So…Australia…

It’s been a while since I came to Australia and there’s not been alot of posts, but I’m back (if the digital realm conforms to spatial metaphors). I arrived in Sydney about four months ago and stayed there for 4 days. I didn’t like Sydney that much, the Opera House and harbour were nice but generally it is quite a bland, generic western city (apparently one of the reasons it was used in the Matrix).  Being more of a countryside person this may be to be expected but I did quite like Melbourne which I visited recently and shall be returning to soon. The one particular thing I noticed about Sydney (unlike most modern European cities) was the lack of churches.  Possibly it was just the lack of older buildings, churches being the most obvious representations of this.  Oh yes and Sydney introduced me to the Australian phenomenon of hideously annoying pedestrian crossing sirens.  These are only my immediate impressions as I rapidly departed for Albury, a country city (sic), on the banks of the River Murray.

Indigeneous Excavation

I’ve been working on a  bypass section of the Hume Highway which connects Sydney to Melbourne. A walkover survey was previously conducted for the collection and recording of Indigenous artefacts. In this area of New South Wales the huge majority of these are made of quartz and consist of knapped cores and flakes with a few blades of chert and the occasional pieces of hammerstone.  The areas identified are referred to as ‘Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Sites’. An anthropological survey, with local elders, was also undertaken which sought ‘Aboriginal Cultural Sites’ which, I understand, are known from social memory and were avoided by the highway expansion.

The Aboriginal cultural heritage sites were generally found on spurs of land jutting into the floodplain of small creeks, all on post-contact cleared  farmland used for grazing.  We dug 1m² squares at 15m intervals along 5m offset staggered transects down to Pleistocene clay deposits which mark the beginning of local human habitation. This was done by professional archaeologists and an equal number of Aboriginal cultural representatives, reps, who ‘have an interest in the heritage of the area’. The test pits were dug by hand in bulk, initally, with all the excavated material sieved  with water and the artefacts found kept, given a basic analysis and counted. The pits with larger than average,  amounts of quartz flakes, cores and debitage, for that site,  were enlarged 1m² at a time and in spits determined by the depth of the underlying clays, these were referred to as  ‘open areas’. The length of time spent increasing the sizes of open areas was not dependent on declining numbers of artefacts but on the time allocated to each site.

This project finished last week, and to be honest I was rather glad. Everyone I worked with was friendly, but the lack of features was disappointing especially after the novelty of digging metre square holes in fields wore off. I did learn more about stone artefacts which previously I knew little about and my sections, previously ok,  have have improved to an almost ridiculous degree. I may come back with some gripes about the methodology later but am currently travelling about Tasmania in a campervan and it’s dinner time. The next post should not be so long in the writing, thanks loyal readers!

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Pete’s off to A Land Down Under!

Yes, I’m going to be a Man at Work! That’s why there haven’t been many posts recently as I’ve been planning a trip to Australia. Well it isn’t a trip, I’ve been invited to work on a town bypass scheme digging Aboriginal sites, this is all I really know at present,

“Town bypasses will be constructed around the towns of Tarcutta and Woomargama in regional NSW. Each bypass will travel through greenfield areas, crossing prominent hills, creeks and significant stretches of land. Over 50 Aboriginal archaeological sites have been identified within the proposed route of the various bypasses. Some of these sites are very significant ceremonial places, gender specific locations (e.g. women’s sites, initiation sites) or representative examples of the region’s archaeological past yielding thousands of artefacts.”

Sounds interesting, it’s a bypass near the towns of Wagga Wagga and Albury Wodonga and I’ll be working with Aboriginal archaeologists as well. So I might give a digger’s eye view of digging in Oz as well as the usual fascinating news that normally populate the pages of A Place Odyssey, you lucky people!

