Cheyenne C.C.

lol as if the internet is real

[leinaquez]

[egelantier]

kazuaki horitomo’s tattooed cats.

[slugchurch]

@rozuken

[thestyle-addict]

Shop here 

[glegrumbles]

Strange Gold Spirals Dating Back To Bronze Age Unearthed In Denmark

A trove of 2,000 delicate gold spirals that date back to the Bronze Age was recently discovered in Denmark -- and archaeologists are trying to figure out what the ancient coils were used for. The 3,000

[stitch-n-time]

…evidently these people have never done goldwork embroidery.

Oh look.

It took me like 2 seconds

to come up with a viable option.

[gefdreamsofthesea]

I’m willing to bet there will be a follow up article about how scholars have made a startling discovery that the gold was used for crafts and the craft people of the world will just be like “…..Really?”

I love how they just kind of leap to “A PRIEST KING MUST HAVE WORN THIS SHINY GOLD STUFF!”

[glegrumbles]

“Everything is mysterious! We have no idea! It, uh… it was for a ritual, yes.” “…don’t you say everything is for a ritual?” “Shhh, ancient peoples liked rituals.” “But there’s a giant painting on this wall showing how this was used, and modern crafters you could ask.” “SHHH. RITUALS.”

[ash-of-the-loam]

I have a very strong urge to email that researcher.

[uristmcdorf]

This keeps happening, you know. For decades we thought water or oil was poured onto the rocks being used to build Egyptian pyramids for “ritual purposes”. Turns out if you ask people who have worked on sand they can tell you that wet sand is A LOT EASIER TO DRAG ROCKS ACROSS. We spent centuries unable to figure out how the hair styles of ancient civilisations were constructed, typically going with “all the women wore wigs” (seriously. That was literally the solution) until a hairdresser with an interest in the hairstyles she saw in classical art turned her hand to them and BLEW THE RESEARCH COMMUNITY AWAY with her incredibly accurate recreations of hairstyles using tools available to the original peoples. Academia has this real, huge problem where you’ve got a whole bunch of insulated people who know a lot about history and research and academia but shit-all about anything else. And who, when presented with something they can’t figure out, they turn to other academics rather than to people who might have some practical experience with similar stuff. And it spreads into popular culture in a really unhealthy way. Because there is so much stuff that academia leaves as “ritual purposes” or “we don’t yet know how X was done”, which becomes “it’s a mystery!!!1!” in popular science shows and magazines. Which winds up fuelling the fires of people who would rather believe that ALIENS BUILD THE FUCKING PYRAMIDS than that the Egyptian people might actually have been competent at this thing they did.

[glegrumbles]

Yep. Interesting thing about the hairstylist: there was a word that kept being used in documents about hairstyles that could translate as two different things, one of which was something like “sewing needle”. Academics ruled out that translation of the word, because “lol, sewing hairstyles. That’s ridiculous.” The hairstylist who recreated them… looked at that word, at the available tools of the time, and tried a sewing technique with needles to keep hair in place. AND IT WORKED. The silo effect in academia is a major problem.

[thelefthandedwife]

Side note: IDK if this is the same lady or not (it probably is) but there’s an entire youtube channel devoted to not only period-correct hairstyles from ancient greece/rome and egypt all the way up to the napoleonic and civil war eras but also a few needle/fiber/cloth crafts like beading, dyeing, etc. 

Channel is here, the lady’s name is Janet Stephens.

[madgastronomer]

Yep, they are talking about Janet Stephens.

I love her.

The ones that bug me are always the textiles stuff – naturally, as I do that myself. Like the vase paintings of ancient Greeks and Romans and their warp-weighted looms. Archeologists kept saying shit like, “No, that must be an artistic rendering, that couldn’t possibly work like that,” and meanwhile people in Scandinavia are still using nearly identical looms today. Because nobody ever thought to ask actual weavers. The nitwits looking at women preparing wool and spinning on vases, and coming up with completely ridiculous explanations for this shit, and any spinner could glance at it and go, “Um, no.” Just. Argh.

[theroguefeminist]

I think this also ties into who is seen as an “expert” in our culture. Laborers who do work that is looked down in our society, such as hair stylists and landscapers, are not perceived as experts unless you’re going to get your hair done or your yard remodeled–and even then, they tend to be perceived as a worker providing labor, as opposed to a consultant or expert professional using their knowledge to preform a specialized skill or art. But these people ARE experts. Academics, however, have internalized cultural values around who is an expert and whose knowledge translates to expertise valuable enough to site in a paper. So honestly, this is a bigger issue than academia, because our society as a whole doesn’t tend to perceive laborers as experts in hardly any capacity. Academia is just one institution that reflects this classist disdain.

