The Wizard of Oz in reality?

Strolling through the archaeology magazine, I was lured in by the title of this article and was suckered into reading it. The thought of witchcraft is so mysterious in my books and well, when I saw the image of the shoe within the article, I instantly thought of the Wizard of Oz. Being one of my favourite movies of all time, how could I turn it down?

The site talked about in the article is called the Dritt Manion. Being unaware of this location, I researched it and found that it is located in York County, Pennsylvania. Also being so unfamiliar with the states in the U.S., I had to bring up a map to figure out the context in which the location of the mansion was in comparison to some Canadian cities.

The Dritt Mansion is a historic home that dates back to the mid 1700s.

The location of the Dritt Mansion in York County, PA, USA.

The article is quite interesting as it touches on subjects that aren't usually talked about. Some of the artifacts that were encountered within this mansion are a “W” carved in a wall, which leads to the attic, shoes in the walls, a flattened toad and a cat that appears as if it has been “freeze-dried.” Local archaeologist Jan Klinedinst discovered the “W” in the wall, which she claims looks a lot like the Volkswagen one. Research has apparently shown that this marking is indeed a ritual marking, “a symbol for the Virgirn Mary” which was “intended to protect the house against witches” said Klinedinst. The remainder of things found at the mansion, 10 years ago during an archaeological survey, Klinedinst are calling ritual marks. Klinedinst goes on to say that she believes the ritual marks are linked to the Hex symbols, which some believe were used to ward off evil.

A similar case to the Dritt Mansion is that of Schmucker Hall at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, PA. Crews found some almost identical shoes – one of which was ritualistically cut – was concealed in a wall. Yet, the significance of these shoes is still unknown.

19th century shoe which was found inside a wall at Schmuck Hall at the Lutheran Theology Seminary.

It is also intriguing to see this side of the anthropological realm revealed… It is most definitely not talked about much and raises a lot of questions! This theme of witchcraft and rituals triggers my interest for further research on the ideas. The overall open-ended conclusion of the article also lures me in as it appears the mystery has not yet been solved!

The article can be found at the following site: http://www.ydr.com/history/ci_20215927/archeology-revealed-unusual-finds-at-dritt-mansion?source=most_viewed

The Dritt Mansion photos were taken from:

http://www.susquehannaheritage.org/aboutus/zimmermancenterforheritage.aspx

The map was taken from this site: http://landmarkhunter.com/138239-dritt-mansion/

Booze and Bling

          “If you wanted to get ahead in Iron-Age Central Europe you would use a strategy that still works today -- dress to impress and throw parties with free alcohol” (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012).

This statement is whole-heartedly the best catcher I have ever come across. Why, you might ask? Well it is the perfect synthesis of humour and wit which clearly lures you into reading their article! None the less, that is not my task. I want to discuss this fascinating article!

Not only is this article wonderfully written, including many modern day analogies but it also includes some of the new modern day techniques that are used in the realm of archaeology. Not to mention, this article is also great testimony to the extraordinary work that comes from collaborations of University’s and other organizations.

Professor Bettina Arnold excavates Iron-Age burial mounds in southwest Germany of the Pre-Roman Celts. 

 The article talks about how the Pre-Roman Celtic people used to eagerly compete with their opponents for social and political status within their society, which was achieved with who-can-throw-the-best-party logic, through something Bettina Arnold, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and co-director of the field excavation, calls “competitive feasting” (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012). Some of the artifacts recovered from the site include things like vessels for alcohol, and pieces of personal adornment, such as bracelets and hairpins.

Looking at the vessels that had once contained alcohol, they were able to decipher what alcohol the people at the time were actually drinking, which is an obvious clue of the person’s social status. The article indicates that a honey-based wine, or mead, flavoured with herbs, which was made by the Celts themselves, would have been about middle rank, less than wine but more than beer. If the person had actual grape wine, it was a dead giveaway that the person of elite ranking. This is evident because grapes hadn’t been introduced yet to central Europe. Aside from the actual alcohol you consumed, the quantity was just as important as the quality. This conclusion was revealed with the unfolding of colossal cauldrons at the site, one of which could hold 10 pints!

The Celts were also have said to be the flashy fashionistas of the time period, coming from the Greeks and Romans. Despite the claims, it’s been really hard to prove, as cloth and leather don’t preserve. But because this site is so wonderful, they found some evidence of their swanky attitude and appearance!  Even though no bones did preserve, due the super acidic soil, the archaeologists on site were able to recover some hairpins, jewelry, weapons and clothing fasteners. One of the new techniques that is used in this article is casting fragile fossils or remains encased in blocks of earth and then placed in plaster and run through computerized scans. This technique was used to date these dainty artifacts.

Arnold also says that they "found fabulous leather belts in some of the high-status women's graves, with thousands of tiny bronze staples attached to the leather that would have taken hours to make.” She also states that she likes to call them the “Iron-Age Harley-Davidson biker chicks." This idea connects directly to Arnold’s next statement which insists that “"you could tell whether someone was male, female, a child, married, occupied a certain role in society and much more from what they were wearing." With these artifacts, they were able to work out the gender specific adornment. To their surprise, they were also able to save some of the textiles in the grave that were in close proximity with metal implements. From these samples, archaeologists were then able to recreate there colours and patterns of textiles with the use of microscopic inspection.

The article then strongly closes by saying “when you can actually reconstruct the costume, all of a sudden these people are ‘there’ – in three dimensions. They have faces. They can almost be said to have personalities at that point.” With modern day society and their very similar concepts to the Celts, in terms of bling and booze, will we be the exciting find for an archaeologist some day? 