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Ashmolean Redeveloped

Yesterday I visited the newly expanded Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford. It has had over £61 million pounds spent on it using a new design strategy referred to as ‘Crossing Cultures Crossing Time’ which

‘is an approach based on the idea that civilisations that have shaped our modern societies developed as part of an interrelated world culture, rather than in isolation. It assumes, too, that every object has a story to tell, but these stories can best be uncovered by making appropriate comparisons and connections, tracing the journey of ideas and influences through the centuries and across continents.’

This seems like a reasonable premise for the design of museum showing many cultural objects from across space and through time, obviously Rick Mather has been reading his Deleuze and Guattari and rather liked their rhizome. However, in practice rather than showing the interconnectedness of the material culture of the world it creates a rambling  journey of disjointed assemblages, one can easily become disorientated. Some parts of the Museum themselves, whilst having great collections of ‘stuff’, are more like alleyways than exhibition spaces and act to channel people along rather than letting you stop and look at the artefacts, we decided it was an experience not unlike visiting an Ikea store. But at least Ikea looks like a finished product, almost every room in the Ashmolean had a display which either was empty, had an object still sitting in it’s polystyrene packing, or having no information panel, granted it hasn’t had it’s official opening yet but this makes it look scrappy and uncared for. There are also strange design features, windows that disappear round corners, small openings one could almost squeeze through and open doorways that lead to small empty rooms.

However the actual things in the Museum are great, and many and the new extension has enabled more of the permanent collection to be on show which can only be a good thing. It’s just a shame the museum isn’t easier to navigate, maybe if I’d planned the route beforehand and maybe followed it via OpenStreetMap on my phone things would have been clearer but there wasn’t a signal in there and I don’t like to have to make a plan of attack in a museum, which maybe a fault of my own but I’m probably not alone.

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Four Stone Hearth – 77th blog carnival

Hello everyone! It’s A Place Odyssey‘s turn to host the biweekly blog carnival Four Stone Hearth! I’m very excited and have rumaged up a couple of new blogs from friends I’ve met as a site assistant (digger) round Britain, I hope you find them interesting.

Let’s kick off then…

Liverpool Landscapes – Exclusivity: which parts of the city are Yours?

Since A Place Odyssey is primarily about landscape archaeology I thought I’d start off with a post reflecting this. A friend of mine who works for English Heritage is intersted in the Liverpool’s past.  Martin talks about exclusivity of place and uses example from his own history of Liverpool and the different areas he knows and likes. I quite agree with him, not about Liverpool – only been there once, but places are imbued with distinct characters derived from many avenues. Maybe next Martin you could see if this is reflected in the archaeological or if the town planning of Liverpool reflects any specific examples of exclusivity?

http://www.liverpool-landscapes.net/

Digital Finds – Improved GPS coverage across Europe

Hmm, my mate Joe at Oxford Archaeology is researching how to incorporate digital recording techniques to field archaeology, there’s always a trial round the corner! This sort of thing causes quite a debate between site assistants in Britain, one that won’t be resolved until more of us have had some experience using this sort of technology. Here Joe discusses the new and improved EGNOS GPS coverage across Europe. Joe once undertook an experiment mapping peoples walk across a city with GPS, then asking questions about what landmarks they noticed in particular. It was quite interesting, I wonder if a certain Prof. Tilley ever got to hear about it? Maybe Joe could do another similar thing with EGNOS system and put the results up.

http://blogs.thehumanjourney.net/finds/

Community World Heritage – Saving Britain’s Past, Blaenavon, Heritage and Tourism

