"What's up dudes! I'm Alfred F. Jones, and welcome to my new side project. It's pretty rare Congress lets me get away from the old ball-and-chain. In my free time I love to take part in archaeology. Absolutely fucking stun-"
... ...
"Gotcha. My editor says I maybe should try to refrain from swearing. We'll see about that! Ha! Well, anyways, welcome to my new vlog-blog. It will be centered around everything archaeological. Ask me anything! I'm always down to lay down some facts. Just please try and keep it civil. Preferably I don't gotta lay down the law around these parts, but if I must I will.
"Otherwise I don't have any quid pro quos. Some of my ((irregular)) posts will just be for education's sake, but all others will be answers to your asks. Don't be shy."
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Hello, welcome to a new askblog! I, the "editor," have taken liberties with the canon tidbit that one of Alfred's hobbies is archaeology. I myself am an archaeologist (in training!) and would love to share this diverse and fascinating field with you all. Please feel free to ask Alfred anything about himself, about what he does, or whatever suits your fancy. We will both try to answer to the best of our abilities.
I cannot promise we will answer fast, both of us are pretty busy! Just be patient and we will surely get to you. All great things take time, right? I also apologize for any style inconsistencies. I hope to use this blog to experiment with my art style just as much as I wish to use it to educate!
"Oh my God, Anon, you can't just ask people how they're buff! Government secret. Case closed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put my dang sweatshirt back on and go drag around some pickup trucks!"
((Apologies for no serious answers this time guys. There are many to go through and many require some research voyages that I did not have the energy for. Hopefully these sillies will bring us good luck for 2023 <3))
Are u one of those people who wears hoodies with like shorts?
"It's January; the middle of winter. Here I sit sipping slowly from my fresh hot chocolate having sent Romano a good night text hours ago. Not even the chill of the air outside could keep me from wandering pantsless throughout my office. Sanctity within my domain. And now I check my inbox for the asks of the people, for what the people want, I shall deliver."
((Go easy on him guys, he heard the word dramatic and forgot to apply his noir filter.))
"Okay but...which one? Like dude there are so many australopithecines! You gotta narrow it down for me! An' some of these are debated. Like there are 'lumpers' that put all new taxa under already established ones, and then there are others that make the new taxa and let them stand...I'm gonna be the latter here for a minute...
"There's Australopithecus anamensis from 4.2 million years ago in Kenya and Australopithecus afarensis from 3.1-3.7 million years ago, from the Afar region and the Laetoli. That second species is who AL 288-1, or 'Lucy,' belongs to! And then there's Aus. africanus out of South Africa, such as the Taung child from 3.2 million years ago. Oh geez, then there's Aus. deyiremeda from 3.5 million years ago, coming out of Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Hmmm...uhhh Aus. platyops, which used to be under the genus Kenyanthropus, from Lake Turkana, Kenya, about 3.5 million years ago. Now we've got Aus. bahrelgahzali from Koro Toro in Chad, about 2.5 million years ago, though this one is probably part of Aus. afarensis...and Aus. garhi from Bouri in the Middle Awash Region of Ethiopia, 2.5 million years old. Oh! Oh, and also from 2.5 million years ago is Australopithecus prometheus, found in Makapansgat and Sterkfontein in South Africa. Last one I can remember - and I think that's all of 'em - is Australopithecus sediba from Malapa, South Africa, about 2 million years ago.
"Aw nuts, I'm sorry y'all. Rambling again- I mean I can't help it! These are my jam! And thankfully you didn't ask me about early Homo or like the paranthropoids and the ardipithecines. Or we could talk about relatively cryptic taxa like Orrorin or Sahelanthropus. Oh, man there's just so many! So many species to know and to love and to learn about. Fuck, I'mma go look at my phylogeny charts again. I feel the need."
Have you ever worked on the L'Anse aux Meadows site, or done any research/reading on Vinland?
I'm especially wondering your thoughts as it implies that European settlement (in Canada at least) predates the British and French colonies.
That, and Finland wanted you to call him Papa.
"Finland? ... Mr. Timo never had overseas colonies. You could try n' argue that Mr. Jan and Mr. Björn had hands in my raising with Nieuw-Nederland and Nya Sverige. But those were founded after Arthur's denizens founded Jamestown, with those two colonies being chartered in 1614 and founded in 1638, respectively. An' there's so much more I could say about 'em, but then we'd be ignorin' the fact that even Mr. Antonio's people were consistently here in what would become me way, way before Lord Father and Francis. St. Augustine, Florida, was founded in 1565, and that was after several failed Spanish attempts in Florida and the East Coast. That earliest attempt was San Miguel de Guadalupe in 1526, in what'd become South Carolina in the modern day.
