Nazi War Diggers March. 28th, 2014

On Natural Geographic’s television show the Nazi War Diggers: this program looks at four men who have gone through local archaeologist training in hopes of finding bodies and artifacts of men who fought in WWII. Hitler and Stalin’s armies fought some of the bloodiest and most desperate battles the world has known throughout Eastern Europe during this time.  There are millions of German and Soviet soldiers and their weapons still lie rotting under the battlefields where they fell. These four War Diggers are looking for bodies and artifacts that remain in the earth by using metal detectors, shovels and sheer grit. Their mission is to uncover these forgotten battlefields and the buried stories in them. 

However, when trying to actually find the trailer for this video it was removed from the National Geographic website due to what appears to be sever criticism of the show by using improper excavation techniques. They have removed bodies from the site not carefully or properly which has caused this television show to be questionable. There are lots of issues surrounding the four men chosen to be on this show with whether they have actually put the time or training necessary to understand what they are doing. From the criticism I saw on youtube they all only took one local archaeology course (is that enough training?). Furthermore, I saw that most individuals felt that this show and project is not one like any real archaeologist would want to be involved in due to the fact that the excavation has not been done properly. 

On National Geographic’s website they state that none of the items recovered will be trafficked or sold, however, critics of the video are not too sure. The video was pulled from Nat Geo’s site because the four men did not know what they were doing. In the brief clip I saw, they harshly pulled out of the dirt an arm or leg and looked very confused as to what they were doing. I think this is important to look at because many people have been using improper techniques when excavating sites, selling artifacts to museums and so forth. Is this a project that should be continued on with or is it something that should be left alone. Should Nat Geo reconsider the men or women asked to move forward with the job. All of these things are various concerns I have for the show but also what people online have stated as well. 

March. 26th, 2014

Today in class we discussed Ethics and Archaeology, which relates to the 'Human Remains Debate'. In the criminal code s.182: Dead Body states: 

a) Everyone who neglects, without lawful excuse, to perform any duty that is imposed on him by law or that he undertakes with reference to the burial of a dead human body or human remains, or

b) improperly or indecently interferes with or offers any indignity to a dead human body or human remains, whether buried or not, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

This is important to look at because there are over 5000,000 excavated skeletons in US museums and another 500,000skeletons overseas.. These remains have been taken from Native Americans and various other peoples.  The American Indians Against Desecration (AIAD) wants to retrieve all Native American human remains from across the world, oppose excavation of burials, and require reburial without delay 

Native Americans have particular traditions when it comes to burying the dead. They believe that “once an Indian is laid to rest he should not be disturbed... if he is disturbed, his is out here, wandering his spirit not fully with mother earth” 

The American Committee for the Preservation of Archaeological Collections (ACPAC) is also very concerned for loss of resources for studying disease, diet, demographics, culture, environment, society. 

The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is a very important act that requires return of skeletal and funerary objects. It focuses on returning remains, artifacts, grave goods etc.. to the tribe on whose land they were discovered, or to the tribe that has the closest cultural affiliation and which makes a claim.

Between these three committee’s and many more out there, bringing the remains back to where they were originally from is highly important. Therefore, museums should be legally allowed to return human remains. Museums should have procedures to determine claims and ownership. There should be a Human Remains Advisory Panel to  deal with disputes. 

Therefore, ethical archaeology is the code of behaviour and cultural construct. Culture conflict requires tolerance, respect, compromise. These areas must be looked at when excavating the dead and looking at human remains. 

Ownership of Ancient Egyptian Artifacts

I was working on my reading response and I thought that the first article I chose from section A's reading response this week. It was a very fascinating because after reading it I was torn between both sides. I think that the theme of this weeks reading response was contestation. Both of the articles I chose had mini battles or disagreements within each reading which made me realize that most archaeologists must have a lot of differing opinions when dealing with artifacts and remains that cannot speak for themselves. 

Some information I found out in “Ancient Egyptian Artifacts: Preservation and Ownership” by Anon was that this article discussed the controversy that surrounds the ownership of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. This paper looks at who has the best protective measures to keep this artifacts safe. Egypt had lost most of its ancient artifacts due to European imperialism and appeasement measures but is now asking for the return of these items. Some people believe that the Egypt should not get them back because the museums create a safe protective environment where their is a culture created on ancient civilizations. Egypt has claimed to start modernizing their conservation methods and create museums that can present and share the artifacts with the public, just like other museums do. However, their museums still do not compare and to ones abroad in Europe like the Louvre. By letting Egypt reclaim the artifacts they will lose the profit of having them and they will most likely not be taken care of properly and lose value and worth. In order to make sure that these artifacts are protected, the author states that they should stay in foreign museums until Egypt has the right tools to properly take care. 

