July 10, 2013
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string theory
Archaeology is one of the more fantized aspects of anthropology, we all imagine dr jones racing through the jungle with the anthromorhpic monkey statue in hands being held to his breast like a linebacker on a mad sprint. real archeology however is affectonately called the science of garbage. which is really what it is and if you ask me , a lot more fun. but i am funny that way i guess. the real indiana jones would be making a made dash through the sahara desert from the marauding nomads, while carrying a contaner of freshly aquired ancient, long since dried fruit pits and seeds. yep, the miracle would be how did the clams get this far and what purpose did these shells serve since they were piled seperately from the animal bones. rather fascinating adventure, even know i made it up. i kind of want to try to figure it out. this is the joy of real archeology, ancient trash. believe me, it is absolutely exciting to find stuff that has been thrown away or discard by anceint prehumans.but he goes after idols and goes into tombs of famous people and he has a whip. yes, he is more or less a tomb-raiding historian then a true archeologist. archeology deals mostly with before written history. this places the entire indiana jones movies at questionable authority.rule of thumb, if it is during written history and more importantly dealing with any single individual of history or of historical relevance. it is not really archeology. so what is archaeology?
here is an example of real archaeology. there was a digsite , which i cant seem to find online at the moment, of neandrathal. i think it was in the mid east. where they found the discarded skulls and broken bones cast away a considerable distance from the cave openings. this was a neandrathal site so, it became more interesting when around the entrance to the caves, they found seed husks and other types of vegetation refuse. what of it? why is this like that? big question.. much thought… then suddenly the realization that neandrathals have a social hierarchy and the organs and skulls ( as well as the bone marrow) was eaten by the males. the females and the children were eating the seeds and vegetation. they were not of the same social order as the males. so the whole discovery was that there was a male oriented culture that existed in neandrathal that is reflected even in the feeding behaviors. that is like finding the ark of the covenant. totally mind blowing to consider.
so as you consider that real archaeology is the science of ancient garbage, you start to arrive to various conclusions. that being that one person’s garbage is another person’s treasure.which is really the whole aspect of the concept. look at it this way, if you were an archaeologist from some far off future , investigating the refuse of this century, what would you see? brand name articles of the same objects and commodities. you would see for instance two rival milk companies claiming that their own milk is 100 percent pure but theirs taste better. which is realistically impossible. so why would we see this? because of trade, and trade is where the major part of ancient archaeology is priceless.trade in some form or the other existed long before sapiens and long before agriculture. so to learn and investigate trash or refuse of the ancient peoples and to discover a trash object to them, is to learn great amounts about how their culture and social behavior works. what the people were like, how they saw the world. long before the advent of agriculture caused us to create language to keep tallies of merchandise debt.
an example of this is when humanity was still primarily a foraging hunter and had some horticulture tendencies thrown in for good measure. horticulture is like having a garden but you don’t water it and it pretty much grows in the wild. it wasn’t uncommon for one tribe leader to offer access to a field of some desired fruit or seeds as form of gift. the bigger the gift a tribal leader gave, the better the relations were with the other tribe. even some of the native american Indians preformed a similar thing by trying to out do each other by giving the best gift. so look at it this way, it was like being given the most exquisite gold necklace by a chief. what this does is increase the prestige of yourself to other tribe members. however it is not because you got the necklace, it is because you have received such a wonderful gift by the higher esteemed gift giver. so you would walk around showing off the necklace and showing that you have strong relationship with the respected gift giver.agriculture of course has changed a lot of this, but the need to show you have contact with a higher level elite in the group sense is displayed by the need to have the highest esteemed object. which is claimed to be in use by highly esteemed individuals. by obtaining objects that rich or high officials have , it looks like you have a connection to them.
in modern times this has changed drastically to being just the owner of an expensive article. the meaning as it had in the past is hardly ever if even remotely passed on.now one would think such an elaborate system of trade and its meaning back then would have to have some way of being understood and practiced. you would for instance have to demonstrate a connection with more then one tribe. language was certainly a barrier so, the natives in north america utilized a form of sign language which aided in the communication of what is worth and what is not and how to get it.this universal language is pretty unique for the natives in north america and not really found in other places of the world. yet, trade and it’s meaning existed pretty much globally at some point. so, how did they communicate?
if you investigate tribes and people world over one thing stands out really plain. string games. practically every race and nationality has an example of them. they are simply games that are used to tell stories by making loops of strings appear like the subject at hand. it was practiced everywhere and still exists to this day. though it is considered a kid’s game now, it was at one time a way of communicating complex stories and ideas to goups of people regardless of age and sometimes language. so in archaeology, string games are a fossilized cultural practice that exists to this day, whose meaning and purpose is completely separated and not fully recognized for it’s true purpose.how far back does this go? the inuit claim to have a string game that depicts a mammoth. when it comes to archaeology and it’s true use, we would never know this at all, if we were like indiana jones. focusing on only historical figures and objectives. there would be this undeniable question of how was this trade achieved so effectively that stone age tribes have fashion buried with them.incredible workmanship and creativity with materials that require skill. all because ideally they want to show that they were the receiver of a gift from an honored figure.
