Spring has finally arrived, and we have had some nice days here at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Spring is my favorite time of year, with crocuses blooming and the snow finally shifting into rain. Equinoxes, like the spring equinox, are recognized by many Native cultures for various reasons, so I wanted to learn about some Native American spring myths and legends.

One Chippewa Legend tells the story of a cold, old man encountering a young man as he entered his lodge. As they smoked a pipe, the old man said that he was Peboan, the Spirit of Winter, while the younger man said he was Seegwun, the Sprit of Spring. They described their abilities; how one shakes their locks and snow blankets the land, while the other shakes their ringlets and warm rain showers fall. As they spoke the weather changed and Peboan and his lodge dissolved and faded into tiny streams of water, leaving behind the first blossoms of spring as Seegwun grew stronger and more radiant.

Another legend is based on a tribe from the south-western country in Texas, and tells of a time when the beginning of spring was met with bitter cold days, making the people of the tribe suffer from great hunger. The tribe’s medicine man beat his drum and called to the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit responded and told him that there was no rain, flowers, or animals, because the tribe had angered him. But, by giving the Great Spirit a burnt offering of something they love and scatter the ashes, then this will please him. A little girl heard what the medicine man had said and realized that she would have to sacrifice her kachina doll, because she felt that nothing could be more loved than it. She sacrificed her doll, and after the ashes had blown away in the wind, the ground began to warm, the smell of spring spread, and a misty rain fell. On the hills around the camp a new flower was growing. They grew in the shape of the little bonnet of feathers her doll had worn. They were blue like the color of feathers, with a speck of red at the center for the fire it had burned in and tipped with silver gray like the ashes that were left behind. The Indians named them bluebonnets and the town knew what the little girl had done. Whenever these flowers appear, the Great Sprit has brought spring.

Because we are still in Women’s History month, I also wanted to include this excerpt from our recent Instagram post, written by fellow graduate student Mikala Hardie, about Bertha Parker Cody who is considered the first Native American female archaeologist. She was of Abenaki and Seneca descent and first learned about archaeology in the field when her uncle took her on one of his digs at a Mesa House site. She is most well known for her discovery at the Gypsum cave site in 1930. Here, she found an ancient ground sloth skull next to human-made tools suggesting that early humans inhabited the United States much earlier than previously thought. In 1933 the Southwest Museum hired her to write up reports of the Gypsum cave site and catalog the artifacts found there. Throughout the rest of her professional career, she wrote a number of articles about the Native American tribes found in California. Currently, she is honored through the SAA’s “Bertha Parker Cody Award for Native American Women”.

I wish you all the best spring!

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Further Reading:

https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheSpringBeauty-Chippewa.html

http://whisperingbooks.com/Show_Page/?book=Native_American_Legends&story=Kachina_Brings_The_Spring

This past Thursday, we held our first Graduate Colloquium of the semester! Ryan Clark, MA, RPA, and IUP Alum, came to speak with us about what it is like working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) as an Archaeologist in the New York District. Ryan also has 10 years of experience in the private sector, and during his time with USACE he has worked on projects ranging from Coastal Storm Risk Management, Navigation, Flood Risk Management, Ecosystem Restoration Programs, Military Support, and Regulatory Actions.

He broke his presentation into three sections. The first section gave a brief overview of the history of the USACE as well as parts of their civil works programs, which focuses on flood risk management, navigation, and ecosystem restoration. He discussed the USACE’s attention to emergency response and other missions with specific parameters. He noted that archaeologists usually find themselves working in the civil works or regulatory side focused on permit review, as well. He then discussed examples of the ranges of projects you might find yourselves working on while with the federal government, such as hurricane damage assessments, seawall designs, wetland habitat restorations, and fish passage barriers, to name a few. He emphasized that archeologists in this field learn about different areas of expertise as they interact with other experts from other fields. For example, if you find yourself working on a bird habitat project, you might learn about the different seasons they are around, which might change the way you approach sites with the same bird habitats in future projects.

His second section walked us through Section 106, NEPA, and how federal agencies like the USACE work within them when designing and planning projects. His flowchart simplified the processes. He went over the congressionally mandated 3 year, 3 million dollar, 3 stages of study limits for projects. He also gave an example of such a project, a harbor deepening project. He walked through the steps and phases of the study to emphasize what it is like working with different departments and teams to figure out where the greatest impact will be to cultural, historical, and environmental components of the area to be affected. Ryan noted that a big part of his job is coordination, as well as creating agreements and contracts to prepare for the effects of projects.

