American Archaeology (circa 2013)

It’s been thirty years since I began thinking about archaeology as a subject of sociological inquiry.  It’s time for some reflection, a summation of a long process.  To me, archaeology just isn’t what it used to be.  It’s not “happening” as much as it should.

In the early 1980s I played the role of ethnographer.  In the summer of 1983 I did my first ethnographic stint at an archaeological field camp.  I returned in 1984 as well.  After that, I went to work as an archaeologist because it was the easiest way to find employment, and more graduate school was not appealing.  The late ‘80s was when I became an “archaeologist,” although I never really thought of myself as that.  I was, and always have been, a “student of the human condition.”  Ethnography, archaeology, financial services, are windows into it. 

Initially, I started out as a migrant field technician—instead of shovel bum, we had a more derogatory term for ourselves in those years (dig-roes, not very polite, then or now).  By 1988, I became the vaunted Principle Investigator or PI.  From 1989 through 1996, I dug--meaning I directed large crews in the excavation of--several sites, mostly block excavations or trenches.  I became a master of soils, stratigraphy, and features.  Today, my trowel is rusty but I still know good archaeology when I see it.  As they say, “once a PI, always a PI”. 

A new show on the National Geographic channel (The '80s: The Decade That Made Us) glorifies that decade.  As a nation, we went from people mostly living within their means--plain living and high thinking--to “shop until you drop” with Madonna screaming that she was a material girl.  We went from Apollonian intellectualism to Dionysian crass materialism.  Dionysian intellectualism was a possible option but big corporations and the political far right chose to take us into crass materialism and anti-intellectualism.  Science was taken off its pedestal and stomped on by everyone (except those few scientists who continued to believe in its righteousness).  If you believe in scientism today, you are on the fringe.

In the ‘80s, America was in the last third of the Fourth Awakening.  Collectively, our brains were on fire with the right and left hemispheres fighting for control.  Entropy was high.  Like the two decades before, it was a tumultuous time.  I remember some riots and, at graduate school, even marches and demonstrations for some unremembered cause.  In Montana, there were anti-government skinheads blowing up cars in Missoula and they shot a cop.  In ‘85 or ‘86 , while out to do an archaeological survey for a timber sale, I got to drive a nice green Forest Service truck into a camp of skinheads, wearing bandoliers, and grinning as they generally pointed their guns my way.  I didn’t stay.  After the Ruby Ridge incident, the Northwest quieted down.

Obviously, the big mega change has been the transformation from an Apollonian culture of circa 1920-1960 to our now fully Dionysian one, 1990-present.  (The Fourth Awakening was 1960 to 1990).  The right hemisphere won the struggle.  Today, intuition rules everything we do.  The second age of reason, modernism, is 90 percent gone.  The last ten percent is legacy stuff.  No one really cares about critical thinking or building a good linear argument.  Such things reek of days gone by.

In archaeology, many things have changed since the ‘80s.  In terms of techniques and technologies, the big change has been computers.  We used to make field notes by hand with pen or pencil; now there are computers in the field.  We once wrote field diaries; I haven’t heard that idea in a long time.  We used to use typewriters to do our reports; now it is all computers.  We once tried to be good photographers, using expensive cameras, and knew the usages and settings of color, black and white, and slides.  Today, we use cheep digital cameras and just point and shoot.  In the ’80s people dabbled with clunky video cameras; now every small cell phone is a movie maker.  We were once amateur mapmakers, using leveled transits and rod.  Then came laser transits and rod.  Now it is just all about GPS and GIS.  Once we were excellent at land navigation, could read a topographic map, use a compass, and used our cognitive maps to find our way home.  Today, we depend on gizmos.

In the ‘80s large excavations with large crews used to be common.  In 1987, at the Fort Union project, we had about 45 people.  Next, at Addison Plantation, there were a few more.  Large open area excavation was the way to get it done.  I continued that with my own projects.  Next, briefly, we used widespread random testing (because random sampling was scientific).  Today, we do limited targeted testing, or nothing.  A few academics do small excavations; in the world of CRM, excavation is done only in emergencies or for inadvertent discoveries.

