L'Abbé Henri Breuil is pictured, center with the cane. This photo is from Men of the Old Stone Age, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, publication date 1915. L'Abbé Breuil, known as the first archaeological expert of Paleolithic art, was one of a number of scientists who hosted Osborn on a tour of southern France and Cantabria. The book draws heavily on Osborn's exposure to the record in this area.
Fascinating: "Unique Canine Tooth from 'Peking Man' Found in Swedish Museum Collection"
Swedish paleontologists were the first scientists to go to China in the early 20th century, and they carried out a series of expeditions in collaboration with Chinese colleagues. They found large numbers of fossils of dinosaurs and other vertebrates. The material was sent to Sweden and the well-known paleontologist Carl Wiman, who identified and described the fossils. But when the direction of research changed after Wiman's death, 40 cartons were left unopened and forgotten -- until know. In recent weeks, they have been opened by Per Ahlberg, his colleague Martin Kundrát, and Museum Director Jan Ove Ebbestad, who had drawn attention to the cartons in the storeroom at the Museum of Evolution.
You know, this is why open science is so important. When you have a small group of people working a collection, the information goes when they die. I hear about cases like this all the time. And we're talking about hominins in relatively well curated collections. The number of unique specimens of other fossil organisms sitting in boxes must be enormous.
The more eyes you have on your collection, the more it is worth.
This is a fun story: "The story behind the world’s oldest museum, built by a Babylonian princess 2,500 years ago".
In 1925, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a curious collection of artifacts while excavating a Babylonian palace. They were from many different times and places, and yet they were neatly organized and even labeled. Woolley had discovered the world's first museum.
(via Jennifer Ouellette)
Archaeologist (and blogger) Michael E. Smith writes some thoughts about "Why anthropology is too narrow an intellectual context for archaeology."
Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips (1958) once claimed that “archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing,” and Lewis Binford (1962) promoted a program of “archaeology as anthropology” [see also Gillespie, 2003 #9111]. I disagree with these views. Had my research on comparative urbanism remained within the confines of anthropology, it would have remained pedestrian and limited in scope. Based on my personal experience, I suggest that the intellectual horizons of archaeology should not be limited to the rather parochial discipline of anthropology.
There are many jingoistic scholars who claim to love anthropology because it encompasses everything. I, for one, think that the field that tries to encompass everything will thereby mean nothing.
I resist making a tag for "disciplinarity".
One more thing: The Anthropologies project, which I've linked a couple of times now, is a really good idea.
Kate Taylor reports a bizarre story of the continuing troubles of Zahi Hawass: "Using History to Sell Clothes? Don’t Try It With the Pharaohs".
“Zahi Hawass is a novel fashion line, not just for the traveling man, but the man who values self-discovery, historicism and adventure,” says the Web site for the company that designed the line. Some detractors have said that the Hawass clothing, which was first sold at Harrods in London this month, commercializes Egyptian history, and some object to the catalog because they thought — incorrectly, according to the makers of the clothing — that models had sat on or scuffed priceless ancient artifacts during the photo shoot.
Is there anyone with a worse sense of timing than the buyer at Harrods who approved this?
I actually don't have a problem with an archaeologist trying to make a buck. Did you hit my Amazon links? Except that Hawass was a government official. He has reportedly offered all of his share to charity, although the report leaves some doubt about the timing of that arrangement. Since Hawass has recently been sentenced to spend a year in jail, I think he's got bigger problems than poor taste. Banana Republic was unavailable for comment.
Still, the website featuring the collection is hilarious. Anybody who knows anything about archaeology obviously ain't gonna be caught dead wearing Zahi Hawass togs. So the collection is slickly marketed to spoiled posers ready to take a step beyond Abercrombie and Fitch. It's more or less what Brendan Fraser would be wearing if he rose out of beach sand like the Old Spice guy.
Maybe Harrods can salvage the collection by renaming it "Schliemann's Gold". That has sort of a Mad Men vibe.
Lewis Binford died last Monday. I have been waiting for a good obituary to be published. The Wall Street Journal's effort ("Archaeologist Binford Dug Beyond Artifacts") isn't that great, but with a week passed, it may be the best we'll see for awhile. The following quote appears in the SMU obituary.
"Lewis Binford led the charge that pushed, pulled and otherwise cajoled archaeology into becoming a more scientific enterprise," said David Meltzer, professor of prehistory at Southern Methodist University. "Much of how we conceptualize and carry out archaeology in the 21st century is owed to Lew's substantial legacy."
No living scientist has had as great an effect on the study of Paleolithic archaeology.
UPDATE (2011-04-19): Lawrence Straus has penned a PDF obituary of Binford that comes close to the full scope.
In John Noble Wilford's article about the new pre-Clovis archaeological site, Buttermilk Creek, Texas, James Adovasio gets the last word about advocates of the Clovis-first hypothesis:
“The last spear carriers will die without changing their minds,” Dr. Adovasio said.
Bing today has made their image a beautiful photo of Lascaux, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the cave's discovery.
Peter Heather's Empires and Barbarians begins with a chapter summarizing grand theories of demography and social transformation among near-prehistoric peoples of Europe.
Both classical sources and pre-1960 scholarship tended to explain events in terms of the wholesale migration of demes of people. In later years, it has become more common to deny the importance of demic migration, instead invoking elite migration and dominance, demic diffusion, or other schemes.
I'm not reviewing the chapter here but I wanted to record a quote from Heather's page 19:
[A] basic equation has grown up in the minds of some archaeologists between any model of the past involving population movement, and simple-mindedness. As a recent introduction to early medieval cemeteries put it, avoiding migration in explanations of archaeological change 'is simply to dispose of an always simplistic and usually groundless supposition in order to enable its replacement with a more subtle interpretation of the period'. Note the language, particularly the contrast between 'simplistic' and 'groundless' (the world dominated by migration) with 'more subtle' (any other kind of explanation). The message here is loud and clear. Anyone dealing with the geographical displacement of archaeologically observable artefact types or habits, who wants to produce an account of the past that is at all 'subtle' or 'complex', should avoid migration at all costs. The tables have turned. From a position of overwhelming dominance before the 1960s, migration has become the great Satan of archaeological explanation.
What a way of capturing the sneers of critics following a fad. Better to be "subtle" and "complex" than "simplistic"!
In my e-mail this morning from Marco Langbroek:
Dear colleagues and friends,
It is my pleasure to announce that, a year after (206241) Dubois, another prominent person from the world of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, and another personal hero of mine, has been immortalized in the sky by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
Minor Planet Circular #70411 (27 May 2010) issued by the IAU's Minor Planet Center at Harvard, contains the following naming citation for asteroid (213629):
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(213629) Binford = 2002 QK67
Discovered 2002 Aug. 26 by NEAT at Palomar.
Lewis R. Binford (b. 1930) is an American archaeologist and anthropologist. He was one of the main figures behind the development of the “New Archaeology” or “Processual Archaeology”, the major theoretical and methodological improvements to archaeology taking place during the 1960s to 1980s.
