyway, I finished up the chapters on the inchoate periods of archaeology, when Classical Studies was king, and the idea of studying artifacts was novel and tenuous.

North American archaeology has it's roots in the antiquarianism of the pre-Enlightenment post-Renaissance period of Europe. During this period, artifacts that weren't of classical origin were often placed in the same category as crystals and trilobites. Though it varied depending on what specific part of the world you're talking about, arrowheads were generally so different from contemporary material culture that people believed they were of natural origin and had sprouted forth from the ground. Some even believed that elves had left them behind.

Long story short, thanks to the onset of colonialism, European scholars came in contact with people from all over the world. Some of these people used the same sorts of tools that had been recovered from sites in Europe. After a couple of centuries of analyzing stone tools from at home and abroad, pre-prehistory antiquarians finally concluded that objects like stone tools were definitely not of natural origin, and had been made by people in the past.

This is all very interesting from a contemporary perspective... it took so long for archaeology's forebears to decide that some artifacts were even artifacts. What sorts of patterns are we musing over that will appear elementary by future scholar's standards? Time will tell.

You can find Trigger's book at: http://www.amazon.com/History-Archaeological-Thought-Bruce-Trigger/dp/0521840767/ref=sr_1_1/102-6355922-1256906?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186509479&sr=8-1

you were what you ate

Greetings everyone,

I figured I would start things off with a post from the lighter, more methodological side of archaeology. You see, I get the impression, speaking to folks from the general public, that many see archaeology as pyramid after pyramid... a discipline stuffed to the gills with ancient curses, golden tombs, and hoards of treasure. Let me begin dispelling some of these notions with a brief story about another form of archaeological "gold."

For the better half of the past couple of years, I worked for a top-notch CRM company, rescuing and preserving archaeological remains from all over North America's Southeast that were threatened by development. I was in the field a great deal, but I also did my time in the home office, where I processed artifacts for curation. In one of the buildings, a refrigerator was set aside, and no one ever seemed to put her lunch in it. One day, I overheard the reason...

Ever so often, archaeological field techs working for said company come across a site with excellent preservation conditions. Sometimes, conditions are so excellent that techs can recover the dried remains of an ancient lunch... and I'm not talking about leftovers.

The technical term is coprolites. A touch from the ol' Wikipedia:

"Coprolite is the name given to the mineral that results when human or animal dung is fossilized. The name is derived from the Greek words κοπρος/kopros meaning 'dung' and λιθος/lithos meaning 'stone'. It serves a valuable purpose in paleontology because it provides a picture of an early organism's diet and environment.^[1] Coprolite may range in size from the size of a BB all the way up to that of a large appliance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolite

Whoa there, Mr. Wiki. Paleontologists aren't the only ones interested in fossilized poo. Archaeologists use coprolites to reconstruct the diets of ancient peoples. A single coprolite can tell us more about ancient ways of life than entire treasure chests full of gold dubloons. You were what you ate.

Anyway, this fridge was the holding cell for a whole mess of re-hydrated coprolites (I'm told that once they're re-hydrated, they regain their smell). Not the best place to store your turkey sandwich until lunch.