In the 1980s there wasn’t a collections or curation crisis.  We had plenty of space because we put stuff anywhere we could, in garages, basements, or storage sheds.  Then came 36 CFR 79, in 1990, and everyone had to comply with professional museum standards to store collections.  Since compliance to these standards is expensive, few facilities were built and a crisis was created.  Lack of compliant storage space also supports our decision to not excavate.  I am not opposed to museum standards but much of the stuff we excavate doesn’t need to be stored forever or doesn’t need climate controlled space.

In the ‘80s we once thought that chemical and biological studies would be extremely helpful.  The answer is a mixed bag.  We used to take soil acidity samples, sampled for phytoliths and pollen, and wished that blood residue studies would come back with “human” rather than the ubiquitous “deer”.  When you make a big effort to find seeds in hearths and all you ever get is chenopodium, then what good is it?  Maybe these studies are just a luxury now.  Since excavation is now limited, so are the extra studies.

The perspectives of archaeology have changed as well.  There was a big debate, the processual versus post-processual one.  Of course, that was the shift from Apollo to Dionysus as a leading metaphor.  Some folks still call themselves scientists but the kind of science conducted is different.  Dionysian science allows the nonlinear and chaos perspectives to thrive.  In the old days, the Clovis First theory was paramount; now it is widely accepted that some type of pre Clovis occupations occurred in North America.  Tied to this conception is the mono or multi migration route debate.  Once I understood that Australia was inhabited 60 thousand years ago, the mono route via the Bering Strait made no sense and I agreed with the multi route perspective and with a multitude of pre-Columbian contacts.  People don’t stay put.  They move around.

Some perspectives haven’t changed.  Archaeologists are still of the mindset that older is better; most struggle with the material culture of the twentieth century.  Additionally, like most Americans, they fuss about the moral and ethical issues around the concept of Firsts.  If someone is a First what claims do they have?  Should they have any claims?  First born, first to scoop the story, First Americans--Why does First matter?

Today, the social context of archaeology is very different.  In the ‘80s the GI and Silent generations were still very active; as collectivists they portrayed a sense of common purpose across the profession.  Now, with the Boomers and Gen X generations dominating the field, strong individualism undermines illusions of common purpose.  Additionally, back then, archaeologists were heroes because Indy was new and popular; now they are shovel bums with fedoras wishing Indy wasn’t so old.  Indy is a powerful icon but another can replace him.   Lara Croft won’t do it; she is too sexy and is a thief of time.  For a while Daniel Jackson of the Stargate franchise seemed to be appealing because he is actually a good metaphor for CRM archaeology (archaeological consultant to the government who helps solve everyday problems).  Unfortunately, CRM has become stale and directionless, a jobs program, another example of the ponzie schemes rampant in America.

After the economic scare of 2008-2010 that unemployed so many archaeologists, it seems that most are working again.  Or, another way to put it, I don’t know any unemployed archaeologists at the moment.  Good for all of us, we have jobs.  I still believe the profession is at risk from severe external forces, that political-economic hell is coming.  The earlier shock was a vanguard; the next one will be the great test.  We may not have jobs in the future.

However, working as an archaeologist also isn’t what it used to be.  In the early 1990s I worked for Fairfax County, Virginia; my title was initially Historian then it changed to Heritage Resource Specialist.  I did my best to always have an excavation underway or planned, and I enabled others to do excavations.  Archaeology was about digging and research.  I didn’t care what my title was.  I wasn’t a preservationist.

Today, ironically, I have a job title and a business card that say I am an archaeologist.  My job is best described as heritage resource specialist.  I work in the preservationist world.  Along with many other things, I do think about and assess archaeological sites, I review survey reports, I communicate with tribes, I draft environmental documents, and I research issues of historic preservation law.  In depth archaeological research is incidental to my duties and I do my best work when I ensure that archaeological excavation does not happen.  In the eight years I have been a federal “archeologist” (without the “a”) there have been many surveys and a few test projects but no excavations enabled by me.  I have done my preservationist job and ensured that sites have been avoided and preserved in situ (in place).   

Today, CRM archaeology is all about pedestrian survey with a little bit of test units on the side.  CRM has been reduced to locating and avoiding archaeological sites because, under historic preservation guidelines (36 CFR 800), excavation is considered an adverse effect, no different from destruction by bull dozing.  And avoiding adverse effects is what we in the preservation field do. 

