The Traveling Archeologist

Nerdy things go here, I also co-host a comedic podcast about dating apps take a listen to Swiping Left Podcast on most of your podcast listening apps @SwipeLeftPod on Twitter

[youngsamberg]

moira rose laughing without moving her face should’ve earned catherine o’hara an emmy two years ago

[heyyy-its-j]

Why would you hide this in the notes

[scoutsmoocrew]

[actuallyasweetpotato]

[nokose]

Cowboys Against Misgendering (CAM)

[detrout]

decided to throw my cowboy hat into the ring

[bunjywunjy]

Do you have any facts about snakes native to North America?

the coral snake is the only terrestrial elapid native to north america! elapidae is the family that cobras are in, and coral snake is no exception in this bunch as it’s absolutely venomous enough to kill you if left untreated.

and an unrelated snake that takes advantage of this fact is the milksnake! milksnakes are nonvenomous snakes from the rat snake family, but at some point they discovered that if they copied the coral snake’s homework hard enough, everyone assumed that messing with the milksnake would earn them a faceful of swift and terrible death, and so justly left the milksnake alone.

however this can cause some problems if you’re like me and grew up in an area where milksnakes and coral snakes are both native, and you get the regional Will This Snake Kill You nursery rhyme drilled into your head so hard you can still repeat it perfectly as an adult!

RED TOUCHES YELLOW, YOU’RE A DEAD FELLOW. RED TOUCHES BLACK, YOU’RE OKAY JACK.

[bunjywunjy]

I'm very glad to see that all our parents were so invested in not seeing their children die from snakebite

[tempest1924]

Whereas I grew up in an area that didn't have these snakes, so I didn't grow up with that nursery rhyme. As an adult I wound up working outside where these snakes are native. One day I was hy myself in the field and found a corral snake, thought it was a milksnake, and decided to chase it to get a good photo because I love snake friends.

A few days later I took my boss out to the same area and told her about this encounter. She was like, wait. What order were the stripes? I said I didn't know and showed her the photo. Her reaction was priceless, "You COULD HAVE DIED!". As a lesson I got to talk about snakes and near-misses at our next safety meeting.

[wave-on-seashell]

Stunning gardens

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I’ve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context.

The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.

Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly “Your empire will fall. And I will help it along.”

[woolandcoffee]

We stan an icon.

[skybound-soul-deactivated202111]

let’s go on a date and by date I mean lay in bed and make out for 3 hours

[skybound-soul-deactivated202111]

I married the girl I wrote this about and if that isn’t hope for you almost 1 milllion thirsty motherfuckers idk what is

[xx0ct0-m4rzxx]

Wait did this

[xx0ct0-m4rzxx]

Did this really happen

[skybound-soul-deactivated202111]

Facts

[glutenfreetitty]

Reblog for good luck

[katie-mcgrath]

Is it all right to hit a Nazi unprovoked?

[writeradamanteve]

Fuck, yeah.

[theoreocat]

[theoreocat]

Sometimes it’s possible to have too much determination.

[sonneillonv-deactivated20220218]

I was waiting for the payoff and I was NOT disappointed

[viejospellejos]

Una auténtica Jedi

[arabeka-ffxiv-deactivated202005]

@systlin

[systlin]

I am so intensely bisexual right now

[sandersstudies]

Anybody else remember how for a few years after 9/11 it was totally reasonable to be scared of a low-flying plane or flying/airports in general. It was just understood the 9/11 was an event that affected the American psyche and even though most planes landed totally safely it was understandable to be scared.

But when young people who are increasingly forced to consider the thought of being shot in school or at concerts say they feel uncomfortable with people openly carrying guns in public, suddenly they're too sensitive and infringing on the rights of others.

[executiveoutcomes-deactivated20]

No offence but you know what's really weird about America? You've got hardly any history past a couple of centuries. No medieval castles, no Roman walls, no bronze age settlement sites. Is there even anything for archeologists to dig for?

People have been here for quite some time, they’ve only been white for 500 years

[queen-of-dirt]

As an American studying archaeology this ask filled me with a seething rage

[lifeinsherds]

Chaco Canyon. 1250 A.D

Monks Mound 900 A.D

Montezuma Castle, 1100 A.D

Temple Mound, 500 A.D

Just because they aren’t traditional western style buildings doesn’t mean they aren’t there. These are only a FEW examples of the monumental architecture built by Native Americans in the US. The “prehistory” of America is as vast and varied as whatever is in Europe.

