Archaeology has a strong presence in the news.  It is rare that I don’t find some new discovery or article about relating to archaeology while scrolling through my Facebook news boards.  Recently, some very interesting research has been released to the public.

The Crew of the Mary Rose

The Mary Rose is a ship build for Henry VIII King of

Image of the Mary Rose

Tudor England. It sank in 1545 while fighting the French and lost its crew of 400-600 sailors.  Recent studies on the ancestry of the crew have discovered some very interesting things.  Based on the 10 discovered skeletons, most of the crew were from the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.  On member in particular, dubbed Henry, was found to be from Morocco or Algeria based on his skeletal features.  Isotope analysis of his teeth indicated, however, that he was raised in Portsmouth. To read more about Henry and the Mary Rose so to BBC’s article here.

Archaeology is the….dog’s poop….

Dog poop

Recent research conducted on paleofeces discovered that many of the samples thought to be human were actually dog.  Christina Warriner and her graduate student collected DNA samples from both human and dog poop and a variety of other elements that could end up in poop and created a program called coprolID which has the ability to differentiate between the samples.  The increased amount of dog poop in the record may not shed too much light only human patterns but it has the potential to increase our knowledge of dog domestication.  To read more check out the article in Science Magazine here.

A Feast of Sharks and Dolphins

Crab claws broken and eaten by Neanderthals

For a long time fishing has bee n seen as a hallmark of modern humans.  The earliest site of mass seafood consumption dates to 160,000 in southern Africa.  New evidence indicates that Neanderthals in Figuera Brava in Portugal also consumed large amounts of seafood including sharks, dolphins, eels, shellfish, fish and a variety of other species some 106,000-86,000 years ago.  Evidence shows that seafood consisted of 50% of these Neanderthals’ diets, a percentage similar to modern humans of the time.  To read more see BBC’s article here.

Also follow IUP Anthropology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

I wanted to try to do a video tour of a site I work at with SPA.  This is the Mouns Jones site which is a 1716 Swedish house within Morlatton Village along the Schuylkill River.  Much of the area around the front of the house (facing the river) has been excavated along with a large cold cellar.  We are expanding our site to a location along the river about a quarter-mile from the house to investigate the possibility of trading post with the Native Americans in the area.  Enjoy the tour.

Video:

Written by Heather Lash

Archaeology at Montpelier from montpelier.org

For many people, consuming food is one of the best parts of each day. The act of eating provides for most, a moment  to rest, spend time with family, and relate to others. It is especially pleasing for individuals who enjoy preparation and cooking of foodstuffs. And while the act of eating is universal, it is not associated with positive connotations for all people. In fact, the way a person is shaped and influenced by their cultural norms and traditions influences the way they associate with food, foodstuffs, and foodways. Foodways –  the cultural, economic, political, and social aspects involved in the act of eating – influence the production and consumption of food-related materials. These overlapping spheres of influence effect the creation and continuation of foodways and food traditions within cultures.

By focusing on the daily act of eating, and all processes involved in production and consumption of food, the agency of communities and individuals can be illuminated. Reconstructing food processes contributes to better understanding one aspect of daily life that introduces choice based on preference. In my thesis, “Foodways of Pre- and Post-Emancipation African Americans at James Madison’s Montpelier: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Food Preference and Food Access,” I explore African foodways through Zooarchaeological identification and analysis. By matching each bone to IUPs Zooarchaeological Comparative Collection, and determining the presence and absence of different animals in the collection, Trends describing preference of food and access to foodstuffs can be clearly differentiated. At James Madison’s house, Montpelier, located in Virginia, the need exists for pre- and post- emancipation subsistence practices to be contrasted, compared, and evaluated. Therefore, detailing differences and similarities between one group of enslaved individuals and one free family across the Montpelier property can also delineate post-Emancipation effects on food procurement and the utilization of foodstuffs.

Map created by Heather

The Montpelier plantation is located in Orange, Virginia, about 30 miles north of Charlottesville. The main house was built by James Madison Sr. and then later occupied by former President, James Madison Jr., and his family from 1764 to 1844. Throughout their “Retirement Period” (1809-1844), the period of significance for this research, James and Dolley Madison hosted guests for celebrations and cookouts. Preparation of the festivities were facilitated by their three groups of enslaved individuals—domestic enslaved individuals, artisans, and field hands (Reeves and Greer 2012:73). These enslaved individuals formed a large community across the plantation before emancipation, 1764 to 1860. After emancipation, formerly enslaved individuals, such as George Gilmore, were responsible for their own subsistence. This juxtaposition of two time periods provides a comparison for pre- and post- emancipation food preference and consumption trends.