I also notice, at conferences, that academics are spending more time re-studying old collections than making new ones, especially if the project is about Native American antiquity.

It seems that excavation has fallen out of favor in American archaeology.  The preservation ethos, the adverse effect indictment, the sensitivity to tribes, and the curation crisis, all lead to the decision of “don’t excavate.”  American archaeologists just don’t make it happen, contrary to what European archaeologist Martin Carver (2011) advocates.

I wish I had numbers to compare the ‘80s to today but I don’t.  My gut feeling and my anecdotal evidence is that the amount of dirt excavated today is minuscule compared to what it used to be.  It’s possible that we are surveying more acres than then but we aren’t doing the digging we once did.  It is a sad observation.

Like most Americans, I believe that archaeology is about digging.  It isn’t about survey, record, and avoid.  Preservation isn’t archaeology.

Reference

Carver, Martin

2011  Making Archaeology Happen:  Design Versus Dogma.  Walnut Creek, CA:  Left Coast Press.

The Kensington Rune Stone is a White Whale

Recently, I have been watching the new Viking show on the History Channel.  It is a nine part miniseries about the Viking raids into northern England in the 8^th century.  It is historical fiction, not a documentary.  It is a bloody and lusty tale.  I have no idea if the clothing or props are accurate or not.  In general, it is good entertainment.

Of course, as a side show, the publicizing of everything Viking or Norse is now ticked up a notch.  In the US that means the Kensington Rune Stone, the Heavener Rune Stone and the Newport (RI) Tower get some additional attention.

Years ago, I wrote a piece for the newsletter of the Denver Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society about proposed evidence for Viking exploration into North America (Moore 2001).  It is reproduced below.  Its title was “Hoaxes and the Norsemen of Canada,” and was a response to a Viking exhibit that was on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, March 2 - May 28, 2001.  I’ll have some additional comments afterward.

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The difference between myth and reality is often a fine line, particularly when the story is too good to be true.  No matter how much data is presented or how tight the argument is made some people will believe the version of it they prefer.  This often happens with archaeological research.  Every now and then, we get to debunk an idea, enjoy the two minutes of limelight, and then our findings are ignored because the other story is more appealing.

Two appealing stories are the continued claims for Viking, or Norse, explorations in the upper Midwest, mostly Minnesota, and in New England.  The former is said to have been visited by a Swedish-Norwegian expedition in 1362; the other is linked to the "Vinland Voyages" chronicled in the Norse stories The Greenlanders' Saga and Erik the Red's Saga.  While the sagas do contain useful hints about eleventh century Norse sojourns in parts of Canada, there is little credibility to these ‘Viking Hoaxes’.

These two stories are worthy of attention.  The oldest concerns the origin of the Newport Tower in Newport, Rhode Island.  The tower is an unusual stone structure commanding the view over the town and bay.  In 1837, a Danish professor named Rafn published a book presenting evidence for Norse settlement in the New World.  His interpretation of the sagas placed the colony of Vinland within New England.  This news led to a flurry of attempts at finding the physical remains of Vikings.  Some believed the tower was Norse because it was thought to be different from other English structures from the early days of the town.  Others felt that it was English, dating to the seventeenth century.  The debate about the tower went on for several years and evidence for Norsemen was brought forth from many places within New England.

To resolve the issue, William Godfrey (1949, 1951, 1955) excavated the area within and around the tower in the 1940.  He found numerous artifacts in the builder’s trench dating to the seventeenth century and interpreted the structure as a windmill.  Even so, people still refer to it as evidence that Norsemen had been in New England.

The other story is a hoax from Minnesota (Guralnick 1982).  In 1898, a rune stone was found outside the town of Kensington.  Rune stones are rocks that have been inscribed with some message, often a memorial, in the runic alphabet, common in Northern Europe in Medieval times.  In some parts of Scandinavia this script was used into the early twentieth century.  Many of these stones have been found in Sweden.  The Kensington Stone inscription read:

            8 Goths and 22 Norwegians on

            an exploration journey from

            Vinland to the west We

            had camp by 2 skerries one

            day's journey north from this stone

            we were to fish one day after

            we came home found 10 men red

            of blood and dead  AVM

            We have 10 men by the sea to look

            after our ships 14 day's travel

            from this island       Year 1362

Certainly, this tale is intriguing.  But, soon after it was found, the rock was studied by a linguist and shown to be a fake.  Its alphabet is nineteenth century runic not fourteenth, as the date indicates.  The language is a dialect of Swedish found only in parts of Minnesota, including the Kensington area.  And, the inscription was not weathered, as it should have been if it was older.  However, the rock received much attention, and, after a promoter got onto the story, people began to believe that it was real.  Suddenly many more rune stones were found.  Today, one occasionally hears stories about Vikings in Minnesota.