Brooklyn Museum Ancient Egyptian Art 

(millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.ca)

A part of me thinks that the artifacts should remain in museums abroad due to the care and safety of them there. Most of these museums have immense security measures and copious amounts of care that go into preserving and respecting the artifacts. I also think that it is really interesting that tourists and locals can come into these museums and see artifacts from Egypt without having to travel across the globe. It seems quite reasonable to be able to pay and have the public see these magnificent artifacts displayed. However, I think that Egypt should also be allowed to have their artifacts returned back because they were taken from Egypt in the first place. Colonization is a cover story for foreign countries to use in order to believe that these artifacts "actually" belong to them. Since they stole the artifacts from Egypt then Egypt should have the right to take them back without questions. However, I think that if they are going to have them back they should attempt to preserve them in the best way possible even if that means creating museums and other expensive architecture to ensure that these pieces can be enjoyed and studied in the future. 

This can relate to today's class of Western looters in Egyptian tombs because people have been going into tombs and burial sites of Egyptian graves for thousands of years. They have taken valuables, large artifacts, and vandalized mummies. Several people broke into King Tut's Tomb and stole various amounts of grave goods and artifacts which is wrong on various different levels. 

In conclusion, even though it is not ok for Western people to come into Egypt and take the grave goods and artifacts to put them on display, we can not deny the preservation and enjoyment of seeing them in a museam. I think that these artifacts should be returned to Egypt now because they deserve to be there.

References 

 Anon. (n.d.) Ancient Egyptian Artifacts: Preservation and Ownership. 

http://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.ca/2011/04/ancient-egyptian-art-at-brooklyn-museum.html

Victorian Era Monument Trends at St. Stephens Cemetery

Today in class we had a guest speaker who created the St. Stephens data base we worked on early this semester. Angela, had two main research questions that were important to her study of the St.Stephens cemetery: the first question was are Victoria era monument trends found at St. Stephens Anglican cemetery? and secondly, are there any differences between child and adult monuments? 

Angela focused on documenting monument types, inscriptions, and measurements. She made the data base which our class used earlier this semester consisting of monuments with relevant historical information for community reference and analysis. Next, she created an interactive plot map with pictures of monuments and inscriptions for community reference and analysis and then turned her information into an internet blog. 

This is important to look at in regards to our theme of Kinship this past week because many of the monuments found in the St. Stephens cemetery are family graves or small individual monuments. She found that by looking at monument imagery and epitaphs she could find out symbolic meaning about individuals and the type of kinship they had. She found that many of the children's monuments had pictures of  stars, lambs, and gates to heaven. She found that most children's monuments were small half-sized monuments, not full sized monuments or they were buried with their families. Angela also noticed that the epitaphs had very interesting messages some of there were rude and blunt stating "liar" and others had religious meaning or victorian era inscriptions. 

She found that working with such a small data set (only 55 monuments) and scarcity in literature on her topic made it difficult to make final conclusions. She felt that more work in Victorian era church cemeteries was needed to get a better understanding. This was interesting to learn more about because it gave me a better understanding as to why the dataset we used was chosen. It made me think of potentially doing my own research further on in my academic career. 

Kinship

In today's class we discussed the topic of Kinship in archaeology. This is an important topic for archaeologists to look at because family ties and connections with others before death can explain a lot in regards to what, when, where, why, and how they were buried. Today we looked at many different descent lines we broke descent lines down into 2 categories; one descent groups and and descent residence rules. 

In descent groups you have Unilineal which breaks down into two groups: Patrilineal Descent: people automatically have lifetime membership in fathers group and Matrilineal Descent: people automatically have lifetime membership in mothers group. It is found that matrilineal decent groups are used more often because you can always tell who the mother is when a child is being born. However, a child may be perceived to have one father but it could in fact be another man's child. It has been proven to be more effective to trace descent through the mothers line due to the fact that fathers are sometimes uncertain. This insures that the line of descent is accurately depicted. 

The descent residence rules of unilocal post-marriage residence are as follows: Patrilocality which is when married couples (and their children) live in the husband’s community. The second is Matrilocality where married couples (and their children) live in the wife’s community.

When asked in class how does an archaeologist actually identify kinship, I had drawn a blank. I thought to myself at first that's pretty easy and then I thought about it and I couldn't think of many good identifiers of kinship. However, after we started to talk more about I realized that  the following are key: 

• age
• isotopes 
• markers 
• plots
• symbols 
• grave good 
• aDNA 
• inheritable traits or disorders that pass through different lines

I think that kinship is a very interesting concept that should defiantly be studied when looking at the graves of our ancestors particularly of different groups like the Natives in Thailand, or the Neolithic. It is an important part of understanding more about their culture and lifestyle. I think that figuring out whether individuals have ascribed or achieved status in birth is another important concept that goes along well with kinship. If a baby was buried and had only lived on earth for a couple days but had plenty of grave goods then it shows that this baby was ascribed into a family of importance, maybe a chief's son or daughter. A baby in the same situation that had achieved status probably would have had a very small burial with no grave goods because they have not worked their way up into achieving respect like an adult would have. All these concepts were discussed in today's class and I found them very interesting and important in regards to better understanding the archaeology of death.  

