The first Four Stone Hearth of 2009 is up at Testimony of the Spade!

I’ve been negligent about submitting to it of late, but go check out some good anthropology and archaeology writing by anthro-bloggers who are actually writing on their blogs!

The recent issue of Archaeology^[1] has a sidebar that briefly describes the practice of modifying the shape of the human skull by the Maya. 90 percent of the skulls recovered at Maya sites show evidence of being artificially shaped.

Mothers began deforming their children’s skulls shortly after birth by applying devices such as splints, cradleboards, or tightly wound cloth. The practice of head hspaing was a regular part of pre-Hispanic life and was required for a child’s integration into society, which often took the form of hetz mek, or naming celebrations.

The practice of shaping the head was a body modification that existed from the Preclassic through the Classic periods» in Maya history and was used to show membership in a particular “family or community group” since, by the Classic period, the shapes began to take on a variety: slanted like the Maize God’s head; flattened foreheads; elongated up; formed into two distinctive globes» .

From our cultural perspective, the practice seems barbaric and horrible when we consider that this was being done to children without their consent and imposed upon them forcibly. But then, perhaps the same will be said of some of our own practices by future civilizations: “look at how barbaric these people were! They cut the genitalia of infant boys and forced adolescents to wear wired attachments to shape their teeth!”

As modifications to mark social status and rank, the preoccupation with shaping the heads of both males and females among the ancient Maya isn’t really hard to understand, if only because it isn’t the result we find objectionable, but the method of obtaining that result. We can look among each other and see all sorts of pierced tongues and lips, tatoos in painful locations, gold teeth (the Maya were very in to dental modification as well), and so on, each of which are used to promote status or define the individual as his or her own agent.

But did the Maya simply see this as a social practice? Were they only defining themselves as common to a clan or family?

Or were these body modifications a form of worship or a demonstration of piety to their gods? The Maize God is depicted in Maya art as having a slanted head and foliage for hair. The Maya ruler, K'inich Janaab' Pakal» imitates this as depicted on his sarcophagus lid and several busts, reliefs, and murals of him. The photos below show the Maiz God on the left and Pakal on the right.

Also, many examples of Maya art probably weren’t really “art” at all but, rather, a way of revering their gods -depicting them in full regalia. Pakal was the personification of the Sun and Maize Gods on Earth, perhaps in much the same way Egyptian rulers were personfications of gods like Atum and Horus.

Women also based their appearance on the gods^[2] and they made use of blue pigment, stylized hair, and large, obvious bits of jewelry.

If the Maya modified their appearance out of piety, they also did so out of vanity and were concerned with looking youthful, healthy and elegant. Pakal reached his 80s before dying, but every depiction of him, all the way to the end, shows him to be a young, vibrant man.

1. Tiesler, Vera (2009). Beautiful Skulls. Archaeology, 62 (1), p. 39
2. Miller, Mary (2009). Extreme makeover: how painted bodies, flattened foreheads, and filed teeth made the Maya beautiful. Archaeology, 62 (1), p. 36-42

Archaeologists in China are alleged to have discovered a tiny Swiss watch in a 400-year old tomb and, according to at least on online news outlet, they are baffled.

Possible explanations for such a thing would be 1) the tomb was entered since the construction of the watch; 2) its a hoax; 3) the watch was carried there by a rodent; 4) Hiro Nakamura dropped it.

I can only guess which option the significance-junkies and mystery-mongers that go on and on about “out of place artifacts» will say!

Link: Swiss Watch Found in 400-year-old tomb

What they found was that they can derive new information about the problem of homelessness, a contemporary issue in most cities in the world by applying archaeological methods to sites where the homeless congregated. From this information, Zimmerman posits that “[a]rchaeology can be a tool for making decisions, not just for understanding the past.”

“We found a large number of food cans. Most had been opened, often not very successfully, with knives or by banging them against rocks or even by heating them until the contents exploded. We rarely found cans that had been opened by a can opener. That made us realize that they didn’t have can openers, which must have been very frustrating to them,” said Zimmerman.

2) 2008 Peter Ucko Memorial Award. Zimmerman wasn’t just in Dublin to present his findings on the archaeology of homelessness. While there, he received this award for his contributions to modern archaeology due largely, perhaps, to his work in Native American archaeology and the sensitivity and understanding with which he has approached archaeology.