"An' I can't speak for Mattie - and I shouldn't, but he's busy - but apart from the Norse settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows, I think the Spanish and Portuguese Empires were the first to claim Canadian land as theirs. Fighting over mainly Newfoundland? In 1497 and 1501-1502. To set up fishing outposts and other such things. I think, I think. Oh, where's Matt when I need 'im? And then the French came in a lil' later and had a few failed attempts at permanent settlement in 1541, 1598, and 1600, before finding success a couple years down the road.
"But I digress! Y'all both asked about pre-Columbian settlement by the Vikings. Gonna be upfront and hella personal with y'all...I've never worked on it. I'd love to, but at the same time, it ain't my main focus. So I usually gotta keep my eyes averted from the whole Viking settlement mystery. I'm more concerned with sites that fall in the several thousand years old ranges, or more. But gosh dang, if I wouldn't love to read more about Vinland. It's just little far north for me, and I'd need to worry about travelin' and all that. But yeah, my knowledge of pre-Columbian human activity in the Americas is concerned with the migrations over the Kelp Highway, the Pacific, and the hypothesized route over Beringia. You could tack on the Solutrean hypothesis too but...hmmm.
"One crucial thing to remember about L'Anse is that it's the only undisputed site of pre-Columbian European contact in all of the Americas. Otherwise, the slew of theories that surround it are all debated and should be taken with a grain of salt. There's a whole lot of murky, unclear evidence, or simply none at all. But L'Anse has produced over 800 artifacts that can be traced to Norse origins, so it's hard to deny that! And the sod-and-wood frame structures? That's damn cool! Now I really wanna know more, sitting here reading some basics. Maybe...well, I'm not sure, but maybe I could do some more research for us and make a future post with more about L'Anse aux Meadows and the Vinland mythos!"
((Don't mind the fact that I forgot to color his glasses. I was literally so excited to give a history lesson that it slipped my mind. Edit: Fixed!!))
What was some of the most interesting finds you got?
"Gonna be real with ya, I think it's all cool! Half the fun is seein' anything pop outta the screen, regardless of if it's a piece of an iron nail, a shard of glass, a piece of brick, or whatever else.
"I'm just gonna whip out my handy-dandy booklet fulla notes here...and...there! Sick!"
...
"I will tell ya my favorite genre of artifacts to encounter. Anything that can tell us about trade and the interconnectivity of those what came before! I loved porin' over the lead cloth seals at Jamestown for the short time I did some work there. Like...I ain't sure how to describe it, but I could remember how some of 'em looked fresh off the boat, which was weird since honestly, I don't remember much good about old Jamestown. And the boat thing is probably something I shouldn'ta said out loud in the Rediscovery Center. But these seals often had information regardin' the place of origin, the material, and other such things. Some were stamped more than once as the cloth traveled, so you can track it much like a modern mail package!
"I also really love lithics! Ever thought about how some lithics get found far, far off from the mineral's source? Those may have been treated as commodities. I mean, of course some were used, but when we find traveled lithics, they often aren't found with much wear. Like that real pretty rainbow flint out of the Alibates Flint Quarries near Fritch, Texas. We have evidence of the quarries bein' used by the Ice Age Clovis groups and by the Antelope Creek and Panhandle cultures much later between 1200 and 1450 AD. But we also have examples of spear points and other forms of lithic tools made from this same Alibates flint miles and miles away. Was it valued for its beauty? Was it particularly strong? Somethin' made it valuable and we know that it was traded as far north as Montana and as far south as Central Mexico - ah, I should really contact María, I know there is some interesting archaeology down south there. Thought for another day!
"Other things of interest are beads. Native beads we often see made of shell and other local materials. When we get into periods of European settlement here, we start to see glass beads at sites. Shades of blue were highly valued, we tend to find. On a less professional note, I gotta agree, but I'm a total sucker for anything blue! I guess my sweatshirt is a testament here - ha!
"There are so many other types of artifacts that can aid this knowledge. Pottery appearing in styles not common to the area in which they are found, historical documents detailing trade if available...I think it's neat how humans have been interested in trading and consuming since the beginnin'. Like looking into barter systems and different currencies throughout history and around the world. It's like how we get the word carat from carob beans - carob seeds? - and other such monetary tales. Please y'all, I'm beggin' ya, look into some of this stuff. Never has humanity ever really been isolated! You’re natural entrepreneurs!"
