We built this city on rock and roads

     For many people when they think about Cambodia they think of Angkor Wat, one of the most famous places in the world today. This temple is a tourist hotspot and has many times been added into more modern lists of "Wonders of the World". What many people don't know is that this amazing temple is one of thousands grouped into the temples of Angkor.

 

www.devata.org 

     Modern technology is showing us that these thousand dots that scatter across the map of Cambodia may not be just random lone temples but it is now being proven that they are part of a vast ancient city that predates Angkor Wat. The temples of Angkor date from between 800-1400AD, this is widely known as the time period of the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire. An empire whose rich history is still being uncovered today but whose art and architecture are among the most impressive throughout history. A empire that stretched from Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and even into southern China.

 

Personal Photo

     Today a team of archaeologists from University of Sydney, led by Director Damian Evans are using Lidar to discover the roads that linked the temples of Angkor together in a city named Mahendraparvata. A city named from Sanskrit meaning "the mountain of the great Indra". It's size has yet to be determined due to the time and money it takes to do this kind of archaeological surveying. It has taken the team about ten years just to get this far with the uncovering of the city. What they do know is that this city even predates the temples themselves being more than 1200 years old.

     Lidar is a new form of remote sensing that uses aerial imaging to be able to detect inconsistencies in topography, soil coloration and other features. It uses laser technology to reflect and analyze light emissions from great heights. They are almost always on a helicopter mount. The analysis can be fed into GIS systems and items discovered can be uploaded into GPS systems. Other discoveries have been found using Lidar in Canada, the US, and Honduras.

     Lidar can't do all the work though and a lot of leg work on the ground is necessary. Cambodia is predominantly harsh, tropical jungles and the work on the ground is very taxing and time consuming. However, already they have discovered roadways, canals and possibly undiscovered temples. Temple discovery has been helped by the knowledge that the Khmer empire built temples out of stone brick work while all other buildings were more simple wood constructions. The other exciting notion is that of the hidden aspect of these treasured buildings. The jungle overgrowth has protected these sites from the naked eye meaning that most all finds using Lidar technology will be untouched, unlooted finds.

 

Personal Photo

     Damian Evans and his crew are very excited to continue their work and determine how big this ancient city really is, how old it really is, and how many untampered temples they may find. Also it is unclear if all the structures will be contemporaneous with the style of Angkor or if a as yet to be discovered older artistic style might be found as they uncover older roadways and temples.

 

www.visit-angkor.org

References:

English Heritage. 2010. The Light Fantastic: Using Airborne Lidar in Archaeological Survey. David M. Jones, Ed. Swindon, England: English Heritage.

Jessup, Helen Ibbitson. 2010. Chapter 3: South-East Asia: The Khmer 802-1566. In The Great Empires of Asia. Jim Masselos, Ed. Pp. 72-103. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Neuman, Scott. 2013. Archaeologists Discover Lost City in Cambodian Jungle. NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/14/191727408/archaeologists-discover-lost-city-in-cambodian-jungle. Accessed June 18, 2013.

Places to Visit:

Angkor Wat: http://www.visit-angkor.org/

Back in my day...

     So. today I decided to go and dig up some ancient texts from the library to use as a resource. The ancient text I'm referring to is known as an encyclopedia. A long, long time ago (not in a galaxy far away) before computers and the internet were available to dump information on us without much actual research there were these books that were compendiums of knowledge known as encyclopedias. They were the internet before the internet happened.
     Today I pulled out one of my favorite encyclopedias, the Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, and opened to a random page and so I'm going to give a brief account of Ivoirians.
     Ivoirians (ih-VWAHR-ee-uhns) are the people of the country Côte d'Ivoire. also known as the Ivory Coast, a smaller square shaped country in West Africa. The population there is at 20.6 million today and they speak over 60 different ethnic languages. French is the official language there and the official religions there are Islam and Christianity but there is a lot of local ethnic beliefs that intertwine with them.

www.lib.utexas.edu 

     The country received first contact from the Portuguese and the French established a colony there in 1893. It was named the ivory coast because of the ivory trade that flourished there but by the end of the 19th century the country was almost completely devoid of its elephant population.