Map of Montpelier Site created by Heather

Modification of food was a very important way of continuing and reinforcing traditions. The application of African traditions to foodstuffs, food preparation, and food consumption due to the repetition of social actions (i.e. tradition), resulted in an identity linked to food. This Africanization, recognized as the modification of available resources, applied to foodways, and contributed to a phenomena that embodies much of the South, and is known as “Soul Food.” Focusing on Enslaved African and Black Freedman culture helps provide an outlet for African voices; individuals overlooked as creators of their own history and culture. Overall, foodways help conceptualize the story of perseverance and strength of pre- and post- emancipation families.

Follow IUP Anthropology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

As discussed in last week’s post, Janee Becker’s thesis is investigating The Wigwam, the former home of Major Israel McCreight and campsite for the Native American performers in the famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.  Along with his partner Dr. W.F. Carver, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, opened his Wild West show on May 19, 1883 in Omaha Nebraska.  His show included cowboys (and girls), Indians, military formations, mock battles and hunt, trick shooting and riding, and creative storylines connecting all performances.  Buffalo Bill’s and many other rival Wild West shows often depicted major events occurring in the mysterious wild west, all while promoting the idea of westward expansion.  Americans were not the only people fascinated by the West.  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opened in London on May 9, 1887 and traveled throughout Europe.

Native Americans played an extremely important role in the show. For the most part, they were treated and paid well, able to travel with their families, and able to retain their traditional ways of life.  Despite these positive aspects of the show, they were still viewed as warlike savages preventing the expansion of civilization into the West.  The Native American victory at Little Big Horn was even used to show audiences why westward expansion is needed.  In the 1890s Buffalo Bill’s employed hundreds of Native Americans, vastly outnumbering the number of cowboys and cowgirls.

Women were also included in the Wild West Shows.  Some had spotlighting roles as sharpshooters like Annie Oakley and Princess Wenona, the Indian Girl Shot (Lillian Smith) while others portrayed rancheras and Indian captives.  Lucille Muhall even made a name for herself as a roper and Rough Rider.  According to records from Buffalo Bill’s women performers were paid the same as men.  African Americans also participated in Wild West shows, although in minor roles.  They often portrayed cowboys, were members of the all-black 9^th and 10^th US Cavalry units, or as part of the band.

These live shows declined in the early 1900s with the introduction of television and movies and the increasing popularity of sports.  World War I also created problems for the shows.  The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Real Wild West show had all of their horses taken for the war effort performing in Great Britain in August 1914.  The Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show went bankrupt in July 1913 and in 1917 both the industry and Buffalo Bill Cody had passed.

Source: https://centerofthewest.org/learn/western-essays/wild-west-shows/

Follow IUP Anthropology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

As we all begin preparing for the family feast, let’s return to the first Thanksgiving which happened in 1621.  What would this feast look like?  What food would they have? And how does that differ from what we have now? Many of you are probably aware that the traditional turkey and cranberries are species native to America, and even more specifically the New England area where the first feast took place.  For this comparison, I will look at what ingredients are native to America, however, not specifically to New England.  Many of the food we love to have for Thanksgiving are actually native to South America.

I will begin with one of my favorite side dishes, green bean casserole.  Green or String beans have been cultivated in Mexico for over 7,000 years.  They actually originated in Peru and migrated North overtime.  The Spanish explorers introduced green beans to Europe in the 16^th century.  In New England “Three Sisters” Corn, Beans, and Squash were present. Although they might not have been green beans. But for you Corn Casserole lovers, corn was definitely present.  And squashes that would be used for pumpkin pies, although the spices would have been different.  Other than the green beans, a major component of green bean casserole is the cream of mushroom soup.  Mushrooms would be available for gathering but the cream is not native to America.  Cattle were brought to the Americas with the European colonists.  Bison are similar to cattle but were never domesticated and they do not have the large utters for milk producing seen in the domesticated cows and thus cannot be milked.

Moving on to arguably the best part about Thanksgiving, the stuffing (or dressing)!  Stuffing is made with bread.  Bread as we know if (Loaf) is from the Old War.  Egypt, Rome, India, Persia, and many other counties have been making variations of bread from wheats and like grains for many thousands of years.  In the Americas, corn was ground and made into meals and tortillas.  Mexico is still famous for tortillas, a bread-like flat baked dough that they have been making since 100 BC.  There were forms of bread present, although I do not know if tortillas would work in stuffing.