Cloe’s studying for a PhD whilst working at GGAT in Wales, she must be a busy lass, but find time to knock some interesting insights into how our past is used by modern communities and the ethical dilemmas around them. In this example she’s considering the World Heritage status of Blaenavon, south Wales. I went to Blaenavon on a field trip as an undergraduate a few years ago, it’s quite a well preserved industrial site, made infinitely more interesting by the Time Team sign thats ben stuck up next to the tiny teashop. Personally I think it’s odd, this is one of the oldest iron smelting works in the world and demonstrates the way this area was key to the industrial revolution that changed the world, and it’s got a tiny teashop and a Time Team sign, great. Stonehenge on the other hand, hugh carpark, visitor centre even it’s own tunnel, and they might (one day) move a road so it looks nicer in the landscape. And we don’t even know what Stonehenge is/was, odd. Anyway, go and see what Cloe has to say…

http://communityworldheritage.org/

Neuroanthropology – Sympathy for Creationists

Greg at Neuroanthropology is attempting to understand the encultured brain and body in regard to people’s perceptions of creationism, which he equates with the lack of understanding of Star Trek. If he’s talking TNG, DS9 and Enterprise, I’m in, otherwise, oh could have an argument on our hands here! Greg admits he is stirring the pot when arguing that evolutionists have similar tendancies to faith and closemindedness as their more biblically inspired counterparts. I like the approach, at least if you say something slightly outlandish it’ll get people talking, so go and have a gander.

http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/09/23/sympathy-for-creationists/

Ad Hominin – The pelvis of Ardipithecus ramidus

Ciaran at Ad Hominin is discussing the pelvis of Ardipithecus ramidus a 4.4 million year old hominin. I hope that is the correct terminology for these early people, I must admit this sort of thing is not my speciality. However it’s interesting stuff, the change in pelvis, argues Ciaran, denotes a move from the tree dwellers found in our long history to going for more of a stroll on the ground. I wonder how this would have affected the ways in which people interacted and their relationship with the environment?

http://adhominin.com/files/ardipithecus_ramidus_pelvis.html

The Spittoon – Life on the Fringe: Shrews and Voles Reveal Clues to British Prehistory

Anne at The Spittoon is discussing the evidence that later prehistoric movements of people into the British Isles is shadowed by the movement of shrews and voles! It doesn’t mention whether they were being kept as pets, I can imagine some Bronze Age chief developing iron as it would make a better collar for his favourite rodent! Hmm, anyway, yeah it’s interesting stuff, I don’t think it’s the end of the story though. Who were the Celts anyway? I think using such loaded terms might be slightly confusing these days with talk of transitions, migrations and/or enculturation but maybe I’m just being argumentative like Greg!

http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/10/02/life-on-the-fringe-shrews-and-voles-reveal-clues-to-british-prehistory/

Aardvarchaeology – Marzipan Gold Hoard

Martin the sceptic, Swedish archaeologist and creator of Four Stone Hearth has been inspired by the goings on at Staffordshire. Both myself and Joe at Digital Finds have mentioned the gold hoard found in the Midlands of the UK, whilst Aardvarchaeology I think must have been feeling a bit peckish. Here Martin has a couple of photos of a gold hoard made from marzipan. I haven’t had marzipan since I was a child but remember not liking it too much, however if it looked this good I might give it a bit of a taste!

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/09/marzipan_gold_hoard.php

The Primate Diaries – Anthropology Human Freedom

Over at the Primate Diaries Eric is considering the anthropological attitude to capitalism, the free market and whether there is a total, timeless social economic system that is right. I think we would all agree that these things are culturally determined, but judging which are better or worse moves us towards an absolutionist position which maybe hard to justify. Go and have a look, there’s already a rather impassioned comment to get things started!

http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/09/anthropology_human_freedom_and.php

A Place Odyssey – Archaeologists for Global Justice

And so we turn to my own blog. I just handed in my MA dissertation yesterday and so was a litle worse for wear today. I was looking into how late medieval people picked certain localities for the placings of their upland, possibly seasonal, dwellings in North Wales. It’s quite interesting and I’ll put something up soon but wanted to use this opportunity to give some time to Archaeologists for Global Justice.