References:

Parker Pearson, M. (1999) The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Sutton: Stroud. Chapter 5: Kinship 

http://hiddencause.wordpress.com/tag/rania-al-yassin/

Blogging Rubric

For this week's blog entry I looked up a blogging rubric from: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IAvEDb7910EobQHNmh8mK3u1Ui4A7d_4LQ7q6dYLb4Q/edit?hl=en_US

This blogging rubric breaks down into five categories: idea and content, post frequency, quality, voice, and use of enhancements. They used a four point scale to represent whether the work was poor (1), satisfactory (2), good (3), and excellent (4). They discussed how in category (1) the work lacked insight, did not have regular posts, the posts that were posted were of poor quality, the voice used was not appropriate, and the student did nothing to enhance or personalize blog. By the time the rubric gets to (4) the work shows excellent insight, posts are regular and recorded in a timely manner, the posts are well written and meaningful, the voice used demonstrates understanding and effectiveness of the topic, the student personalized the blog using creative images, music, and other touches. 

This blog rubric measures up to the one my group and I created because it breaks the blogging process down into 5 categories. Our blogging rubric was broken down into 7 categories. We looked at quality of writing, presentation, multimedia, content and creativity, citations, and comparison. These seven categories were important to my group because we felt as though the blog should be well written, display good grammar and spelling, have images, music, or some sort of multimedia, be creative in understanding the topic and sharing personal thoughts, we thought that having proper citations and references was important because it is like a final paper, and finally show a comparison between the two types of mummies we are analyzing.

It could be better to maybe have less categories. Instead of seven maybe 4 or 5 would be more appropriate and easier to look at. Having seven categories is a bit much especially since some of them are kind of similar. I think that overall we did a good job a making an equal scale of how our blog should be marked. I think this was a good mini assignment to do because it helped us figure out what is important to our blog and how we feel our blog should be marked. It outlined how other blogs in the past have been judged which is useful to understand what areas other professors and bloggers look for.

March. 11th, 2014

Archaeological biographies show how past societies have developed by looking at individual characteristics like socio-economic status, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. It is important to break these various aspects down to see how they create a unique society. Studying the dead is an important way for archaeologists to better understand why certain traits have developed or thrived in a given environment. For example, the Neanderthals have specific traits like physical strength, tall stature, physical trauma, and biological ontogeny have persisted through their generation. Biographies help better link why materials and aspects of culture have continued on due to each individuals personal and lifestyle stages. This helps archaeologists create links between past societies and today's culture as well as provide answers as to why individuals have evolved due to their agency and structure.

Gender has had a big impact on archaeological findings especially when it comes to figuring out if gay, transgender, bisexual, third gender, lesbian burials exist. A question posted in class was: Can we talk about gender without talking about the life-course? I think that gender and the life-course have a lot in common because gender determines how certain aspects of ones life will work out due to what gender they are. The debate between structure and agency along with the concept of intersectionality and double, triple jeopardy are important in regards to both sociological and anthropological research. I think that it is very difficult to conclude that gender has no effect on the life-course because many women, gay, lesbian, and third gender individuals suffer more stigma and inequality than men do. The economic, social, political equality of the sexes is important to consider because until everyone is treated equally gender and several other inequalities listed above will affect each individuals personal biographical experience.

Gay Cavemen

For this weeks blog we were given the blog prompt:  Google “Gay Caveman” - What are your reactions to this? What you find?

The first site I came across when I searched "Gay Cavemen" was a website that stated archaeologists had found a 5,000 year old gay cavemen, which is perhaps the oldest homosexual cavemen ever found. This was intriguing to me because I had not thought about individuals of 'being gay' thousands of years ago, considering 'being gay' is still an issue today. However, of course when you think about it logically individuals have never chosen to be gay that is the way they are are born and created. By looking at our previous ancestors they too must have figured that out. 

(Gay Cavemen positioned like a women)

(Daily Mail, 2011)

The image above shows the gay cavemen's body, which was dated to 2900-2500BC and buried in a way normally reserved for women in the Corded War culture in the Copper Age. This skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic. How this man was buried is very different from other men and women from this time. The body was found facing east placed on his left side which is not a commonly known characteristic of male burials. In his grave, none of the burial goods like weapons, hammers, knives were found which is peculiar for this time frame and males in general.This was thought to be the first transsexual or third gender grave based on the view that the goods were not gender specific. Therefore, they stated that this person may be viewed as neither male, nor female, or a combination of the both. They later thought differently and changed the grave to be homosexual. This led archaeologists to believe this was the first homosexual cavemen in history. 

The articles on this topic are very interesting because there are many different views that come about as to whether or not this person is homosexual or  third gender. People also question why the burial resembled more closely to a female grave than a males. I think that these questions are all valid because it is important to figure out how to tell whether homosexuality is able to be determined by looking at a dead body. I am sure there are many homosexual, lesbian, and transgender burials still out there. I also believe that a lot of burials have most likely been mislabelled all along due to not recognizing signs or misinformation. This is an interesting topic because it focuses on an issue that is still relevant in our society today and also can provide hard evidence that individuals have been gay for thousands of years. I think that looking at sexuality is very important in order to understand past civilizations because it helps clarify concepts that archaeologists have been wondering about for a long time. 

References: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html