#indigenous archaeology

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Hi Reid, my university is in the process of adding an archaeology curriculum (I don't know if it will be it's own program or integrated into the anthropology department, my professor just mentioned it in lecture) and one of the concerns among the faculty (according to my professor) is that the archaeology courses would promote and focus on decolonization (this is also a goal of the current anthropology curriculum but there are some roadblocks due to university bureaucracy). But the talk of the new archaeology curriculum and decolonization made me curious about your thoughts on current decolonization efforts within archaeology.

There's a lot of really great work being done by both Indigenous people and their non-Indigenous allies to decolonize archaeology.

Someone that I admire greatly is Dr. Sonya Atalay, whom I featured in my post about Indigenous People's Day. For a really great in-depth discussion about decolonizing archaeology, go read her article Indigenous Archaeology as Decolonizing Practice.

Decolonizing archaeology is both difficult and necessary. North American archaeologists have to grapple with the fact that our discipline is historically colonial and exploitative (for more detail, check out Skull Wars. The language is sometimes a little outdated, but it's still worth the read). I'm glad that your school is aware of the struggle as it creates an archaeology program.

-Reid

[fixomnia-scribble]

Cities believed to be 2000-3000 years old. (I LOVE LIDAR.)

Text below cut.

TL;DR:

Using the laser-scanning technology, researchers have uncovered a complex network of farmland, roads and neighbourhoods in Ecuador's Upano River Valley.

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, according to Rostain, who works for France's National Center for Scientific Research. [Rostain's] group's findings were recently published in the journal Science.

Deep in the Amazon, researchers have uncovered a complex of ancient cities — using laser technology

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old

Mouhamad Rachini · CBC Radio · Posted: Jan 18, 2024 1:35 PM PST | Last Updated: January 18

Huge ancient city discovered in Amazon

"Wow" was all archaeologist Stéphen Rostain could say when LiDAR (light detection and ranging) laser technology revealed several ancient cities hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest.

"It's a gift for an archaeologist," he told The Current's Matt Galloway. 

Using the laser-scanning technology, researchers have uncovered a complex network of farmland, roads and neighbourhoods in Ecuador's Upano River Valley.

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, according to Rostain, who works for France's National Center for Scientific Research. His group's findings were recently published in the journal Science.

"In the Upano, it's a completely new approach [to] the human past in the biggest rainforest of the world," he said.

Indigenous archaeologist argues humans may have arrived here 130,000 years ago

New discoveries challenge our understanding of when the first people arrived in North America

LiDAR leads the way

Rostain has been working in the Upano River Valley for years. He says he started excavating there 25 years ago, so he's known about the site with earth mounds in the area for decades.

"What we didn't [know] at this time, it was the size and the global organization of this construction," he said. "This is really new, and the LiDAR showed to us a map of this road connecting cities."

LiDAR was introduced to the excavation in 2015, when Ecuador's National Institute for Cultural Heritage funded a LiDAR survey of the valley. 

As part of the survey, specially equipped planes beamed laser pulses through the forest's vegetation, and measured their return path.

According to archaeologist Jay Silverstein, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University in England, this method allows researchers to create a terrain model of the ground underneath the forest.

"You've basically skimmed off all the trees and you're actually looking at the shape of the earth," he told Galloway. "Then we start to be able to see the patterns of what we call anthropogenic, or things that were made by humans as opposed to nature."

For Rostain, this method is indispensable because it allows the exact shape and size of the ground to be reconstructed without harming the forest itself.

Rostain says nothing gets destroyed by LiDAR, noting that the technology maps out the terrain without cutting trees or destroying the archaeological site. "It's just perfect."

Silverstein said science can indeed be destructive, as damage created during excavation can't be undone. That's why using non-destructive archaeology like LiDAR is extremely important.

"We are developing more and more non-destructive techniques that allow us to to plan our excavations much better to understand what we're looking at and on the large scale before we do our small-scale excavations," he said.

Humankind's potential — and fragility

As significant as this discovery is, Silverstein warns against making any assumptions about this civilization based on first impressions.

"When I teach students or younger archaeologists, I tell them that your first impression, your gut instinct, your feeling of what you see when you first see, it is wrong," he said.

What's at stake for the climate, deep in the Amazon

The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate, but it’s under serious threat from deforestation. CBC's international climate team ventures deep into the forest with scientists to learn how climate change is affecting it, and what’s at stake in the fight to save it.

In this case, Silverstein said assumptions shouldn't be made about what the geometric shapes revealed by LiDAR represent. 

"You don't know if you're really talking about palace plazas or agricultural fields when you see a rectangular shape in the ground," he said. "There's a big difference of what it means when understanding that society."

Nevertheless, these findings are confirmation of humanity's potential, said Silverstein.