[jewishsocialist-deactivated2018]

Just gonna say, this problem is even worse than most people think.  Academics tend not to think to even ask OTHER ACADEMICS whose specialty is relevant about these things, they just ask the people they work with.  Hell, for practical shit, there’s SO many times that physicists have spent a decade or so trying to deal with some problem, but when they finally ask a mathematician the answer is so often “Oh, we did that like, a hundred years ago.  Why didn’t you just ask?” (and in the occasional case, a physicist going “This is new and revolutionary!” and mathematicians going “Oh, that is cool.  Haven’t seen that.” and a historian of math going “Umm…you guys.  This shit’s from 600 BC in India.  What the hell?”)

Like, the devaluing of knowledge and expertise of laborers is a HUGE problem in society at large, but on the problem of academics and tunnel vision, ignoring anyone who isn’t them and just saying “ritual” or “too hard” that’s to the point where no one asks anyone anything unless they’re in the exact same field.

Plus, all the examples above are historians and the like, but I also wanted to point out that physicists, who you wouldn’t think offhand would pull this, do it to.

[meridok-old]

Yep. Thankfully there is starting to be movement in some circles towards more interdisciplinary work in academia but it is slow and small and yeah.

[bilt2tumble]

Funny, I just rebloobed a post the other day about popular Sayings and how, over time, we tend to shorten or truncate them. Very often changing the meaning/ point of those Sayings ENTIRELY. Example-

Jack of all trades. Master of none.

-Is repeated QUITE often, but RARELY In its complete form which is-

Jack of all trades. Master of none. But better that. Than a mere Master of One.

The original seems kind of poignant here.

[fatallyblonde]

*mic drop*

[rachicolate]

Historians, archeologists, and anthropologists should really take a page from paleontology’s book and look to the modern day to understand the past.

[foodffs]

😹

by Dan Meth

[tree-whisper]

Archaeologists Dig Up An 800-Year-Old Native American Pot. What They Found Inside Is Changing History

What's inside that pot? Something that changes how we’re looking at extinction, preservation, and food storage, as well as how humans have influenced the planet in their time here.

[jessie-and-the-dead]

The UNLV professor on helping the coroner, 'Bones' and studying ancient violence

[keys-and-doors]

[archaeologistforhire]

This is the content I like to see

[localsuccubus-deactivated201910]

[bellygangstaboo]

If you could meet your ancestors, would they be proud of you?

[i-was-a-naive--prolifer]

[strangeasanjles-deactivated2019]

Not all heros wear capes.

[wikdsushi-deactivated20201108]

I want to buy this woman a beer.

[pretty--chic-deactivated2017062]

[fhury-deactivated20171204]

c a h l m

[dxvidtennxnt]

David Tennant is baffled by the text bubble that indicates when someone is typing

[jessie-and-the-dead]

Anthropologists say no to sexual harassment

Roiled by high-profile cases in the field and at conferences, anthropology works to change its culture.

My anthropology department just had a wonderful panel to discuss this.  I was so pleased and proud.  Some things:

- TITLE IX IS A REAL AND IMPORTANT THING.  This protects everyone at work/school from sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination.  There’s some very good training modules out there that walk you through real-life scenarios.  A lot of times it seems like something falls in a gray area, but if there is ANY doubt, it comes down to how YOU feel, and if it affects your ability to work in a safe environment.  Find someone to talk to about it if you can, even if it’s not to report.

- I don’t care how rich/important someone is, if they say something gross, you report their ass.  This can be done anonymously.

- One (female) prof admitted that she had been unconsciously writing different kinds of recommendation letters for male and female students.  It is so important to remind ourselves of the internalized sexism we end up perpetuating.  It takes a long time to become aware of it and sometimes longer to break out of it, and that’s why we need to have these conversations.

- I was super proud of one dude in my cohort (and there are only three between the two years of bioanth grad students lol), who said that being a male ally isn’t just about not doing the thing, but calling others out for doing the thing.

- Be safe and take care of each other!!!!

[iowaarchaeology]

The “Runnells Fish Lure” was found in Polk County by Don Pendroy and reported in the Newsletter of the Iowa Archaeological Society in 1981. These images were taken by Pendroy. According to the IAS newsletter, “This item is made from a clam shell. The shiny interior (bottom image) is the best decorated, featuring an eye, mouth and numerous scales. The outside (top image) bears lighter scratches representing scales… Such items are believed to be of Oneota cultural affiliation.”

[jangojips]

When someone tells me to my face that they repeatedly loot archaeological sites/national parks, but I’m on the museum floor and must maintain a professional exterior

[jessie-and-the-dead]

[archaeologicalnews]

Before Hatshepsut: Early Egyptian Queen Revealed in Hieroglyphs

About 60 drawings and hieroglyphic inscriptions, dating back around 5,000 years, have been discovered at a site called Wadi Ameyra in Egypt’s Sinai Desert. Carved in stone they were created by mining expeditions sent out by early Egyptian pharaohs archaeologists say.

They reveal new information on the early pharaohs. For instance, one inscription the researchers found tells of a queen named Neith-Hotep who ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago as regent to a young pharaoh named Djer.

Archaeologists estimate that the earliest carvings at Wadi Ameyra date back around 5,200 years, while the most recent date to the reign of a pharaoh named Nebre, who ruled about 4,800 years ago. Read more.