Archaeologists for Global Justice arose as a response to the widespread and ever increasing injustice affecting our world. It was conceived and put into motion by archaeologists at the University of Sheffield (UK), and inspired by the actions of Archaeologists Against the War in opposing British involvement in the Iraq conflict. The idea of forming AGJ was initially voiced to a wider audience during a session entitled `An eternal conflict? Archaeology and social responsibility in the post-Iraq world´, convened at the conference of the Theoretical Archaeological Group (TAG), held in Sheffield in December 2005. The group is a culmination of numerous discussions and interactions, and represents a desire to give voice to our opposition to injustice.

There is a Facebook group and a mailing list hosted by The Unversity of Sheffield, but available for anyone to sign up to. Both of these sites have more information, principles and a manifesto, go and have a look, better still sign up. It would be especially good if more people involved in commercial archaeology got involved to discuss certain issues. One that I think of immediately is that we ‘will not collaborate with development plans which are not based upon principles of sustainability’. A tricky point for diggers working on a Barrett’s housing development indeed. There are pehaps no clear answers but AGJ is good place to start.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/global-justice.html

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2273866698&ref=ts

So there we are, quite a crop of good stuff. I’m sure some will be more interesting to more or less people. I’m opening up contributor positions to A Place Odyssey to the latest students on the Landscape Archaeology MA at Sheffield University tomorrow, we’ll see if they bring any exciting things here. I’d like to thank Martin Rundkvist for letting me host this fortnight’s Four Stone Hearth and hope you have seen something you like. The next Four Stone Hearth host blog is vacant at the moment so why not email Martin at martin.rundkvist@gmail.com and have a go yourselves. Thanks, Pete

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Preview for Four Stone Hearth

This is an announcement to everyone that this Wednesday, 7th October,  A Place Odyssey will be hosting the bi-weekly blog carnival Four Stone Hearth. This draws from the four main branches of  anthropology American style,

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

If you want to have a look where and what Four Stone Hearth has been doing before go here. And if anyone has a blog and wants to be involved please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you. If you just love reading about people and the past tune in next week to get a big blast of action. I’m off to finish my MA dissertation so see you next week…

http://fourstonehearth.net/

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Some less exciting goings on in Staffordshire

Well I suppose we should have something here about all the gold being found in a field in Staffordshire. But I’m very busy writing my dissertation so I’ll leave it to the above video to do the talking. One thing that did catch my cynical side was the assertion that the people of Staffordshire should be proud of this find. I’ not sure why a pot of gold laid down over a millenia ago and found quite randomly should impact the self-esteem of the current inhabitants of the area is beyond me.

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Where are the toothbrushes?

This time lapse video is taken from the Tipping
Street car park development currently being undertaken in
Stafford. What is interesting for us is that it shows the archaeology
being undertaken prior to the construction. As can be seen there are
no fedora hats being worn or small brushes cleaning away at mammoth
bones. This instead shows British commercial archaeology as it is; the
archaeologists, wearing their high visibility clothing and hard hats
are virtually indistinguishable from the demolition team. There is
ample use of a 360° mechnical excavator (a ‘machine’) and dumper
trucks for moving the tonnes of spoil. In fact the only thing to indicate that archaeologists are present is the ubiquitous minibus, see
here!
I don’t want to seem uninspiring or attempting to remove the
glamour (!?) of archaeology but this is how a majority of excavations
are carried out in the UK. We aren’t always cleaning away at the
inscribed walls of beatiful temples as our friends are finding some
great hoard of gold (although some of Staffordshire is a bit more like
this, see here). Here, as on many sites across Britain diggers work away
emptying victorian cellars and other less than exciting features.
However the process of uncovering the unknown is interesting even if
it doesn’t lead to groundbreaking discoveries and if done with a good
team is quite an enjoyable experience and one to be proud of, and with no toothbrush in sight!

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Pitcalc

Hey just thought i’d throw this out, sorry dont have time to write anything up about it but i may do at a later date!

http://www.pitcalc.com/index

If you like archaeology, site planning , the 80s and the Sinclair Spectrum then this is for you!

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