commons.wikimedia.org

     The over 60 languages all belong to the Niger-Congo family and interestingly no one language (except French) is spoken by more than 23% of the country. Meaning French is the best means of communication between different groups in the country. Some of the more popular languages include: Akan, Mande', Gur (Voltaic), Kru, Dioula (the most widely spoken), Baoule', and Senoufo (Voltaic). With the wide variety of ethnic groups and languages in the country a wide variety of folklore and legends also will be found. "One of the most famous legends tell the story of how the Baoule people arrived in Côte d'Ivoire" (Gall 1998: 227). In their homeland of Ghana (bordering on the east) they held storage houses of grain but were attacked by other groups and were caught in famine. "Their queen, Abla Pokou, led her people to west into Côte d'Ivoire. Finding it impossible to cross the Comoe' river, the queen sacrificed her own child to the genies of the river, they in turn, in recognition of the gift, caused the trees to bend and form a bridge to a land of peace and safety" (Gall 1998: 227). Their name, Baoule', means "the little one dies".
     It is really hard to talk about this country as a whole in a very cultural way because it is a lot like looking through a kaleidoscope there are many very different ethnic groups and so things like rites of passage, living conditions and family life would be very varied throughout the country. One overarching universal for the country is a definite male dominated society although politically they have been ruled by both kings and queens in their history and now have presidents but none as of yet have been female.

adireafricantextiles.blogspot.com

     They have three official recognized dances: "the royal dance performed only by a king or tribal chief, the fetish dance performed by male initiates who have undergone initiation rites in the sacred forest, and the popular dance open to all including women" (Gall 1998: 228). The people of the Ivory Coast are expert weavers, woodworkers and sculptors and the Baoule' people are well known for making very intricately designed items. They are very specialized at making wood ceremonial masks for their dances and for other rituals. Many times these masks represent evil spirits such as a kplekple, which represents a horned beast and their most famous mask is the "fire-spitter" helmet mask.

http://hausergallery.wordpress.com/

     There are a great many social concerns but most of them stem from a growing poverty level due to rapid increase in population and urbanization. They had a 2nd Civil War is 2011 that ended quickly but was a reaction to the results of the presidential election that year. They also have one of the highest occurrences of HIV/AIDS outbreak on that continent.

Here is something to try at home! A recipe for one of their popular dishes, Yassa.

http://www.congocookbook.com/chicken_recipes/poulet_yassa.html


References:


Worldmark. 1998. "Ivoirians". Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life. ed. Timothy L. Gall. vol. 1: (226-230). Detroit: Gale Research.

Earthworks

     Archaeology and Anthropology got their start in America largely due to a curiosity concerning the mysterious earthworks of the eastern side of North America. There were 1000s of these mounds ranging from New England out to Ohio and Illinois and south as far as Mississippi and down into northern Florida. They intrigued aspiring archaeologist/antiquarians such as our fourth president, Thomas Jefferson.

A mound in eastern Tennessee

http://bigfootresearchuk.com/bigfootresearchworld/who-were-the-red-haired-giants-of-early-north-america

     It wasn't until the late 1800s when a Division of Mound Exploration was created that we would begin to expound on our knowledge of the mounds. Prior to this organization's founding people had many different theories about who built these mounds. Some of the theories included: vanished or lost race that lived on the continent, a much earlier civilization that made contact with the Americas before Columbus (such as Atlantis or a near east nation), Mexican cultures that moved into the northern continent, or possibly the early ancestors of the Native Americans that had always made America their home. The last one, which would turn out to be correct, was largely dismissed as current knowledge of the native people's suggested them incapable of such works. Even the Book of Mormon (1830) mentions that at one point North America was populated by "a civilized culture" and makes reference to the Lost Ten Tribes. They believed that Jewish people from Mesopotamia (Jaredites and Israelites) settled in America but their civilizations were destroyed in 385AD.

Cyrus Thomas (July 27th, 1825-June 26th, 1910)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Thomas

     Enter Cyrus Thomas a biologist from Illinois who was the first to head the Division of Mound Exploration. He created a team of scientists who would be some of the first recognized American archaeologists to investigate the mounds and try to discover once and for all the identity of their creators. There was no way an exhaustive study could be made of the 1000+ mounds spread all across eastern North America so they created a study of a representative sample of the four distinct types of mounds. The mound types were animal effigy (mounds in the shapes of animals), cone-shaped, flat top and geometric design.