[snarkaeologist]

I never understand people who will travel so far to see Stonehenge or Roman ruins but completely discount Cahokia or Mesa Verde. There are SO MANY amazing ancient sites in America. And most of them are comparatively little-known and visited.

I think a difference in Europe is that they seem better at coexisting with their history - there are cities where you can see modern buildings next to ones from the Middle Ages. Our (surviving) ancient sites in the US aren’t in the middle of major population centers, which makes them easier to overlook. I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing, preservation-wise, but it’s also not an excuse for forgetting they exist.

[archaeologistproblems]

Folks I live in Atlantic Canada and I’m an hour away from an archaeological site complex that’s at least 11,000 years old, suspected to be 13,000 years old. That’s nearly three times older than the Great Pyramid at Giza. The Wabanaki are called the People of the Dawn for a reason. Come on.

[systlin]

I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?

Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land. 

And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand. 

This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade. 

So what did they do?

They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required. 

So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?

So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter. 

But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them. 

[janglingargot]

Just wanted to add that the suffix -ster was originally specifically feminine, a means of denoting a lady known by her profession. Spinster = female spinner, baxter = female baker, webster = female weaver (webber), brewster = female brewer. If one of the ladies named Alys in your village was known for selling her excellent weaving, you might call her Alys Webster (to differentiate her from, say, Alys Littel who was rather short, and Alys Bywater who lived near the pond).

This fascinates me for many reasons, but especially in the case of modern families with last names like Baxter or Webster or Brewster. What formidable and well-known ancestresses managed to pass on those very gendered names to all their descendants, when last names were changing from personal “nicknames” into indicators of lineage among the middle and lower classes? There’s a forgotten story of a fascinating woman behind every one of those family lines.

[wasureneba]

Resource for the history of the -ster suffix here.

[tempest1924]

Swiping Left

Welcome to Swiping Left. We're here to help YOU relieve a little bit of stress by talking about bad, weird, and creepy profiles in the world

This is a fun little podcast that is in its infancy (only 4 episodes posted thus far). It's pretty funny, so listen if you want to.laugh at something :)

[trainthief]

Tig Notaro’s new show - where she just interviews celebrities and tries to figure out who they are because she doesn’t care about any of them - is obviously the absolute perfect concept. HOWEVER today’s upload features Glenn Howerton and I fully expect to die before the episode ends because there’s no way it’s not unbearable to watch. Later alligators. 

[trainthief]

Not even a minute in and I’m watching Glenn realize in real time that Tig is just a hotter version of what he thinks he looks like 

[trainthief]

She has no idea who he is but LOVES Kaitlin Olson. I’m furious with you people for overusing the exploding universe brain meme because now I have no way of conveying how thoroughly wise she is…. 

[reality-is-lemons]

Some screenshots of the Stranger Things Crack II

[queeranarchism]

Concentration Camps in the US - Google My Maps

List compiled by 2600 Magazine, from http://concentrationcamps.us The following text is from http://concentrationcamps.us: 2600 Magazine has compiled a full listing of Customs and Border Patrol stations, a number of which are being used to imprison migrants, immigrants, and/or refugees, many of whom are children. In the interests of openness, we are sharing that info here. Please note that not every facility in this list is being used for this purpose, but many existing camps are either at one of these addresses or are being managed there. And the potential for expansion is ever present. This is also only a partial list of the total number of camps, as others are operated by different branches of the government, as well as by private companies. We will be updating it as we receive and compile more data. If you have additional info to add, please write to [email protected] or visit our SecureDrop page at www.2600.com/securedrop where you can find out how to anonymously submit info to us.

Things to do with a list such as this:

Spread it.

Download it, keep a back up.

Publish it offline as well, put it in your local anarchist zine, print posters.

Things to do with the location of camps near you:

Spread that specific information in your area.

Get people together. Talk about this. Consider what you can do to spread more information and get more people together. Maybe distribute information at crowded local places.

When you have a good lot of people, hold some solidarity rallies outside the camps. Inform yourself about your rights before hand. Don’t get yourself all arrested if this is your first step into action and you don’t know each other well.

If you have a good reliable group of people together and have done some minor actions, start first talking about and then training for more direct actions. Learn your legal rights. Invite activists who can help you as a medic, legal team, etc.

When you’re ready, blockade the traffic going in and out of these camps.

Consider moving to more disruptive actions from there.

-

[gusdapperton-inactive]

robin and steve only applying to jobs where they’d be working together because they’re bffs and know they won’t be able to stand anyone else

[ohmybgosh-deactivated20200822]