The award is named after Peter Ucko, the founder of the World Archaeological Congress and “a British archaeologist who broke with tradition during the 1980s by instituting the participation of indigenous communities as part of the proper scope of archaeology.” Zimmerman was nominated by four Native archaeologists, including Dorothy Lippert, a Choctaw and archaeologist with the Smithsonian Repatiration Office at the National Museum of Ntural History.

“The award was very humbling, and it was gratifying to be recognized, but I have to admit that I can make no claim to planning much of what happened,” Zimmerman said modestly. “One of the best things to come from my work and that of other non-Indian archaeologists is that we helped younger Indian students understand that there were archaeologists who cared about more than science, that you could be an archaeologist and still be respectful of traditions. It’s nice to know I had a role in that.”

3) Presenting the Past (The Archaeologist’s Toolkit, V. 7). I read this book a couple of years ago and it really inspired me. One of the things I feel passionate about is presenting science, particularly archaeology and anthropology, to the public.

In this book, Zimmerman outlines the need to present archaeology to the public as well as how it can be done. Chapters include: Recognizing our Audiences, Choosing the Right Medium, Computers and Presenting the Past, Visual Archaeology, and From Presented to Printed among others. If you’re an archaeologist and interested in presenting archaeology (or any science) to the public, then there will be something in Presenting the Past for you.

[W]e … need to learn that archaeology can be a very cruel discinpline. Like hisotry, archeology can literally undercut a people’s belief system. Little wonder that many tradition-oriented American Indians desipise an archeology that sometimes seeks to debunk their origin sotries. The problem, of course, is how to deal with archaeological interpretations about hte past and our kind of “truth” versus a concern for people’s feelings. That is no small matter!

We shouldn’t have to dumb down everything we do so that it “sells” or makes people “feel good” about themselves. Rather, we had better figure out that just doing archaeological reports doesn’t cut it if we want our publics to learn about, let alone buy into, our disciplinary views about the past. Worse, it may even alienate them if done without sensitivity to their concerns or needs.

So to speak.

Sorry about the political post -I don’t usually stray that way, but I *do* write here about skeptical topics and Palin and her narrow-minded beliefs on the age of the planet as well as evolution are skeptical topics, so….

Tonight, they aired another special -same topic; same title.

There’s a companion website, Could So Many UFO Witnesses Be Right?

The very title of the site reveals an appeal to popularity, but the question is still one that probably seems intuitive to most people. Obviously the term UFO stands for unidentified flying object and thus there’s no assumption of space aliens or extraterrestrials. Observers who state they witnessed a UFO are simply stating they saw something that appeared to fly which they cannot identify.

A Flying Assumption

There are some other assumptions inherent to the term UFO beyond “unidentified.” The “flying” part of “unidentified flying object” assumes that what was observed was “flying,” which is to say “traveling through the air.” This assumption, if taken at face value, would eliminate extraterrestral phenomena like planets, the Moon, the Sun, other stars, satellites, etc. By “extraterrestrial,” I mean not currently on Earth or in the atmosphere.

An Object?

A final assumption found in the term “UFO” is that the observed phenomenon includes one or more “objects.” This assumption would seem to exclude reflections of light, gaseous explanations, chemical reactions, hallucinations, hysteria, delusion, hoaxes, lies, etc. (though, technically, I suppose one could refer to photons and molecules of light, gases, chemicals -even if in the brain- as “objects).

Space Aliens?

That having been said, the colloquial form and expectation of “UFO” is one that equates or is related to “extraterrestrial craft” and the extraterrestrial hypothesis as an explanation for unexplained sightings. The natural tendency of humans to look for significance and mystery -perhaps our curious nature- seems impair our abilities to think critically and rationally. Fantastic and outlandish explanations become favored over the mundane and more prosaic.

Some of the Show’s Sightings

One of the first sightings the program discussed was the recent Stephenville, TX sighting. What the witnesses described was consistent with military maneuvers. Of course, the witnesses included various hyperbole like “they flew off toward the President’s house [in Crawford].” Crawford is about 70 miles from Stephenville. Nothing described by the witnesses cannot be explained by Air Force jets chasing each other in a military exercise using anti-missile countermeasures, which are flares. The airspace around Stephenville and the surrounding region has been used for training for decades.