     A report completed in 1894 for the Bureau of Ethnology documented the results including drawings, maps, and an extensive amount of recovered artifact data. The biggest conclusion was that these works were most definitely created by the ancestors of present day Native Americans. The impact of this was to prove that Native Americans were not as "savage" or unintelligent as many scientists had previously implied. It would take ingenuity on par with many other civilized societies to create such works. They also concluded that these mounds had multiple uses. The most important uses found in the study were to be burial sites for important members of the tribe, to elevate temples and buildings of importance and to designate and note sacred locations on the landscape.

An artistic representation of Monk's Mound

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2549.htm

     One mound that was really of importance to Thomas was the Cahokia (Monk's) Mound. It was the largest earthen work found in North America. "The dimensions of the base are: from north to south 1,080 feet; from east to west 710 feet. The area of the base is about 16 acres" (Thomas 1907). Many scientists were in awe of the sheer magnitude of the structure. Even though it was widely agreed that these structures were made by the ancestors of Native Americans the new question became how? Native Americans never had beasts of burden and their technology level didn't call for any ways to help in the creation of these mounds.

An archaeological site map of Cahokia

http://scodpub.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/cahokia-north-americas-largest-woodhenge-temple-mound/

     Gerard Fowke would help to establish ideas of the amount of time needed to build the mound in Cahokia. His efforts would prove to be some of the first in Applied (or Experimental) Archaeology. This would be the act of trying to recreate artifacts or structures using only the tools known to have been available at the time they were originally made. "As the contents of Cahokia's mound are equal to 420 times those of Mr. Fowke's assumed tumulus, it would require the hundred persons, laboring in the same way, to work every day for forty-eight years to construct the great tumulus" (Thomas 1907). This vast amount of time made early archaeologists assume that it was not a structure created all at once but instead a structure that was built in stages. Artifact evidence found within the context in different strata help to support this theory.

     The mound builder society is still extensively researched today and it is widely unknown to say which Native American tribes are derived from that society. "Part of the Mound Builders may have gone south (Cherokee?) and part of them may have gone west (Mandan?) while part may have remained in New England (Iroquois?)" (Allison 1927).

References

Allison, Vernon C. 1927. The Mound Builders: Whence and When. American Anthropologist. 29: 670-689.

Marks, David. 1831. Mormons, Mastodons and Mound-Builders. The Spalding Research Project. http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/saga2/sagawt0b.htm. Accessed May 13th, 2013.

Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History. 2011. The Moundbuilders of North America. Podcast from 19th Century Anthropology Collections. Dur. 5:12. Accessed May 13th, 2013.

Thomas, Cyrus 19907. Cahokia or Monk's Mound. American Anthropologist. 7: 362-365.

Places to Visit:

Cahokia: http://www.cahokiamounds.org/visit/

Climate Controlled Language

     Today, I tread gingerly into a discussion of the realm of anthropology I know the least about, Biological Anthropology. Biological (or Physical) anthropology is the subfield that looks at human (and near human) biology in order to better understand how we evolved into the beings we are today. It's scope is long reaching and also ties back into the other subfields. One example would be how the biological aspects of our throat and mouth brought about the complexities of language. "Sounds are created by the vibration of an object and transmitted through some medium, which in turn vibrates our eardrum. Brains differentiate, categorize and interpret these vibrations" (Achterberg and Piece 2011). So to create the complex sounds that create language our anatomy had to be very specific and determined.
     Interesting new research suggests that some differences in language creation might be effected by climate. "The theory is that people in warmer climates generally spend more time outdoors and communicate at a distance more often than people in colder climates. It is presumably adaptive in such climates to use syllables and sounds that are more easily heard and recognized" (Ember and Ember 2008). People in colder climates possibly spend more time "huddled together" and thus do not need as distinct or audible syllables and sounds. "Using cross-cultural data from 60 or more societies, Robert Munroe and colleagues (1996) presented evidence that societies in warm to moderate climates have a significantly higher percentage of consonant-vowel syllables in their languages, as compared with societies in colder climates" (Ember and Ember 2008). The higher use of the CV syllable is due to it's more audible quality over distance.
     Sonority is the higher presence of vowels over consonants in syllables. Vowels tend to help with recognizability and audibility. Although many other researchers suggest the warmth of the climate is what effects the sonority level, Ember and Ember (2008) suggest it is actually the coldness of the climate that really matters.