The third section focused on federal jobs and the application process, mainly on how to navigate USAJOBS. He began by stating that first you need to look for jobs using keyword searches with archaeology and anthropology or use the job family code 0193 Archaeology. Recently graduated graduate students will most likely be applying for jobs under the public only or student section, unless you have over a year of more of experience working for the federal government, which you will then be eligible to apply for other jobs with that requirement. Ryan noted that it is good practice to take note of the salary or pay scale for the job you are applying for, to make sure you are qualified for that level. Depending on your experiences, either federal or non-federal, while applying you need to match what you have done to its’ federal equivalency to make sure you are eligible for the pay scale level you are applying for. He also said to take note of relocation expenses to see if you are able to get them even though it is usually hard to do so, and also whether the job is temporary or permanent.

He then stated that reviewing the duties of the job is important. For one it is good to know what the job will require, but it also aids with creating a resume. A big thing he noted was that it is better to build a resume within USAJOBS rather than attaching one. By drawing out keywords from the duties section, you can craft a resume that will be more likely to be selected based on the keywords it contains from the language of the duties listed. It is important to translate things you have done into the scope of the job and if those hiring have questions about the extent or caliber of what you have done, they can ask for further clarification during an interview. It is also encouraged to have several resumes or cover letters that are tailored for different jobs. Ryan continued on his tips and tricks for USAJOBS, stating that if you want a higher-level job you should start lower. For example, if you want a GS-11 but don’t have the qualifications, you should look at the requirements for a GS-09 and apply for that job, and eventually work your way up into the job you want. He also noted that you should try to list yourself as closely as possible to expert on the questions they ask on the site, answering honestly by making sure you are actually qualified, but also making sure you are an expert so that you have a better chance of being selected.

To summarize; build your resume in USAJOBS using keywords from the position you want, have multiple resumes by type of job, don’t sweat the CV, translate prior work into relevant experience for the job you want, and check the requirements for the application.

Overall, Ryan emphasized that his job was not always what we would consider in the scope of archaeology. He does a lot of contract management, such as hiring people, and not as much fieldwork. However, while working on million-dollar projects and contracts he has gotten to work with a lot of cool things, such as a schooner, although he has no background in maritime archaeology. He likes the teamwork environment, and that he actually gets to use his job in the civil works sector to help people, giving a contemporary relevance to archaeological work.

We thank Ryan Clark for presenting for us, giving us insight into what it is like working for the federal government as an archaeologist, and helping us learn more about applying for these types of jobs!

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People visiting the National Museum of Afghanistan, Dec, 21, 2021. (AFP)

While discussing property law theory in one of our classes, Law and Ethics, I remembered the crisis Afghanistan was and is still facing and began to wonder about the state of their antiquities, cultural resources, and museums, under the Taliban’s rule. Little did I know that this had been a subject discussed heavily in the media only a few months ago, so I decided to dig into some past and current events to reveal the status and state of Afghanistan’s cultural history.

After years of conflict and negotiations, in February 2020 the U.S. government and the Taliban signed a peace agreement, which included a timeline by which U.S. troops would withdrawal from Afghanistan. While the U.S. pledged full withdrawal withing 14 months, the Taliban pledged “to prevent territory under its control from being used by terrorist groups and enter into negotiations with the Afghan government.” Unfortunately, with no official cease-fire in place, the Taliban eventually resumed attacks on Afghan civilians, their government, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). Despite U.S. air strikes and raids against the Taliban, the Taliban’s violence and suicide attacks allowed them to make territorial gains throughout 2020 and 2021. In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced the removal of U.S. military forces by September 2021 from Afghanistan. The Taliban increased their attacks on urban areas and border crossings, and by mid-August, they had captured all provincial capitals, causing the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee, along with thousands of citizens.

One of the Buddhas of Bamiyan before it was destroyed by Taliban. (Associated Press)

Afghanistan is no stranger to devastation and violence, especially when it comes to their cultural resources. During the Soviet occupation in the 1980s many of their archaeological sites were illegally excavated and looted. 12^th century items from the palace of Mas’ud III were looted and sold on the black market in the 1990s during the Afghanistan civil war. In 1992, after the end of communist rule, an estimated 70% of the 100,000 pieces in the National Museum in Kabul’s collection, were looted or damaged. From 1994-2001, the “Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism,” some dating to the 2^nd century A.D., were stolen and sold to collections around the world. The Taliban destroyed many libraries and museums, persecuted academics, and outlawed art from 1996-2001. Despite the Taliban Minister of Culture claiming in 1999 that Afghanistan’s Buddhist heritage would be protected under his rule, in 2001 the Taliban proceeded to blast with dynamite and artillery the well-known Buddhas of Bamiyan cliff statues, which dated to the 6^th century.

