Current topics in archaeology, cultural heritage & historic preservation

Sunday, August 1, 2010

King Tut! Howard Carter's Excavation Notes Released...and more!

KING TUT TO THE MAX - OXFORD RELEASES HOWARD CARTER'S EXCAVATION NOTES/PHOTOS

Photo courtesy of The Griffith Institute

The Griffith Institute of Oxford University has just published Howard Carter's notes and records from his excavation of King Tut's tomb reports the Chinook Observer. Thousands of articles from the tomb are cataloged along with related photos. The website also includes hundreds of photos, some in beautiful color. Definitely worth looking at if you're at all interested in Egyptology.

More on Howard Carter's notes at: http://goo.gl/z84D
Tut's Chariot Heads to New York: http://goo.gl/n3Y8






DARWINIAN ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE
Dr. Eric Bangs
WillametteCRA offices
623 SE Mill Street
Portland, OR 97214

Friday, August 6, 7:00 pm.
Refreshments provided

Frontiers are contact zones between cultures. The upper Rhine river valley was just such a contact zone when the Romans arrived in the first century BC. Over the next 500 years, the Romans engaged in a complex cultural interaction with the non-Roman inhabitants that eventually resulted in a creolized frontier society. A model derived from Roman authors suggests that this society was replaced by the arrival of the Alamanni in the late third century AD who, in turn, were replaced by the Merovingians in the sixth century.

The replacement model of cultural interaction in the upper Rhine is tested using a methodology based in Darwinian and meme theory. Seriations were created of stylistic elements from ceramic vessel assemblages from 14 archaeological sites in southwest Germany. The seriations suggest that non-Roman inhabitants in the first century AD did adopt aspects of Roman culture but only in the realm of emotionally charged ritual. For their day-to-day existence, the artifacts they used appear to have changed little and they maintained an identity adopted centuries before. In evolutionary terms, these practices had a high fitness relative to the cost of learning new ceramic manufacturing techniques.

ROUND-UP EXHIBIT TO OPEN AT TAMASTSLIKT
Museum-goers are invited to join in the excitement of the iconic
Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo by visiting Tamástslikt Cultural Institute’s
next exhibit, Tall in the Saddle: One hundred years of the Pendleton
Round-Up. The exhibit opens July 23 and runs through January 2011.
Starting in 1910, the Pendleton Round-Up was the event that made Oregon
a rodeo destination nationally and around the world. The exhibit,
developed in partnership by Tamástslikt, the Oregon Historical Society,
and author Michael Bales, imparts the rich sense of Round-Up history
from its modest beginnings as a small town harvest festival.
Tamastslikt joined forces with OHS and Michael to present an
impressive exhibition not unlike the partnership between our Tribal
people and the citizens of Pendleton that makes the Round-Up unique,”
said Bobbie Conner, Tamástslikt director. Contact Tamástslikt Cultural
Institute at (541)966-9748 or visit www.tamastslikt.org for more
information.

THE HIGH DESERT MUSEUM’S 1st AUDIO TOUR: SIN IN THE SAGEBRUSH
The first audio tour at the High Desert Museum allows visitors to
experience the Sin in the Sagebrush exhibit with its creator, Curator of
Western History Bob Boyd. The exhibit marks the first in-depth look at
how communities of the American West formed around saloons, gambling
halls, and bordellos. The audio tour is rich with details, from how a
tent bordello was used, to how to produce an ace from your sleeve.
Visitors may download the tour at home from
Contact: Cathy Carroll, communications and promotions manager
541-382-4754, ext. 300; ccarroll@highdesertmuseum.org;
www.highdesertmuseum.org

NEW HOUSE AND LANDSCAPE DISCOVERED AT FORT VANCOUVER
National Park Service and University archaeologists have discovered one
of the homes of the multicultural village associated with Fort
Vancouver. The Village was home for 600 to 1000 Hudson’s Bay Company
(HBC) employees, their families, and visiting traders and travelers
during the fur trade period.

“Explorations in this house and its surrounding landscape will shed
new light on the lives of the diverse population that served this
colonial capital of the Pacific Northwest in the 1830s and 1840s,”
said Doug Wilson, National Park Service Archaeologist and Faculty Member
of the Department of Anthropology at Portland State University. Wilson,
who is directing the field school that is excavating the site,
identified tiny glass trade beads, buttons, musket balls, bottle glass,
and colorful Spode transfer print ceramics as evidence of the house and
its immediate surroundings. “The people living in the village, in
contrast to the “gentlemen” and their families inside the fort, left
no written records. This excavation is a way to recover the history of
this incredible community, which included people of many ancestries:
American Indians from many tribes, Native Hawaiians, French Canadians,
Europeans, Americans, and those of multiethnic origin - the Métis.”


NEW BASKET EXHIBIT FEATURED AT WARM SPRINGS
The Museum At Warm Springs is pleased to present "Baskets Tell A Story", exhibiting baskets from the Columbia River Plateau and beyond. The exhibit shows until October 10.

Baskets from the Museum's collection are featured, together with baskets on loan from the High Desert Museum, the Hallie Ford Museum and the Jan Musial Collection. The exhibit honors the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association (NNABA) gathering October 1-2 at Kah-Nee-Ta High Desert Resort on the Warm Springs Reservation.

The exhibit and its programs are funded by an Oregon Arts Commission Community Grant and the Oregon Cultural Trust.

NAVIGATING THE PAST DAY CAMP AT COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM
This week of August 9-13 theme is “On the River.” During the week,
campers will be immersed in activities relating to the cultures and
animals that depend on the river for survival. There will be an
introduction to the Chinese and Native American cultures with crafts,
games and legends. Children will be able to make their own baskets.
Campers will take walks to explore the river and surrounding area to
identify wildlife that call the river their home. Seeing the world from
a bald eagle’s perspective and building an eagle nest are part of the
activities planned. Boat races are part of the fun during this session.
Campers will also make a paddle wheeler. A field trip to Cape
Disappointment State Park is included. The week will conclude with a jet
boat ride and a swim at the Astoria Aquatic Center.

For more information, call Jackie Welborn at 503-325-2323 or email
welborn@crmm.org

STONEHENGE TIMBER TWIN REVEALED IN SHOVEL-LESS DIG
The Christian Science Monitor
By Danna Harman, July 23, 2010

Stonehenge had a twin nearby made of timber, say archaeologists who made the new discovery. But this dig was done with magnetometers, radar, and video game 3D technology. Without digging up one shovel of earth, or dusting off one rock with a toothbrush, Gaffney and the other members of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project have uncovered an incredible find – a mere two weeks into a three-year mission to map 5.5 square miles of land around Stonehenge...(sorry, couldn't resist using the tourist photo :-)

Read the whole story at: http://goo.gl/6TEU