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Gilcrease Museum garden, Tulsa Oklahoma - cg photography

#garden #gazebo #flowers #grasses #plumes #fences #Gilcrease

metal works - cg photography

Comments from an Archaeologist

Here’s another reason why you shouldn’t trust local crap news- every article so far that has reported on our excavation has contained facsimiles of ‘facts’ provided from people who are not archaeologists. Did they consult anyone directly excavating the site? No. Did they get all their info from engineers and tribal stakeholders who visited the site and know as much as a layman? Yup. Are members of the general public now confused about what we do and why a federal project required archaeological work? Definitely. This is why there is a lack of understanding and respect for cultural resources management in the States, because of misconstrued information and a lack of transparency. People will find it cool and interesting if they understand its purpose and logistics behind it all. Archaeological work can only thrive through productive public outreach and accessibility of information.

People like to throw around the word archaeology a lot. Even now, I am listening to an artist describe the archaeological inspirations for her work which contains pieces of textile art forming lovely palimpsests of fabric. And she just compared her act of going to garage sales and finding ‘treasure’ as being on an archaeological dig and finding artifacts. But there is more to the discipline than pretty, beautiful things of the past. Often we don’t find much of anything at all. Out of the 10,000 artifacts recovered from our excavation we had around 30 points. And if you are a geoarchaeologist you would find the dirt to be far more representative of treasure than a few stone tools.

I think if there is one axiom people should retain about archeology is that “archaeology is destruction.” It is not preservation of the past, it is removing it from its pristine context for our selfish need to provide more context to our understanding of the shared human past. Because we do this selfish thing, and we often do it well, I think it is important that we share that knowledge and not gatekeep it for the academic institutions, state and federal agencies, and contract archaeologists. Archaeology is the study of the past. Excavation and artifact analysis is the deepest form of communication we can ever have with the people of the past. I only wish that we can share that conversation with anyone who would love to join.

#archaeology #thoughts #cultural resources management #gilcrease #tulsa #oklahoma #willing to discuss #archeology #mine

today’s highlights @gilcreasemuseum #dorothealange #mexicanmodernism #tulsa #homeawayfromhome #gilcrease #gilcreasemuseum (at Gilcrease Museum) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4-sRtWjrBh/?igshid=kw0gql97u2c0

#dorothealange #mexicanmodernism #tulsa #homeawayfromhome #gilcrease #gilcreasemuseum