"Ayo! So, first off, this ain't an ask. This is just fill-your-head-with-knowledge hour!
"We're gonna go a little outta order here - usually new anthropologists and archaeologists should learn a little bit o' the history of the field before proceeding, but this ain't your average classroom, dudes. We're gonna do a little anatomy practice! Anthropologists of many calibers have to learn at least little bit. Teachin' y'all this will give ya some help understanding some coming ask answers that might have some fancy body jargon. Not that I'm guaranteed to use the fancy words, but they do happen! So, without further ado, you can call me Professor Alfred F. Bones!"
"As you can see here, I'm standing. But this is special: this is anatomical position. This means I'm either lyin' on my back or standing upright with my arms held out to the side. An important distinction is knowin' that your thumbs should be pointing away from the body!
"When navigatin' the body, we use a few terms to describe it on paper. Let's start with that medial line you see. Humans are bilaterally symmetrical, so we have this neat split down the middle, like when you inkblot a piece-a paper and fold it. Movin' away from the medial line in either direction is a lateral direction. The opposite - back towards the middle - is moving medially. On the other hand, when moving up toward the skull, you are moving in a superior direction; moving down towards the feet is an inferior direction.
"Other than that, when specifically lookin' at a single limb, such as my arm there, they get special terminology. As you move closer to the body, that is a proximal direction. Moving out further towards the extremities like my fingers is moving distally."
"We also separate the body along three planes: coronal, sagittal, and transverse.
"The coronal plane separates ya into anterior - to the front - and posterior - to the back. It goes right through your head n' shoulders. The sagittal plane splits ya right down your skull and spine into left and right halves - basically, the medial line. And the transverse plane cuts you into your upper and lower body. It should split ya right around the belly button or the hips. Sheesh, I wouldn'ta asked my editor to do this if I'd known the diagram would take that long! Woof!"
"And finally - bear with me fellow diggers, we're nearly done - some basic parts of the skeleton. Do you ever think about how yer just walkin' around with a bunch of bones all the time? Neat, right? Maybe a little spooky, too, whoo!
"This one is easy. I won't go into specifics on all these bones, at least not yet. But we tend to separate the skeleton into the axial and the appendicular. The axial skeleton includes the skull, your ribs, the sternum, and your vertebrae. Your skull, by the by, is made up of your cranium and your mandible, or jaw. Your appendicular skeleton is made up of your limbs, aka your arms an' legs. If it helps to remember, appendicular is like the word appendages, which is what it concerns.
"But there you go! A crash course in anatomy. Some terms are different if we're talkin' about quadrupeds, or four-legged organisms, but hopefully this blog should only be concerned with us weirdos on two legs. In the future we may have more in-depth lessons, but I make no. Promises! Alright? Ya hear that? No promises. This is yer friendly neighborhood archaeologist signing off for the night!"
((Trying to police his army of “shirts that go hard” is not an easy job. Just know that even though it’s winter and he will probably appear in hoodies and sweatshirts until spring, underneath each one is some ridiculous t-shirt.))
How to whole forests and other large areas of plant matter just petrify sometimes, and have you ever seen a very good specimen or example of one?
"Aight, while it ain't archaeology, this is a great excuse to talk about somethin' else. Segue! As a matter-o-fact, I have an excellent example! Look no further than the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. It's 346 square miles of amazing preservation!"
"The park's fossil trees come from the Late Triassic and are part of the mega-colorful, super widespread Chinle Formation - which is considered one of the richest Late Triassic fossil-plant deposits in the world. This means the deposits are from about 225 million years ago! That's insane, dudes! It's mostly fossil logs, but there have been finds of cycads, fossil amphibians, an' early dinosaurs."
"The way huge deposits like this can happen are really exemplified at Petrified Forest. So y'all, if you can believe it, these logs would've fallen down into river channels where they were covered quickly and deeply enough by sediment t'be preserved in a low-oxygen environment. Low oxygen is the key here, as is the sediment. Now there was something special in this sediment - volcanic ash - which contained silica, said silica being dissolved over time by the water and seeping into the porous organic logs. Over time, an' we're talking thousands of years, this accumulation of minerals in the internal structure of the wood - permineralization - ended up 'petrifying' the wood. The organic material was replaced with crystalline formations of clear quarts, purple amethyst, yellow citrine, and smoky quartz, among others! And dudes, it makes these beautiful trees even prettier if you ask me! Then they were covered with more and more sediment over time, preserving until the uplift of the Colorado Plateau (which they're part of) exposed the strata to erosion and weathering. This is how they got uncovered."