     The scatterplot shows the average sonority scores for the number of cold months given, with areas with more cold months having higher average sonority scores.
Ember and Ember (2008) do respond to additional predictors of sonority. The econiche also has a bearing on the average sonority. For example, communication would be different in a dense tropical forest as opposed to an open field even if their climates were exactly the same. (Ember and Ember 2008). They also suggested that in societies with looser sexual constraints (ie greater frequency of premarital and extramarital sex) there was a greater average sonority despite the climate. They use a box chart to show that climate has less effect in these situations.
     In the end they feel like sonority is definitely influenced, if not completely determined, by climate. High sonority is created by cold and harsh terrains and is influenced by sexual expressiveness but it is decreased and/or inhibited by movement into a more suitable econiche.

References:

Achterberg, Jerusha T. and Pierce, Anthony J. 2011. Creation of an Aural Map: Convergence of Music and Biological Anthropology Methodologies. Anthropology News. (52, 1): 3-6.

Ember, Carol R. and Ember, Melvin. 2007. Climate, Econiche, and Sexuality: Influences on Sonority in Language. American Anthropologist. (109, 1): 180-185.

Munroe, Robert L. 1996. Cross-Cultural Correlates of the Consonant-Vowel (CV) Syllable. Cross-Cultural Research. 30: 60-83.
 
  

"Crab Walk 'til e meet Kiss-Kiss" - Language Evolution

Linguistical research within anthropology typically looks at the history of language, the evolution of our (or at times animals') biology in order to create language and how language can help to create culture. It studies language histories to see the evolution of a language within one culture or how as cultures assimilate languages can also at time amalgamate based on crosses within societies that mix together.

Sound interesting? For this blog post I'm going to be looking at Creole through the eyes of anthropologist Douglas Carl Reeser's article, "Language and Everyday Life in Belize". Douglas Carl Reeser is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida. He is currently working on his dissertation based on research in southern Belize, examining the intersection of State-provided health care with a number of ethnic-based traditional medicines.The term Creole comes from the Portuguese word, crioulo, which meant literally a slave born in the master's household. In the 16th century, the term came to include any French, Spanish, or Portuguese settlers in the West Indies and Latin America (Caver and Williams 2006). Many of the original Creoles were French who fled Haiti during a slave insurrection and landed on the northern Gulf Coast, they are the ancestors of people who still today live in northwestern Florida and the Mississippi and Louisiana coast, most notably in New Orleans.

Today there are many Creole languages. In fact, Creole languages are spoken widely on every continent except for Antarctica. The language began as a mixture of French, Spanish, and Portuguese but when Louisiana Creoles mixed with English speaking Americans, after the Lousiana Purchase, the language adapted again and became a mix of Creole and English. Creole thus becomes a pidgin language in it's adaptability, it is a language that simplifies the languages of 2 or more groups in order to have a basic line of communication.

Douglas Carl Resser did his language research in Belize where he was trying to learn about basic fundamentals of everyday life. His research took him to a finer understanding of Kriol (the form of Creole spoken there). "There are plenty of English words in any given Kriol sentence or two, but they are surrounded by words unfamiliar and foreign, such that many visitors to Belize do not understand the language" (Reeser 2013). He felt his time there was giving him plenty of information and a mastery of the language but every once and a while there would be whole sentences he wouldn't understand, or pieces in sentences that just left him baffled.

The answer to his riddle led within Proverbs. Proverbs are quotes of wisdom that are considered to be a cultural universal, meaning every community around the world has them. Resser was told from one of his informants, "You fas like crofi?" (Reeser 2013) and he didn't even know how to respond. This was a Belizean proverb meaning he was overly inquisitive. Proverbs don't have easily created translations across languages and so he began to realize that his gaps in knowledge within the language were coming from a wide use of proverbs.