This article can be found at the following website, which I strongly encourage you to read!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319163710.htm

Kinship within Burials

Class discussions and lectures over the last week consisted of the theme of kinship. We looked at and discussed at length an article whose argument was that based on genetics, looking at dental morphology, age and sex, it is arguable that there are distinct and separate cemeteries based on kin groups in the Zuni settlement of Hawikku (Howell and Kintigh 1996). Considering that this paper was published in 1996, the dating methods are quite old and well, are out-dated (pardon the pun)! That being said I was on the look out for a more recent article, something that was published within the last 5 years, to compare some different approaches.

The more recent and relevant article that I found relating to burials and kinship is entitled “Kinship between burials from Grave Circle B at Mycenae revealed by ancient DNA typing” by A. Bouwman, K. Brown, J. Prag and T. Brown. Instead of focusing more on the statistics and dental traits like the older article, this one tends to focus more on the visible physical characteristics within the sites found. This article uses aDNA (ancient DNA) analysis to determine the relationships between all the individuals. This being said, the methods used in both articles are very different. The first paper is extremely dense with statistics of dental traits and lengthy compared to the simple explanation of genetic testing which produces the 4 different facial types as well as family relationships. I most definitely enjoyed the second article as I found it much simpler and quick to read through, unlike the first article. Although, since the article is so brief, it does leave a lot of room for questioning of their methods, results and conclusions.

In terms of approaches, the article published in 2008 obviously had the advantage of including some of the world’s newer approaches in archaeology. One of the newest tools that this article had the privilege of using is that of facial reconstruction. After taking bone samples and running the aDNA tests of individuals all while scrutinizing the skeletal remains, can the anthropologists at work can create a facial reconstruction of the individuals. This new approach is not only fantastic as it appeals to those visual learners but combines data with 2D skeletal pictures to create the best of both worlds.

This is a diagram indicating the facial reconstructions of individuals from different groups, indicating the 4 evident facial possibilities observed.

The Howell and Kintigh article that we analyzed in class can be found at the following website:

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/openurl?issn=0002-7316&title=&volume=61&date=1996&issue=3&spage=537&

The newer article by Bouwman, Brown, Prag and Brown can be found at the following website:

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/science/article/pii/S030544030800085X

The image provided was also taken from the Bouwman, Brown, Prag and Brown article, and can be found at the same link as above.

Jigsaw Mummies!

          With this weeks theme of lecture being kinship, I focused on finding an article to do with kinship! Through my search, I came across a compelling article that caught my attention. The article was entitled “Scottish prehistoric mummies made from jigsaw of body parts” and was published on the BBC News website, under the science and environment section.

This is a picture of one of the mummies found at the Scotland site.

The introduction of the article says that there were 4 bodies that were discovered in 2001 on South Uist, Scotland. The grabber of the article talks about how DNA testing on these mummies gave away that the mummies were actually composed of body parts from various different people and arranged to look like on person. Reading further on in the article it’s discovered that the mummies hadn’t been buried right after they were preserved! Extra testing revealed that the bodies had been placed in bogs for approximately a year to complete the mummifying process. After being mummified, it appears that the bodies, or mummies now, were buried in a fetal position. Yet, these bodies that were places in fetal position were not entirely of the same individual! For example, one of the females they found was comprised of 3 different people and even had the skull of a male. These bodies were also found within the foundations of abnormal Bronze Age terraced roundhouses. However, after some dating tests, all the bodies would have died 300-500 years before the houses were built.

Tying the article into the theme of kinship, it was thought that these mummies were related. Although, Professor Mike Parker of Stanford University does say that “these could be kinship components, they are putting lineages together, the mixing up of different people’s body parts seems to be a deliberate act.”

As intriguing as this article is though, it is also very apparent that this find still has a lot of research and interpretation to be done. That being said, I would like to see some more of the conclusions on this case once they are published!

To read the whole article and view the picture, you can go to this webpage:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14575729

Assessing Australia

         Using the rubric designed by fellow team member and myself, I will assess a website used by the general public that is related to our groups topic. This is very ingenious; as it will test our rubric-making abilities as well as generate any possible issues with the marking strategies we came up with or even show us some vital component that we are missing.

Below is a copy of our rubric that we constructed.

I chose a website entitled “The Aboriginal Memorial” which is by the National Gallery of Australia. The link to this website can we found at the bottom of the entry. Now breaking down the website into our rubrics categories, this is how I would grade it.

Organization: 4/4. The layout of the webpage is very clean and easy for the eye to follow, also giving the site a more professional look. All of the information is presented very appropriately with well-constructed paragraphs and subheadings.

Quality of Information: 4/4. All of the information discussed was relevant to the set topic. The writings include various examples and supporting details.

Cooperative Work: N/A. Since there is no way to tell who did what, who did and did not contribute to this website, the category can’t apply. In this case, I’ll exempt the category from the final score.

Content: 4/4. The information and theme of the website was clear and consistent throughout. No unnecessary or irrelevant information was presented.

Spelling and Grammar: 3/3. There were no spelling or grammar mistakes.

References: 1/4. This website was odd in the fact that it didn’t have any references. They did have a very small section on acknowledgements, but that was it. Within the acknowledgements, they did mention some of the people that they obtained data from, but lacked the specific details.

Total: 16/19 or 84.2%

Overall, I would say that the website is quite professional and informative. The clean layout of the website is very influential on the impression of the reader and leaves the reader with a positive experience. The inclusion of pictures is not only a pleasant plus, but also a useful tool. The information offered, although very interesting, is very questionable. The lack of source proof, the information could have all been fabricated for all we know!

My suggestion for improvement of this website would be to make sure that they use a proper method of referencing to cite their sources. With the verification of their sources, the reader can then be assured that the data is not counterfeit.

The website that was used to test the rubric can we found at http://nga.gov.au/AboriginalMemorial/home.cfm