Not all the stories about Norsemen in North America are hoaxes (Ingstad 1977; McGhee 1984; McGovern 1981, 1990).  During the late eighth through the eleventh centuries, there was a major population expansion out of Scandinavia.  Norsemen spread across the northern part of Europe and to their west.  Iceland was settled in the decade 860-870.  Erik the Red colonized Greenland from Iceland in the 980s.  By 1500, this colony either was abandoned or had died out, possibly due to Eskimo warfare.  About the year 1000, several voyages were undertaken from Greenland to explore further west.  Three places are recorded in the Sagas that were either settled or temporarily used:  the southern part of Baffin Island, called "Helluland," the coast of Labrador below the medieval tree line, named "Markland," and the northern part of Newfoundland, the legendary "Vinland".

Archaeological evidence for Norse settlements or contacts in North America is sparse but they definitely did land in parts of Canada.  The best known site is L'Anse aux Meadows, located along the northern coast of Newfoundland, which was excavated in the 1960s by Anne and Helge Ingstad and by Parks Canada in the 1970s.  There, the remains of ten houses, four boat sheds, refuse heaps, and two cooking pits were recovered.  The houses were medieval Norse long houses, similar to ones found in parts of Iceland and Sweden.  Some of the artifacts, such as a spindle whorl and some rivets are typical Norse products.  Twenty-one carbon dates clustered around the early eleventh century, correlating well with the Sagas.  Anne Ingstad is cautious about calling this site the Vinland colony.  However, it is a very good chance that it is.

Relations between the Norse and American natives, or "skraelings" as they called them, were mostly hostile.  Three groups were probably encountered: the Dorset Eskimos in northern Labrador, the Thule Eskimos in Greenland and eastern Arctic Canada, and the people of the archaeological complex called Point Revenge, found in southern Labrador and Newfoundland.  The Dorset and Thule Eskimos differed in their material culture, the latter having a more complex marine technological system.  The Point Revenge people may be the ancestors of the historic Algonquian speaking Naskapi, Montagnais, and Beothuck tribes.

Fascinating as this archaeology may be, the Norsemen did not leave much of an impact on the New World.  The modern stage of North America does not start with their presence.  There is no evidence for major epidemics, battles, or changed economies.  All of that would come later.  The existing evidence suggests sporadic and wide-ranging contact between Norse and Native Americans, whose legends apparently do not remember them.  Their memory lives on in our culture in the form of runic stones, strange towers, and the all too often vague line between fact and fiction.

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Since 2001, there have been many claims that these two “hoaxes” are in fact truth.  The Newport Tower has been featured in recent cable shows (e.g. America Unearthed), once again arguing for a Viking or a Knights Templar connection.  Godfrey’s research can’t be accepted because it is too boring; people just want more.  I admit I shouldn’t have called the tower a “hoax” because the structure is very authentic.  It was built for a real purpose, as a windmill, a gristmill, built in the 17^th century.  Those perpetuating the “fringe” interpretations about it are con artists trying to make a buck or a name from selling silly ideas.

However, the Kensington Stone has actually gained some respectability in the last few years.  Two recent books (Kehoe 2004; Nielson and Wolter 2005) sum up the sordid story and argue for the stone’s authenticity.  Nielson has done much new research on the linguistics and history of runic writing in Scandinavia.  He actually documents that many of the linguists who first looked at the stone were wrong in their understanding of runic history.  His research seems like a valid contribution to the case.

Wolter’s contribution to the story is his petrographic analysis from which he argues that the inscriptions are older than when the stone was found; in other words, it had to be older than 1898.  Unfortunately, petrographic analysis isn’t an established dating method, so he can’t tell us when the stone was inscribed.  He assumes the date on the stone is correct.

