Anne D. sent this link to a Daily Show segment featuring (lampooning, actually) a PA attempt to legalize for hunting the ancient projectile weapon known as the atlatl. A local atlatl enthusiast finds himself ribbed by Daily Show field correspondent Jason Jones and takes it in stride. Providing the counter argument is well-coifed HSUS President …
Beef Recall for Cruelty Concerns
Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle, enemy of so many good things—dogs, cats, horses, hunting, eating meat, private ownership and the American way—maybe got this one right. Due to complaints filed by HSUS about conditions in a California slaughterhouse, 143 million pounds of beef are being recalled from shelves across the country. …
Some Ceramic Oddities
Most of the ceramics we have found here so far are fairly straight forward, like the Colorado Buffware rim sherd that is pictured above. Most everything we have seen has either been one of these buffwares (though some have a red slip) that were made east of here along the Colorado River or Tizon Brownware …
Beer Can Archaeology
As I said in the previous post, artifacts and features that are older than 50 years get treated as historic resources in our survey. That means we get to paw through a lot of 20th Century trash heaps. I am a confirmed prehistorian and I have to admit that this isn’t exactly my cup of …
Silence of the Lambs
Sometimes we see things out here that haven’t quite turned into archaeology yet. The white smear you see in the picture above is one of those. Hard to tell what it is at a distance. When you get a little closer you can see that it is a scatter of animal bone. My colleague Liz …
Who Am I?
I have picked up two skulls of this type while out here on survey and am not sure what species this is. Faunal identification isn’t my strong suit and I have no references with me. It’s not canid, but not sure where to go – ringtail? badger? More expert opinions than mine requested.
General Land Office
Those of you who live in the eastern part of the country don’t get much opportunity to see these survey markers. The General Land Office, one of the precursor agencies to the current Bureau of Land Management, had the responsibility for conducting the cadastral survey of the western three-quarters of the country and laying out …
Big Core
A large part of our project area contains old stream terraces that are covered with gravel and cobbles of good chippable stone. The prehistoric people who lived here used these as source areas for their lithic tools. Above you can see some crew members recording a small site consisting of a core and a few …
Running and Hunting
A Scientific American blogger wonders if we run in such things as marathons because once, we ran down other animals. Elizabeth Thomas got there years ago. HT Walter Hingley for the SciAm link.
Bird Origins
Birds are older than you (or Alan Feduccia) think.