The destruction of one of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. (Getty Images)

Today, with Afghanistan once again controlled by the Taliban, and repeated claims that Afghanistan heritage will be safe, the international community is still skeptical. Although there have been statements claiming they have forbidden the selling of antiquities on the black market, instructed fighters to protect and safeguard historical sites, and vowed to stop the looting of archaeological digs, many think the Taliban could easily hold Afghanistan’s cultural heritage hostage in the future. As academics, archaeologists, and curators flee the nation, preservation projects are put on hold, and looting increases, many also question if the artifacts and cultural objects will fall prey to neglect.

Since the destructions in the 1990s and into the 2000s, documentation of Afghan cultural heritage has improved with the creation of museum collection catalogues, archaeological site maps, 3-D models of heritage building, and much more, but the threat of destroying the collections, sites, buildings, and artifacts themselves remains. Although a contingency plan to remove 50,000 of the treasures and move them to safter locations had been created in case of an emergency, the Taliban’s quick takeover prevented this plan from happening.

The National Museum of Afghanistan.

After being seized by the Taliban in August 2021, the National Museum of Afghanistan reopened late November of the same year, under the protection of Islamic Emirate soldiers. As expected, visitor numbers have dropped, but some hope the reopening is a sign that their Afghan heritage might remain protected and see it as a chance for residents of Kabul, travelers, and younger generations a chance to learn about the history and culture held in the more than 80,000 artifacts contained in the museum. The Taliban have also allowed Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, the director of the museum, the remain in his position. However, some see the reopening as a political move, as music in public areas has still been banded, limitations on radio and television have been put in place, street murals have been painted over, and in Bamiyan just last year the Taliban blew up a statue of the Shitte militia leader Abdul Ali Mazari, whom they killed in 1995. The fundamentalist Taliban are known for their ideological rejection of art that is not considered Islamic or art that portrays living beings. The museum itself contains artifacts, such as their pottery collection, decorated with images of animals and humans, but apparently no changes have been made to restrict what is being displayed. While some also assume the Taliban is trying to project a more “moderate” image, others see reopening as a way to get sanctions lifted and international aid unsuspended.

A museum employee in front of a destroyed statue in the basement of the Kabul Museum in 2001. (AP Photo/Marco Di La Lauro.

The National Museum of Afghanistan is currently open only three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with staff being unpaid and visitors only allowed admission with a permission letter from the Islamic Emirate. The Taliban is also in control of the Mes Aynak, an ancient Buddhist monastery, including the 10,000 artifacts excavated from the site. They control the new museum in the Herat citadel, smaller museums and collections in Kandahar, Ghazni, and Balkh, as well as The Afghanistan National Institute of Music.

Afghanistan is first and foremost facing a humanitarian crisis, as people flee and many who remain sink into poverty. Many cultural heritage staff in Afghanistan and others who have fled, claim to have received threats from the Taliban, as well. When it comes to the safety of the cultural heritage of Afghanistan for now, many can only watch and wait.

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Further Reading:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/taliban-destroyed-afghanistan-ancient-treasures-will-history-repeat-itself

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan#:~:text=After%20the%20Taliban%20government%20refused,across%20the%20border%20to%20Pakistan.

https://theconversation.com/the-talibans-rule-threatens-whats-left-of-afghanistans-dazzlingly-diverse-cultural-history-167780

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/arts/design/afghanistan-national-museum-reopens.html

https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/afghan-national-museum-reopens-for-visitors-amid-taliban-aid-pleas/news

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-national-museum-of-afghanistan-reopens-2044902

https://www.rescue.org/article/crisis-afghanistan-unprecedented-hunger-after-conflict

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/arts/taliban-afghan-cultural-heritage.html#:~:text=the%20main%20story-,Taliban%20Vows%20to%20Protect%20Afghan%20Cultural%20Heritage%2C%20but%20Fears%20Persist,the%20destruction%20of%20prior%20years.

February is dedicated as Black History Month, as seeing as it is soon approaching, let’s learn about some African Americans who have solidified themselves into the history of archaeology.