"Proverbs help explain complex, difficult, or ambiguous situations by relating them to phrases that are often just as difficult to understand – unless you have intimate knowledge of the language, history, and culture from which the proverb originates. In contexts where language use is thick with proverbs, learning the language is then only one step towards understanding it" (Reeser 2013).

The title of this work, "Crab Walk 'til e meet Kiss Kiss" is a Belizean proverb referring to the trappings of life. Kiss-Kiss is the name of tongs that they use in their crabbing techniques. The crab walks freely with no cares in the world until it is snatched up by kiss-kiss. Who else out there is getting hungry? What are some other languages that have evolved over time? Has the English language? Along with proverbs what are other aspects of language that are easily lost in translation?

http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Land-Crabs-in-PG.jpg

References

Caver, Helen Bush and Williams, Mary T. 2006. Creoles. Countries and their Cultures. http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Creoles.html. Accessed April 23rd, 2013.

Reeser, Douglas Carl. 2013. Language and Everyday Life in Belize. Anthropology News. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/04/16/speaking-in-proverbs/. Accessed April 23rd, 2013.

Bringing it Together

     This blog started out with an overview of anthropology. Then quickly went to a post about religion and then on to some posts about archaeology. I'd like to continue the archaeology discussion here a bit and try and bring some of this together. Each of the four fields of anthropology (recall: cultural, archaeology, biological and linguistics from the first post) has its own claim to fame and its own uniqueness that makes it worthy of study and important to the whole field of anthroplogy. I just finished reading an article by Monica L. Smith, entitled "Archaeology as a Gateway to the Four Fields" (2009) in which Smith details some of the reasons why archaeology tends to be the way in which many people come to learn about anthropology for the first time. Monica L. Smith got her PhD at the University of Michigan and she is currently a professor at UCLA. Her subfield is archaeology and she specializes in urbanism, economic networks, consumption and material culture, anthropology of food, comparative historical archaeology; South Asia, Mediterranean, Southwestern U.S.

Why Archaeology?

     Archaeology is the subfield with the biggest public media presence. The media allows students to gain a curiousity about what archaeology really is and this gives college professors the opportunity to discuss archaeology and the relation it has to the other fields. Smith (2009) says that she "teaches a large introduction to archaeology course, and with 400 students in fall 2009 it is one of the largest social science courses at (her) university. Many students enroll for general education credits and are unlikely to take another anthropology course" (26). As we discussed in the last post characters like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider put archaeology into the public eye and these introductory courses are a professor's chance to capture the interest of students for anthropology.

Archaeology 101

     When Professor Smith was an assistant professor, at the time she wrote this article, she taught the intro class for archaeology. She pulled away from the idea that archaeology was just about digging up "old stuff" (26). She wanted students to realize that archaeology was all about human interaction, and specifically human interaction with material culture. "I start the course with a discussion of trash as a ubiquitous and meaningful signature of human activity: a banana peel that is not a clue about our local environment but a marker of robust trade connections, a box of dental floss that reveals how specialized our production and consumption processes have become, a burnt-out birthday candle that shows how symbolism can transform objects beyond the concept of practical utility, a penny with scraped-off bubblegum stuck to it that reveals how context determines the perceived worth of an object" (Smith: 26). This idea of modernizing the archaeological process is one that is echoed in many introductory classes around the country.

http://everythingnallarchaeology.com/garbology-what-does-your-trash-say-about-you/

Bringing it together

     As her course continues she brings the other three subfields into the conversation. She talks about the ways in which the material culture of our ancestors through Homo and earlier, such as australopithecenes, can tell about the history of our interactions and how evolutionary changes in our body structure also help to give pieces to the puzzle of modern day humanity. In the area of linguistics she discusses the interaction with signs and visual histories through rock paintings and the advent of writing. She also discusses ideas about the process in which sound was codified into written symbols and words. Finally she goes into how archaeology works with cultural anthropology, two subfields that are very closely linked. Cultural anthropology being largely the creation and interaction of social groups she suggests that archaeology has a role of "examining the material evidence for socially cohesive acts such as monument construction and shared rituals, as well as socially divisive acts such as warfare" (Smith: 26).