The next sighting discussed was the Phoenix Lights (Phoenix, AZ). Again, there was witness after witness offering unfettered hyperbole. The witness that shot the video can be heard saying, “Ahh, you tell me what it is.” They were flares dropped on parachute, probably by an A-10 Warthog on the Goldwater Test Range near Phoenix. Nothing the described by the witnesses cannot be explained by military aircraft on exercises, flying in v-formation and then dropping flares on a military test range.

Another sighting covered in tonight’s episode was the St. Clair County, IL sighting of “a giant craft with multiple bright lights moving silently across the sky at a very low altitude” witnessed by many people, including five police officers, in different towns back in 2000. Nothing the witnesses described was inconsistent with a blimp. Such blimps are used often in baseball and football games on both the collegiate and professional levels. They move slow and relatively silent, have various exterior lights for illumination, and have to travel long distances to and from games.

That’s not to say a blimp is the only explanation, I just found it to be the first thought that came to mind based on their descriptions and it is the one that introduces the fewest new assumptions about what we know about the universe today.

What About ‘Credible’ Witnesses?

From that point, it seemed that the program focused on sightings that were from “credible” eyewitnesses rather than just people. They mentioned pilots, soldiers, airmen, etc. The appeal to authority was obvious, as was the assumption that pilot training, military servicemen, police officers, etc. are somehow infallible, better observers, less prone to deceit or desire for attention, etc.

There is some intuitive merit to this, since we expect such people to be better trained and experienced in ways that improve their critical observation skills, reliability and overall knowledge of things that fly. But the fallacy arrives in two ways:

1) People are moved by the mysterious and not all things we observe can be readily explained. There are plausible explanations for many things which for which we cannot be 100% certain of. The reflection of light in the bedroom down the hall was probably headlights of a car since that window faces the road, but I didn’t actually see the car. I’m reasonably sure, it was a car, however. When I observe something that has no analog -nothing I can say with experience is a plausible cause- I’m left with a mystery. It would matter not how experienced a pilot I was, the first time I witnessed a parhelic circle or halo from above, reflected on clouds below, I’m going to wonder what it was.

2) People lie and seek attention, going to extremes in so doing. Even highly-trained, skilled, and experienced people of high stature lie. The story in the news last year about the astronaut that put on a diaper and drove from Florida to Texas to attempt the kidnapping of Colleen Shipman drives that point home well.

The Bentwaters case was discussed on the program. Briefly, two airmen allegedly encountered a “craft” one night and others, including a Colonel, joined a search the following night. The key things are that the fewest witnesses actually saw the alleged “craft” up close. Close enough to allegedly touch. That was the two airmen. The other witnesses, the following night, only saw some lights in the woods and a cleared space that was alleged to be the “landing site.” Nothing the witnesses described was inconsistent with a hoax by the two airmen. Nothing. There simply is no good reason to accept an extraordinary explanation when a very mundane, and probable explanation already exists that introduces the fewest new assumptions about what we know: the two airmen lied and possibly planned a hoax.

The rest of the program focused on “alien abductions” and the “Roswell incident.” Should I really bother with the rest?

• archaeology
• socio-cultural anthropology
• bio-physical anthropology
• linguistic anthropology

Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth.

I’ve hosted the FSH several times, but this will be the first time hosted at my new domain. If you haven’t noticed, A Hot Cup of Joe is no longer at Wordpress (or blogspot, if you remember my first home). Here’s this edition’s roundup of great blogging on Anthropology:

Aardvarchaeology
First up is Aardvarchaeology where Martin Rundkvist has a Book Review: Alsdorf, auf den Spuren. In this review, which is a fascinating read, Martin discusses Dietrich Alsdorf’s book, Auf den Spuren des “Elbe-Kommandos” Rammjäger (2001). The topic is the Sonderkommandos who flew German planes which the used to “hunt” (jäger is “hunter”) Allied bombers they would then ram into. Visit the link, read the review, and see how it all relates to archaeology!

Neuroanthropology
Next is a set of posts from all three of the bloggers at Neuroanthropology, a collaborative weblog that “encourage[s] exchanges among anthropology, philosophy, social theory, and the brain sciences.”