John Wesley Gilbert, 1888

Many have heard of John Wesley Gilbert, considered to be the first African American archaeologist. Born free in 1863, this man went on to become a graduate from Paine College who also went on to be the first African American to receive their master’s degree from Brown University; his master’s was in Archaeology. Along with being a professor, Dr. Gilbert was also a minister and missionary. He did fieldwork at the Greek city of Eretria, helping to discover it and create the first map of the area, established a church and school in the village of Wembo-Nyama in the Belgian Congo, and taught subjects such as Greek, Latin, English, French, German, Hebrew, and New Testament literature as an educator. He passed away in 1923, but his achievements continue to inspire all archaeologists.

Dr. Theresa Singlton, Syracuse University

Another notable figure in African American archaeology is Dr. Theresa Singleton, the first African American women to receive a Ph.D. in historical archaeology and African American history from the University of Florida in 1980. She is also the first and only African American to be awarded the Society of Historical Archaeology’s J.C. Harrington Award to this date. Dr. Singleton’s areas of interest are historical archaeology, African Diasporas, Museums, North America, and the Caribbean. She focuses on comparative studies of slave societies in the Americas and the Caribbean, concentrating on culture and plantation life under slavery. She is currently an author and associate professor at Syracuse University teaching anthropology and historical archaeology.

A great resource centered on supporting archaeologists of African descent is The Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA).

https://www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com/

Based in Washington D.C., but consisting of members from throughout the world, this group was founded in 2011. They seek to “increase the number of professionally trained archaeologists of African descent through the promotion of social responsibility, academic excellence, and the creation of spaces that foster the SBA’s goals and activities.” Their website includes resources such as online maps and databases, interviews from their Oral History Project, and links to other related websites. This non-profit organization has hosted online presentations as well, that can still be watched through the link below:

https://www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com/events

Check out the achievements of the current board members, President Justin Dunnavant, Ph.D., President-Elect Ayana Omilade Flewellen, Ph.D., member Alexandra Jones, Ph.D., member Cheryl LaRoche, Ph.D., and member Jay V. Haigler here:

https://www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com/about

As February, and therefore Black History Month, is not too far away, consider checking out this organization, their talks, or the other related websites they have listed!

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Further Reading:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/john-wesley-gilbert-1863-1923/#:~:text=John%20Wesley%20Gilbert%20was%20and,master’s%20degree%20from%20Brown%20University.

https://blerds.atlantablackstar.com/2015/07/09/6-black-archaeologists-anthropologists-know/6/

https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/anthro/Singleton,_Theresa/

2022 has arrived and so have students here at Indian University of Pennsylvania as a new spring semester begins! We were welcomed back for the first day of classes with around a foot of snow this Monday the seventeenth. While we may be hoping for these icy, cold mounds of snow to melt away, there are other fields of ice around the world that we wish were not melting as fast as they are. Glaciers in many parts of the world are melting as global temperatures rise. Glaciers and ice patches, while revealing many preserved artifacts as they melt, also produce a host of other challenges when it comes to finding and retrieving these artifacts.

Mouth of the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska.

The constant movement of ice within glaciers tends to crush and damage artifacts and bodies, before dumping them at the mouth of the ice flow. Some researchers say that glaciers rarely preserve objects for more than 500 years. Areas such as non-moving fields of ice attached to glaciers, and even more likely, ice patches (isolated non-moving or very slow-moving accumulations of ice) are turned to as potentially better sources to explore for preserved artifacts.

Ice patches at Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

Ice patches reveal more intact artifacts; however, with accessibility also comes exposure to the elements. Ice patches are susceptible to rising temperatures, summer wind and temperatures, winter wind direction and strength, and precipitation. Ice patches change quickly in response to the climate, thus allowing meltwater and wind to cause artifacts to become encapsulated in old ice or displaced from where they were originally lost. With climate change more artifacts are being exposed and objects made from soft organic materials, like hides or textiles, have at most, a year before they are lost to history forever.

Ice mummy of the six-to-eight-month old wooly mammoth baby named Dima in situ near Kirgiljach River in northeast Siberia. Dated to 37,000 B.C.

Glacier archaeologists, doing more hiking than digging, have uncovered a range of incredible historical treasures from ice mummies to Viking trade routes, extinct animal species, thousands of year-old organic artifacts like arrows, throwing spears, skis, and so much more. Researchers around the world are striving to make efforts toward saving artifacts emerging from the ice, including the U.S. National Park Service with their Glacier National Park Ice Patch project, and the well-known Glacier Archaeology Program in Innlandet, Norway, which has recovered over 3,000 artifacts, the oldest finds dating to 6,000 years old. Ground-penetrating radar and ice coring have been used to collect artifact and sediment samples, while predictive models for melting glaciers and ice patches could be good sources suggesting where archaeologists should focus future efforts.