"And that's just talkin' about the logs, the majority of which belong to the fossil conifer species Araucarioxylon arizonicum. There are other types of fossils from a slew of different organisms across the park."
"But to bring it back to archaeology, Petrified Forest is home to over 600 archaeological sites, showing evidence of human occupation as early as 8,000 years ago. By 2,000 years ago, these occupants were building pit houses and growing corn. Even later they would begin to build above-ground pueblo structures. I could spend hours at Petrified Forest specifically, but apparently, it is 'not professional' and the NPS workers don't like it when I try to spend the night in the parks. Do you think I can convince them if I remind them this place is, like, technically part of my body bros?"
((This is one of my favorite asks so far. I want to work in the NPS someday and I could talk about these places endlessly. I've been to so many of them - Petrified Forest included. I know it's basically a geology post on the archaeology blog, but the blog itself is meant to be generally educational! Either way, thank you for giving me an outlet to nerd out with.))
You're so hot and sexy bro kiss kiss xoxo smooch smooch wink wink no homo though
"Jesper? Gilbert? Motherfuckers, I swear to God, if this was from either of you, I ain't comin' to our Top Gun Christmas watch party this year! This is the archaeology blog! I'll give you no homo-goodnight homie kisses later! Both of y'all should be in bed anyways by now, good Lord, you're seven hours 'head of me."
Hi! A very specific question that’s been bothering me since I was a child, actually. Is this true that you can differentiate between old bones and stone by using so called “lick test”? If yes, have you ever licked any bones?? Rocks, perhaps?
"Sorry for the delay bros! Digging season has ended, backfill and lab season have started. And man, I tell ya, I try n' make myself scarce when midterm elections happen. But we're back for now!"
"So, I usually like goin' in chronological order here, but I can't just ignore questions about the infamous 'lick test'! The lick test ain't our first resort in the field - we often use our eyes first or test the hardness of the material by tapping it on something like the screening wheelbarrow. The sound the material makes can be indicative of the material you have in your hands."
"But if your vision and your ears fail you, we use our sense of taste - and archaeologists aren't the only ones. I know paleontologists and geologists will use this method, too. In archaeology, we use the lick test to differentiate between bone, pottery, and stone. Mostly between bone and stone, though. But because the bone is porous, it'll stick to yer tongue if it's fairly dry because of the air trapped in the pores! Rocks will not. It's simple as that! And we try not to bite anything because it can damage the artifact! But if you really want to crunch rocks and bones, I s'pose I can't really stop ya."
"I have certainly licked plenty o' rocks and bones in the past, and I definitely will in the future. That's just the cycle of life. We try not to much anymore, especially with the whole pandemic that's been goin' on since 2020, but it's a trusted trick. Old habits die hard!"
"...And as for the weirdest thing I've had to lick? Well, I ain't really sure. Usually, we only lick things out of confusion. But I put all sorts of stuff in my mouth! Hungry guy's gotta eat after all! Or sometimes a fellow archaeologist isn't lookin' where they're aiming a shovel full of dirt. A mouthful of dirt is an experience for sure."
((Yeah! Sorry y’all, I’ve just been busy. The Archaeology Himbo™ will return soon enough, I swear. I’ve just had a lot of tests, essays, and midterm elections happening at my uni since it’s a voting center for my city.))
This is seriously the coolest blog idea EVER and I cannot wait for more info oh my god.
As for questions, what was this nerd's first dig?
"Nerd!? I resemble that remark!"
...
"As for my first dig...well...allow me to be a little sentimental: Jamestowne. I may be young by Nation standards, but my memory of that early place is fuzzy. And I think it was first because I was that little, and second, Arthur ferried me back and forth between my land and England a few times. I ain't entirely sure. Jamestowne also really struggled for years in the beginning. I think Lord Father kept me under wing when he could, though I know he had his own issues in the 17th century!