"Whether you're we're dealing with Highlanders in Papua New Guinea or villagers in Mexico … we adapt to our environments, we figure ways to organize ourselves," he said. 

"And given the opportunity and the resources and good fortune, we will organize ourselves and create more complex societies and we'll figure out how to better manage our water and build roads and build houses."

How recreating ancient recipes helps one food buff bring the past to life

Lessons from an ancient Athenian in an era of 'fake news'

There may be a grim lesson to be learned from these findings, according to Silverstein: civilization is fragile, and there's no guarantee that our societies will be around in the future.

"Everyone who lived in those ancient societies thought their society was fine and that they were going to live on forever, and that their children would live there and their grandchildren and so on," he said. "But something happened and it didn't."

"We blithely go through life and we get our warnings of climate crisis and warfare and threats. But we more or less assume that we're going to be here tomorrow and living just like we do today —until it happens."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mouhamad Rachini

Journalist

Mouhamad Rachini is a Canadian-Lebanese writer and producer for CBC Radio's digital team. He's worked for several CBC Radio shows including The Current, Day 6 and Cross Country Checkup. He's particularly passionate about stories from Muslim and Middle Eastern communities. He also writes about soccer on his website Between the Sticks. You can reach him at mouhamad.rachini@cbc.ca.

[bergenhoek]

having old archaeologists as professors is pretty cool. sometimes they'll just go on a rant and talk about how they met so-and-so famous archaeologist during some conference in the stone age and how some white feminist cultural anthropologist got pissed at a radical sioux archaeologist for calling them a bunch of racist dicks

[troublejournal]

Canadian Indigenous peoples for the win!!!!

YALL

[animentality]

[dyke-delphinia]

3D Reconstruction of Tenochtitlán by Thomas Kole

[forever70s]

excavation of a stone disc depicting the Aztec moon goddess, Coyolxāuhqui (1978)

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Pair of Ear Spools.

Date: A.D. 1000-1470

Place of origin: Central Coast, Perú

Culture: Chancay or Inca

Period: Late Intermediate-Late Horizon

Medium: Feathers, adhesive, gourd, and leather.

[mindblowingscience]

We often hear that Aboriginal peoples have been in Australia for 65,000 years, "the oldest living cultures in the world." But what does this mean, given all living peoples on Earth have an ancestry that goes back into the mists of time? Our new discoveries, published July 1 in the scientific journal Nature Human Behaviour, shed new light on this question. Under the guidance of GunaiKurnai Elders, archaeologists from the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and Monash University excavated at Cloggs Cave near Buchan, in the foothills of the high country near the Snowy River in East Gippsland, Victoria.

Continue Reading.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

500-year-old Snake Figure from Peru (Incan Empire), c. 1450-1532 CE: this fiber craft snake was made from cotton and camelid hair, and it has a total length of 86.4cm (about 34in)

This piece was crafted by shaping a cotton core into the basic form of a snake and then wrapping it in structural cords. Colorful threads were then used to create the surface pattern, producing a zig-zag design that covers most of the snake's body. Some of its facial features were also decorated with embroidery.

A double-braided rope is attached to the distal end of the snake's body, near the tip of its tail, and another rope is attached along the ventral side, where it forms a small loop just behind the snake's lower jaw. Similar features have been found in other serpentine figures from the same region/time period, suggesting that these objects may have been designed for a common purpose.

Very little is known about the original function and significance of these artifacts; they may have been created as decorative elements, costume elements, ceremonial props, toys, gifts, grave goods, or simply as pieces of artwork.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art argues that this figure might have been used as a prop during a particular Andean tradition:

In a ritual combat known as ayllar, snakes made of wool were used as projectiles. This effigy snake may have been worn around the neck—a powerful personal adornment of the paramount Inca and his allies—until it was needed as a weapon. The wearer would then grab the cord, swing the snake, and hurl it in the direction of the opponent. The heavy head would propel the figure forward. The simultaneous release of many would produce a scenario of “flying snakes” thrown at enemies.

The same custom is described in an account from a Spanish chronicler named Cristóbal de Albornoz, who referred to the tradition as "the game of the ayllus and the Amaru" ("El juego de los ayllus y el Amaru").

The image below depicts a very similar artifact from the same region/time period.

Why Indigenous Artifacts Should be Returned to Indigenous Communities.

Sources & More Info:

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Snake Ornament

Serpent Symbology: Representations of Snakes in Art

Journal de la Société des Américanistes: El Juego de los ayllus y el Amaru

Yale University Art Gallery: Votive Fiber Sculpture of an Anaconda

[micewithknives]

Skipping ALL things in my queue, and all the asks in my ask box, to tell y'all about THIS that came out a few hours ago. I cannot express how excited I am about this information finally being published.