The final side I will be talking about is the potato.  Whether you use them for mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, or part of your stuffing, they remain a family favorite side dish, especially with gravy.  Most people associate the potato with Ireland and the Potato Famine.  However, the Inca grew potatoes since 8,000-5,000 BC.  The potato plant produced a rather pretty purple star shaped flower that the French aristocracy, Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI, wore it in their clothing.  Not only can you have your mashed potatoes, but you can also make a nice centerpiece with the flowers.Thank you for reading this blog and enjoy your New and Old World food with all your family and friends.

Follow IUP Anthropology on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Happy Halloween! This candy and costume filled holiday has some very interesting roots.  The Halloween we celebrate today is a combination of Samhain (an old Celtic holiday), standard begging traditions, and teenage angst.  Samhain (traditionally held on November 1) was celebrated over 2000 years ago in modern day Ireland and marks the transition from summer into winter.  During this festival people would feast, light bonfires, take advantage of the supernatural activities present.  This period was not only a transition into winter but during Samhain and All Hallows Eve, the wall between the living and spirit worlds would thin and allow for communication with the dead.  There is very little archaeological evidence of the Samhain ritual so a majority of the information come from oral traditions or documentation.

Researchers believe that the Samhain (soon to be Halloween) tradition arrived in the US with the mass immigration of Irish people during the early 1900s.  Before the arrival of Samhain, the US practiced traditions that were very similar to trick or treating.  During Thanksgiving, children would go from house to house begging for food.  In other areas a tradition known as Mumming and Guising was popular during which people would dress up in costume and going around asking for food.  All Hallows Eve tricks were also present during the 1800s.  Children would tip over outhouses, egg houses, and release livestock as tricks.  As time moved on these tricks escalated into block parties and vandalism.  Around WWII parents started to encourage their children to go Trick-or-Treating as a way to stop most of the tricks.

The much beloved Jack-o-Lantern also originates from Ireland.  This custom is unrelated to Samhein and actually comes from an old legend about a man name Stingy Jack.  Jack invited the Devil to drink and tricked him into turning into a coin.  Rather than paying for the drinks with the Devil coin, Jack kept it next to a cross so the Devil could not return to his original form.  Jack eventually freed the Devil who agreed to leave Jack alone for a year and not claim his soul when he died.  The next year, Jack trapped the Devil in a tree only freeing him once he agreed to leave Jack along for ten years.  When Jack died neither heaven nor hell would take his soul, so the Devil gave him a burning coal to use for light as he roamed the Earth.  Jack put the coal into a carved turnip and thus Jack of the Lantern was born.  The Irish began carving turnips and potatoes to ward of Jack and when they arrived in the US found the native pumpkin to be an even better Jack’s Lantern.

Have a Happy and Spooky Halloween Everyone!

IUP Anthropology

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

With Halloween fast approaching we need to prepare for the many monsters that will come out to terrorize innocent victims.  One such monster is the horrific undead blood-sucking vampire.  Vampires have been around in folklore for ages.  They are said to rise from the dead at night and kill living people.  In order to prevent the vampires from rising villagers would cut off the corpse’s head, take out its heart, nail or weigh it down, reinforce the coffin so it can’t get out, or stab it repeatedly with wooden stakes.  Some cultures thought that vampires had uncontrolled compulsions and would distract the vampire with tasks like picking up seeds in its coffin or untying fishing nets.  Archaeologists have excavated many graves, especially from Europe that show signs of postmortem violence.  Their limbs have holes from metal spikes and some even have rocks or bricks jammed in their mouths so they cannot bite people.

JB 55 burial with crossed limbs

This vampire phenomenon has even spread to the US where a Connecticut cemetery was excavated.  One of the burials had the remains rearranged so that the head and limbs were crossed on the chest similar to the pirate skull and crossbones.

Vampire burial in Poland with a rock in her mouth prevent her from biting victims

So how we know how to rekill or restrain a vampire but how do we know who is a vampire?  Folklore has many rules about how to identify a vampire.  The main identifier is that when the body is exhumed, there is a lack of decomposition, however the body may also show signs of bloating, blackening, and other changes.  They are often found with blood coming out of their mouths, eyes, nose, and even ears.  The lore suggests this is because the vampire gorges on so much blood that it seeps out.  The suspected vampire also produces a terrible smell, no rigor morits, and the hair and nails appear to still be growing.  I don’t know about you but these all sound like common elements of natural decomposition.  Especially considering that the lore specifies that most of these vampires appear in winter and take between 9 and 40 days to actually become vampires.  All of these ‘vampire characteristics’ occur naturally during the early stages of putrefactions.