Since their joint publication in 2005, Nielson and Wolter have soured their relationship.  Several physical scientists have waded in on the discussion and Wolter’s petrograhic analysis is considered to have failed.  The best evidence against Wolter is now found on Nielson’s web page, http://www.richardnielsen.org/Welcome.html under the Discussion tab.  Wolter has gone on to be a shill for the Knights Templar/Holy Grail in America theme, using both the Kensington Stone and the Newport Tower as a backdrop.

Into this fray came well respected Anthropologist and archaeologist Alice B Kehoe who argued for the stone’s authenticity and supported Nielson and Wolter in her own book and by writing a Forward to their 2005 book.  In the Forward, Neilson and Wolter are described as “hard scientists” with appropriate resumes.

One has to wonder about Kehoe’s stance in this controversy.  She has spent much of her professional life arguing for a multitude of pre-Columbian contacts from the Old World to the New, and across the two continents of the New.  She seems to particularly dislike the idea that Columbus “discovered” America.  Two essays summarize her position (Kehoe 2003; 2010).  Today, it is widely accepted among archaeologists, myself included, that Polynesians, Basques, Chinese, and others came to the New World long before Columbus.  I would love to see a rigorous analysis that Jomon Japan is connected to Mesoamerican antiquity.  She seems to ignore this commonly held view and acts as if opinions like mine don’t exist.

The Norse certainly lived in Newfoundland; the Chumash probably saved the lives of some Polynesians and adopted their boat making skills and words; and the Basques left words in Micmac.  But none of these events changed the world the way Columbus did.  Archaeologists don’t have to prove that fact.

If Kehoe and others want to argue that pre-Columbian cultural contacts were indeed momentous events then the burden of proof is on them.  Find the evidence, make a good presentation, and convince us that Columbus wasn’t THE watershed event.

Unfortunately, the Kensington Stone has fallen into a terrible state of affairs.  Around 2002 a cast of the stone was made and now a black silicon layer covers the stone.  Physical analysis isn’t possible until the contamination is removed.  Moreover, it is not clear on how to do this without destroying underlying patina and the surface of the stone itself.

Like Indy, all I can say is the stone belongs in a reputable museum.  Regardless of its authenticity, the story of the Kensington Stone is wonderful American folklore that continues to inspire people to do inspiring things.  It shouldn’t be treated as some commercial object.

This whole sad discussion reminds me of the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville.  There, the scarred, tortured, and obsessive character of Captain Ahab chases the elusive goal, destroying his life and everyone else around him.  He never really catches the whale but becomes tied to it, cannot escape, and goes down with it.  Only the narrator, Ishmael, survives.

Nielson, is that you?

References

Godfrey, W. S. (1949). The Newport Puzzle. Archaeology, 2(3), 146-149.

Godfrey, W. S. (1951). The Archaeology of the Old Stone Mill in Newport, Rhode Island. American Antiquity, 17(2), 120-129.

Godfrey, W. S. (1955). Vikings in America: Theories and Evidence. American Anthropologist, 57(1), 35-43.

Guralnick, E. (Ed.). (1982). Vikings in the West. Chicago, IL: Archaeological Institute of America.

Ingstad, A. S. (1977). The Discovery of a Norse Settlement in America. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Kehoe, A. B. (2003). The Fringe of American Archaeology: Transoceanic and Transcontinental Contacts in Prehistoric America. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 17(1), 19-36.

Kehoe, A. B. (2004). The Kensington Runestone: Approaching a Research Question Holistically. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Kehoe, A. B. (2010). Consensus and the Fringe in American Archaeology. Archaeologies, 6(2), 197-214.

McGhee, R. (1984). Contact between Native North Americans and the Medieval Norse: A Review of the Evidence. American Antiquity, 49(1), 4-26.

McGovern, T. (1981). The Vinland Adventure: A North American Perspective. North American Archaeologist, 2(4), 285-308.

McGovern, T. (1990). The Archeology of the Norse North Atlantic. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19(1), 331-351.

Moore, L. E. (2001). Hoaxes and the Norsemen of Canada. All Points Bulletin, 38(3), 1-2.

Nielson, R., & Wolter, S. F. (2005). The Kensington Rune Stone: Compelling New Evidence. Eden Prairie, MN: Outernet Publishers.