     The four subfields only work when there are cross compared with each other. If you look to studies and universities outside of America there is only one field: anthropology and thus the four parts are always working as one. "Cultural perspectives also bring the class full circle, enabling students to critically assess why the past as a concept has value for present-day people and how abstract notions of identity are materialized through archaeological remains" (Smith: 26).

References:

2009. Smith, Monica L. "Archaeology as a Gateway to the Four Fields". Anthropology News. (50, 9). December 2009. p. 26.

UCLA: Anthropology. Monica L. Smith. http://www.anthro.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=1325. Accessed April 18th, 2013.

Archaeologist or Treasure Hunter?

     At the time of the birth of archaeology, archaeologists weren't actually archaeologists yet. Try saying that three times fast! They were actually antiquarians, people who were just really interested in old stuff from the past. They usually would find it in ruined cities, villages, or tribal sites clean it up and display it somewhere in their home. They wouldn't know much about what it was, what it's use was, who owned it or how it came to be where they found it. It just looked really pretty.

Ooooo, pretty! Yes, but is it art?

http://mobysnewt.com/Item_Morgan_Bronze.html

 

     The first moments of archaeology happened synchonistically around the 10th century in both the Middle East and Egypt and also in China. In Egypt, Muslim historians were beginning to take interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics and art, as in China "modern" Chinese gentry began to show an interest in ancient Chinese artworks. The interest, like mentioned above, was purely in the aesthetic value of the works taken and displayed. This phenomena was seen again during Renaissance Europe when Roman scholars Flavio Blondo and Ciriaco de Pizzicolli attempted to map the topography of Italy.The first ever real excavation took place in the ruined city of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century.

 

Indiana Jones the Treasure Hunter

     Indiana Jones is a perfect way of visualizing the crosses and distinct differences between archaeology and treasure hunting. By day he is a British professor of archaeology, he teaches his students all they need to know about archaeology, the occult and Egyptology. He studies ancient tomes that are in museums and discusses cultural impact on cultures both long dead and presently existing. He could be considered the first Ethnoarchaeologist. However his methods for obtaining new items for the university and the museum are where he sheds the guise of archaeologist and becomes a treasure hunter.





Professor Jones the Archaeologist

     By going into these countries, without permission from the ruling state and walking into the "site" without given consent from the descendants of the people who built it he is breaking several important laws that fall under the protection of archaeological sites. However, one might say that in the time period of the films those laws weren't in place, especially in the areas he travels to and you would be right. However, since the mid 1800s many archaeologists have talked of the moral code that they are responsible for upholding preventing them from removing objects of heritage from their physical present day owners.



     Today most countries have some form of legal document preventing archaeologists from working for the highest bidder. They have a right to unearth, clean, study, document and respond on items found in an archaeological site. They then have a greater responsibility to give these items, or at times human remains back to the present day owner of them. In America, we have UNESCO and NAGPRA laws which account for the ownership of most of the Native American and Prehistoric American resources found.
     So those of you who are interested in becoming archaeologists because you think you might snatch the crystal skull and sell it for a few billion dollars... stop watching movies! Just kidding, Indiana Jones was definitely in my mind when I first started studying anthropology. Although I have yet to crack a whip or have a poison dart shot at me, it has definitely been a world wide adventure in cultural thought.

Have a thought or a question? Ask me!



 

Suggested Further Reading:

A history of archaeological thought by Bruce Trigger

Call number: CC100.T75 2006 

Can You Dig it? An article presented in The Economist. http://www.economist.com/node/1056932

 

*Indiana Jones pictures taken from Hollywood.com accessed 3/25/2013

 

An additional note on the further reading. Bruce Trigger is one of my heroes in the archaeological world. He was at times an anthropologist but is mostly credited for archaeology. Although he did do a great deal of digging in his life his passion was definitely teaching and theory. His book listed above is one of the most comprehensive histories of archaeology from it's period in antiquarianism to it's multi-faceted present.

 

Enjoy!