Holes in limbs of Polish vampire to nail her to the coffin.

Now you know what to look out for if you come across a dead body.  So, what are some signs in the living?  Vampirism is essentially a plague.  Once one person becomes a vampire, they infect those around them.  Often, when a vampire dies their family and close friends die shortly after.  And those most likely to become vampires die from murder, suicide, or the plague.  The Connecticut vampire shows signs of having died from Tuberculosis which is a common plague and trend seen in vampire burials.  The victims of TB would often cough blood from their mouths and take on a pale appearance.  Sounds like a vampire, right? Because TB is extremely contagious and people lived in very close proximity to each other, it isn’t hard to see the connection between one death and the deaths of the rest of the family.  The vampire was probably just the first victim of the plaque.

The vampire epidemics were probably responses to plagues with unknown origins and cures.  People sought to explain the process of decomposition and illness in a world of superstition.  These people were likely innocent victims of illness who were then violated after death.  These burials provide more information about the living community than the dead community (or undead).  How people treat their deceased tells archaeologists a lot about their culture.  In this case vampire burials tell us about a time of superstition, fear, and sickness.  So next time you open a coffin, don’t judge the skeleton by its burial. It might come back to haunt you.

IUP Anthropology

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

This is a special extension of Material Culture Monday featured on our Facebook Page.

Written by Dr. Lara Homsey-Messer

In 1974, the crew of the scallop trawler Cinmar were dredging off the coast of Virginia when, to everyone’s surprise, a mastodon skull was reeled in. Recognizing this as an unusual find, the Cinmar captain plotted the water depth and locational coordinates on his navigation charts. To expedite getting back to dredging, the Cinmar crew broke up the skull and removed the tusks and teeth for souvenirs, throwing the rest of the bone overboard. The mastodon was later radiometrically dated to 22,760 ± 90 Radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP), prior to the last glacial maximum (LGM).  In addition to the

Photograph of the Cinmar Biface

mastodon fossil, a bifacially flaked tool was also recovered. Made out of a fine-grained volcanic rock called rhyolite, the so-called “Cinmar biface” is a large, thin knife with evidence of well-controlled percussion thinning flake scars on both faces. Because rhyolite is an extremely durable rock, it is very difficult to flake correctly. As the Cinmar biface is well-crafted, it clearly represents the workmanship of a highly skilled knapper. Several prominent archaeologists (including lithics expert Bruce Bradley, geologist Darrin Lowery, and the late Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institute) have examined the biface and concluded that it bears a striking resemblance to the Solutrean “laurel leaf” biface tradition of southwestern Europe. As such, the Cinmar biface has been cited as evidence for a pre-LGM “Solutrean crossing” from Europe to the eastern coast of North America via the north Atlantic coastline. Proponents argue that at least 8 other laurel leaf bifaces can be firmly provenienced to the Chesapeake Bay region in addition to the Cinmar biface. You can read more about the biface here.

The Cin-Mar scallop trawler that found the skull and biface

Certainly, this is a tantalizing discovery, but it is not without its critics. Several problems have been noted by skeptics. First, the 22,760 RCYBP date is about 2,000 years before the appearance of Solutrean style bifaces in western Europe. Second, geochemical analysis of the biface, and hundreds of other rhyolite artifacts with known origins from Maine to the Carolinas, showed the rhyolite to originate from the Catoctin Mountain region of south-central Pennsylvania and north-central Maryland. Finally, we have only the word of the Cinmar crew that the biface and mastodon are associated; given that they were found during dredging, it is difficult—if not impossible—to confirm that they originate in the same deposit. This raises questions about the European origins, as well as the Solutrean peopling of the Americas hypothesis. You can read more about the skeptics’ response here.

But before we completely dismiss the Cinmar biface and the Solutrean hypothesis, we should remember that archaeology is all about testing hypotheses, and the Solutrean hypothesis is certainly testable. It will be up the next generation of archaeologists to delve more deeply into the origins and manufacture of laurel leaf style bifaces!

Follow #MaterialCultureMonday on out Facebook

IUP Anthropology