"I have-I have vague memories of pain and hunger from the Starving Time between 1609 and 1610, I think...or maybe it was a somewhat worried Arthur watching over me during then. The early Fort period really eludes me. That's why I went. Of course, I remember later things from Jamestowne by feeling such as Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The burning of what was then still technically a capital stung like a bitch. And I remember hearing about the abandonment of the city for Williamsburg - or Middle Plantation, then - after Jamestown once again faced trial by fire in 1698. Word to the wise, y'all: Apparently Virginians attract fire! Williamsburg has burned a few times through my history, too.
"So that's all a really long-winded way to say I assumed a mild-mannered alter ego and worked for a short time at the Historic Jamestowne site. Can you believe there were possibly as many as six churches through Jamestowne's occupation? Six? I don't even remember half of them, Good Lord! And doing a dig there cleared up a few memories, too. We screened a fragmentary Robert Cotton pipe from one of the units and I felt like I had a brain blast. I remembered Arthur owning just one of Cotton's pipes, but it was the only pipe he dared to own that was made from Virginian clay. The rest of his I distinctly remember being from white English clay. Nothing less for Sir Arthur Kirkland if you can believe it."
...
"I didn't get to volunteer there too long, since of course, my government owns my ass half the time, but I got sentimental real quick. I still follow their archaeological news when I can! Just this summer, their field school uncovered a Fort-era ditch north of the Civil War earthworks from Fort Pocahontas, on-site at Jamestown. And reading their Dig Update, it was weirdly familiar! Good people there doing work. Very awesome people! And Jamestown is damn close to the Colonial Williamsburg museum and archaeological site, as well as maybe half an hour's drive from Yorktown, and then so much more. I don't visit there but damn if I don't sometimes forget how much happened in Virginia.
"Also sheesh, once again I've rambled! Sorry about that, dude. I promise there will be NORMAL UPDATES soon. I'm hoping to do a human anatomy lesson dudes! And not what you guys are thinking, you're nasty. It'll be me, Mr. Jones, here to teach about bones!"
Where's some of the most interesting sites you've been to?
"Ahh...that's a hard one, man. I admit, I don't get to do too much field work 'cause of my usual obligations. But I've made an effort to read on plenty of 'em or, if they're open to the public, walk them. However, one site I've gotten to do work at - which I feel very lucky - is the Gault Site in Texas! It's about 40 miles, or 64 kilometers, north of Austin.
"Okay, okay, so before I go on rambling, I'm gonna try and sum up this site so this ask don't go too long! Many of y'all might be familiar with the estimates for Clovis occupation in North America beginning around 13,500 calibrated years before present. A decent proportion of the Gault Site's evidence hints at continuous human occupation from 16,000 to 20,000 years ago! Pre-Clovis! I mean it does have Clovis material too, but it ain't the only site to have material that predates them, either! Cactus Hill, Meadowcroft, the Buttermilk Creek complex, and Monte Verde are a handful I can name that help contribute to the discourse on the pre-Clovis theory.
"We find a lot of lithics at Gault due to its proximity to really good chert. Like really good chert, dude! The chert from the Edwards Plateau is known for its quality! And to the uninitiated, chert is a microcrystalline quartz. An' I know what you're thinking! What about flint? Flint is a type of chert. And at Gault we have assemblages - or arrays - of stone tools spanning from that pre-Clovis period (more than 13,500 years ago), to the Late Paleoindian Period (13,000 to 9,000 years ago), the entire Archaic Period (9,000 to 1,200 years), and through to the Late Prehistoric (1,200 to 500 years before present). I tell ya, it's crazy!
"Aw shucks dude, I know I said I wouldn't ramble, yet here I am. I guess you could say Gault is my 'most interesting' because it's what I know from experience, but gosh! There are so many. I've gotten to observe Ninemile Canyon's thousands of rock art pieces. Several times. There's somethin' mystical about it that always brings me back, y'know? Check it out dudes!"
You should vlog or take a group selfie the next time u go on a digging expedition with some other archaeology enthusiast pals :D
"Hero's honor, dude! If I'm able to round up the crew there will be a lot of pictures. I shoulda grabbed some old polaroids from my office before answering this one, now that I'm thinkin' on it. Eh...Congress doesn't like it every time I dip in n' out of Capitol Hill for trivial stuff like that. Another time! There's a good one of Arthur lookin' like a lobster, though. And I saw him put on sunscreen before then, too! SPF 100! Poor Archie was suffering real hard for days after that, poor dude. And actually, Arthur and I were hoping to combine our brains on something soon. I've said it before, I learned a lot of what I know on this stuff from him and Heracles! Y'all gotta remind me to call 'em soon."