Along with melting glaciers and ice patches, oceanfront erosion and receding coastlines are also prevalent in some parts of the world, causing sites to be washed away while others rot in the ground. As many archaeologists understand, the loss of any part of any culture’s history is not only devastating to them, but to the history and heritage of humanity. Losing the artifacts and bodies kept preserved for so many years in ice is losing knowledge that could contribute to broader understandings of humanity.

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Further Reading

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/science/climate-change-archaeology.html

https://secretsoftheice.com/climate/glaciers/

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/27/melting-ice-ancient-trade-route/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/ice-patch-archeology-brief.htm

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/503309/8-amazing-things-uncovered-melting-glaciers-and-ice

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/glacier-archaeology-norway-oppland-mountains-climate-change-melting-ice-spd

Photos from Wikimedia commons

Let’s dig into some history about the famous gobbling bird, the holiday we love to eat it on, and the archaeology of the area the tradition originated from!

The modern domestic turkeys we see today are descended from ones domesticated by Mayans in Mexico around 2,000 years ago. Evidence for Turkey domestication has also been dated to around 2,000 years ago in the American Southwest, Four Corners region, by the Ancestral Puebloans. Sites like Basketmaker III sites have included evidence such as

Designs incorporating turkeys from black-on-white bowls made during the Classic Mimbres phase in southwestern New Mexico, as drawn in essays by Jesse Walter Fewkes, published by the Smithsonian in 1923 and 1924.

droppings, eggshells, and feathers. Turkeys were kept for food but also most likely valued for their feathers, used for ritual objects and even textiles. It has also been argued that turkeys were used in ritual sacrifices.

The earliest evidence of the Mexican turkey in the ancient Mayan world is from turkey bones discovered by archaeologists at the site of EL Mirador in Guatemala, dating to 300 B.C. to 100 A.D. Along with archaeological, zooarchaeological, and ancient DNA, researchers were able to determine that the non-local turkeys indicate a Preclassic exchange of animals between northern Mesoamerica and the Maya cultural region. The evidence represents the earliest Mesoamerican domestication and rearing of turkeys and provides information on long-distance trade connections.

Turkey eggshells and bones from an offering 1,500 years ago in Oaxaca, Mexico. (Smithsonianmag.com)

The original Thanksgiving dinner or Harvest Feast that lasted for three days at the Plymouth Colony in 1621 was most certainly smaller and less varied than what we gorge on today. An English leader who was present at the meal, Edward Winslow, wrote in a letter to a friend, “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labors…many of the Indians coming amongst us…for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer.” Turkeys were mentioned by William Bradford of Plymouth while describing the 1621 autumn, “And besides waterfowl, there was great store of wild Turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison,” increasing the chance that turkeys were present at the meal.

Plymonth Rock. (plymoutharch.com)

Today, archaeologists and graduate students with the University of Massachusetts-Boston excavate undeveloped lots on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, near the National Historic Landmarks site which includes the Pilgrims first cemetery which was a Wampanoag Village thousands of years before. With plans for a permanent memorial titled Remembrance Park, opportunities for excavations are becoming more limited. The Park will focus on The Great Dying of 1616-1619 when diseases from Europeans plagued the Wampanoag and killed around 50,000, the first and harsh winter the Pilgrims experience in 1620-162, and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

The construction of the park is scheduled for 2023 unless archaeologists make extraordinary finds. Linda Coombs, a Wampanoag tribal leader and activist states, “The Park is intended to acknowledge and preserve what we’ve all lived through in 2020. It’s an opportunity to bring the past and present together in ways we never could have foreseen.”

So please enjoy your turkey this Thanksgiving, but do not forget the history behind the holiday!

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Further Reading:

https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/2011/11/23/talking-turkey-unexpected-encounters-with-new-world-domesticates/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-dig-into-juicy-history-taming-turkey-180961192/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-was-on-the-menu-at-the-first-thanksgiving-511554/

https://www.plymoutharch.com/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042630v

https://www.umb.edu/news/detail/at_the_site_of_the_first_thanksgiving

https://www.plymoutharch.com/history-of-thanksgiving/

https://www.wcvb.com/article/archaeologists-dig-hilltop-over-plymouth-rock-one-last-time/36683212