• Is Evolutionary Psychology Really Rational Choice Theory?, by Greg Downey
• Foxy Evolution, by Daniel Lende
• Learning Evolution, by Paul Mason

A Very Remote Period Indeed
The only other submission I received this edition was from Julien Riel-Salvatore titled, Surveying Surveys. Julien is back from the field and, we’re all happy to see, blogging again! His post this edition is a review of a set of three reports of separate archaeological sites of the same general period. What’s interesting is the methods each site employs to obtain knowledge of the past. Read how Julien compares and contrasts their methods and get some insight into the process of surveying a site.

A Hot Cup of Joe
I’m going to add my own submission since it was a short carnival. A few days ago I posted The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Reviewing and Ethnography. I typically write about archaeology, but I subscribe to the Binfordian view that archaeology is anthropology and it’s necessary to understand ethnography and cultural anthropology to truly reveal the Truth of past cultures. In this essay, I review Ruth Benedict’s famous ethnography as well as two other essays praising and criticizing her.

You’ve Been Stoned!
If your blog post falls under this list, its because I noticed it and thought it would fit well with this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. Hope you don’t mind the link love!

• Neanderthals, Brain Size and Maturation [Afarensis]
  Peopling Of The Americas: Eva de Naharon, A 13,600 Year Old Skeleton Found Near Tulum, Mexico [Anthropology.net]
• Ometepe Archaeological Project: Field Work in Focus [About.com:Archaeology]

That’s it for this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. If you’re an anthropology blogger and want to participate, see below. If you’re an anthropologist or a student of anthropology that doesn’t have your own blog but interested in sharing your thoughts in anthropology, drop me a line (cfeagans@ahotcupofjoe.com). I’m interested in having the occasional guest-blogger and it can be a one-time thing or regular.

The next Four Stone Hearth, #50, is in two weeks at Yann Klimentidis’s Weblog. See you there!

************************

Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Martin Rundkvist.

If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Martin. You are encouraged to submit other bloggers’ work as well as your own.

S. Heather Duncan, a reporter for Macon.com (Macon, GA) writes a fascinating article on the stolen artifacts market that suggests that the monetary gain of trafficking in illegal artifacts is significantly higher than even I would have thought.

She begins by describing the efforts of a a special investigator for the Georgia state Department of Natural Resources who was dealing in illegal goods. Initially, the investigation was about illegal wildlife products but it eventually encompassed guns and drugs then ancient human remains.

Duncan’s article is worth reading, particularly if you’ve never considered the impact looters have on cultural resources in the United States.

She discusses the legal issues of looting in the state of Georgia:

With written permission from the landowner, it’s legal to search for artifacts on private land in Georgia. But digging archaeological sites without permission, or on state and federal land, is illegal. On federal land, such as the Ocmulgee National Monument or Oconee National Forest, it can be prosecuted as a felony. And the penalties only get worse if burials are involved.

And a sidebar to the article goes into detail with regard to Georgia state and federal laws.

Another interesting part of her article reveals the damage looters have done to several mound sites in Georgia, including the nation’s only spiral mound, where looters have broken through fences and dug holes in the mounds to remove artifacts for subsequent sale.

Duncan cites Rick Kanaski, a regional archaeologist and historic preservation officer for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service who points out that there are three types of looters:

1. Solo diggers collecting for themselves
2. history buffs involved in larger trading networks, and
3. those involved in criminal networks, who may cash in artifacts for drug money

Apparently the third type is a significant player in the trade of stolen artifacts. “I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from sheriff’s departments asking why they find what they call ‘Indian rocks’ when they bust meth labs,” said Charles Louke of the Dept. of Homeland Security. This, it would seem, is why he claims stolen artifacts trade amounts to between $5-6 billion industry.

Further Reading:

Tomb raiding: illegal artifacts trafficking is a $5 billion to $6 billion business. [Macon.com]

The next edition of the Four Stone Hearth Blog Carnival will be hosted here at A Hot Cup of Joe on Sept. 10th, 2008. Please send your submissions to cfeagans@ahotcupofjoe.net by Tuesday, Sept. 9th.

The Fourth Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focusing primarily on four lines of research:

• archaeology
• socio-cultural anthropology
• bio-physical anthropology
• linguistic anthropology

Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth.

As always, if you’re an blogger and would like to host the Four Stone Hearth, send an email to Martin Rundkvist.

You need not be a blogger that specializes in anthropology to host or participate, but the posts submitted should relate to some aspect of anthropology.