Its not the first evidence of pottery technologies found in Australia, but the artefacts that have been found at the Lizard Island group in the past havent necessarily been datable. Evidence of pottery in the Torres Strait was also found in the early 2000s, and its been analysed to be evidence of trade with Papua New Guinea (who have an AMAZING history of pottery technology).

To our amazement, around 40cm below the surface we began to find pieces of pottery among the shells in the excavation. We knew this was a big deal. We carefully bagged each piece of pottery and mapped where each sherd came from, and kept digging.

But as of now, there's officially dated evidence for locally made pottery in Australia, of at least 1800 years. Not only outside the Torres Straight, but 300km south. Not only 1800+ years old, but also pre-dating the original known dates for Torres Straight Islands pottery, suggesting the possibility of even earlier pottery technology trade with PNG. AND ITS DECORATED.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and shells found close to the pottery shows that it is between 2,950 and 1,815 years old, making it the earliest securely dated pottery ever found in Australia. Analysis of the clays and tempers shows that all of the pottery was likely made on Jiigurru.

The pottery stopped at about 80cm depth, with 82 pieces of pottery in total. Most are very small, with an average length of just 18 millimetres. The pottery assemblage includes rim and neck pieces and some of the pottery is decorated with pigment and incised lines.

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Is there an archaeology thing you wish someone would ask you about because you wanna talk about it and if so would you be willing to talk about it? Here is a picture of my cat in trade but you can look at the picture even if you don’t talk about something

You know what, there IS, and it's all courtesy of @micewithknives!

I'm in charge of teaching my very own class this semester, which means I have full control over the course and I can do pretty much whatever I want. I was given a hand-me-down syllabus and overall I'm not changing much because this is my first time doing something like this and I don't want to get too into the weeds.

But the course is Ancient Civilizations, and we're getting at AUSTRALIA WEEK, babeyyy!!!

I've taken a version of this class and seen examples for a couple more, and I don't think I've ever encountered Australia in a context like this. Ancient Civ classes tend to focus on urban centers and monumental architecture, which is (partially) the result of Western bias for what counts as a "civilization" and means that a lot of cultures get left out.

With Mice's help, I've been learning about early Australian archaeology, and there is SO MUCH TO LEARN! Way too much to fit into a single week, but classes like this are really only capable of giving a very general overview. Anyway, here are some of the readings I'm having my students do:

Mice, I'll turn the stage over to you if you have anything you want to add.

-Reid

[nmnomad]

Puye was one of the ancestral villages of Santa Clara, San Ildefonso and Ohkay Owingeh Pueblos, occupied from about 900 AD to 1580 AD. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. There are extensive ruins at the base of the cliffs and on top of the mesa, with outstanding examples of early Pueblo architecture and stunning panoramas of the Rio Grande valley. The sheer number of cliff dwellings at Puye, and how far they extend, is overwhelming, indicative of a large community.

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 52: Medievalish and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions a the previous iteration. This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

We already did the burnings which lost their bracket, but the culture lasted a long time across a big area, and people keep suggesting it.

[tlatollotl]

Cultura: Huasteca

Técnica: Modelado

Provenience unknown, possibly looted

MNA

[olowan-waphiya]

A huge ancient city has been found in the Amazon, hidden for thousands of years by lush vegetation.

The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon.

The houses and plazas in the Upano area in eastern Ecuador were connected by an astounding network of roads and canals.

The area lies in the shadow of a volcano that created rich local soils but also may have led to the destruction of the society.

While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon.

"This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Eurocentric view of civilisation, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilisation," says Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, who led the research.

"It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land - this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies," says co-author Antoine Dorison.

The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.

It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000s if not 100,000s.

The archaeologists combined ground excavations with a survey of a 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area using laser sensors flown on a plane that could identify remains of the city beneath the dense plants and trees.

—

"The road network is very sophisticated. It extends over a vast distance, everything is connected. And there are right angles, which is very impressive," he says, explaining that it is much harder to build a straight road than one that fits in with the landscape.

The scientists also identified causeways with ditches on either side which they believe were canals that helped manage the abundant water in the region.

There were signs of threats to the cities - some ditches blocked entrances to the settlements, and may be evidence of threats from nearby people.

Researchers first found evidence of a city in the 1970s, but this is the first time a comprehensive survey has been completed, after 25 years of research.

It reveals a large, complex society that appears to be even bigger than the well-known Mayan societies in Mexico and Central America.

—

Some of the findings are "unique" for South America, he explains, pointing to the octagonal and rectangular platforms arranged together.

The societies were clearly well-organised and interconnected, he says, highlighting the long sunken roads between settlements.

Not a huge amount is known about the people who lived there and what their societies were like.

Pits and hearths were found in the platforms, as well as jars, stones to grind plants and burnt seeds.

—

Prof Rostain says he was warned against this research at the start of his career because scientists believed no ancient groups had lived in the Amazon.