Slinging.org Forum - Today's Finds

curious_aardvark

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #30 - Jun 12^th, 2012, 6:43am

Quote from Mauro Fiorentini on Jun 1^st, 2012, 6:21am:

To build your own metal detector:

- take a small calculator
- take an old AM radio
- glue them together
- turn them on
- search an empty radio station.

You'll have your pocket metal detector, the only default is that it will not discriminate metals... gold will make the same buzzing noise as iron or lead.
Needless to say - use it wisely.
Greetings,
Mauro.

what purpose does the calculator serve ?

Sounds like all you're doing is registering how metal interferes with the radios aerial setup.
Don't see how glueing a calculator to it is going to make any difference.

I know I shouldn't, but I do find the application of archaeology to something that's just a few hundred years old quite odd.
Guess it comes from living somewhere the average pub is older that that.

Although I guess it's more about trying to find out more about the wiped out native americans than than the invaders.
Dunno, I still think of anything less than 500 years old as modern history.

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Mauro Fiorentini

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #31 - Jun 12^th, 2012, 7:48am

Don't tell me that - I live very close to a 100'000 years old archaeological site

You've expressed my very same feelings, even if I'm happy to read that our friend Alina is happy and excited in what she's doing.
I've lost interest in working as an archaeology many months ago - my last (and only) wage was 295€ for a month of work, and they gave it to me 6 months after we finished the excavation.
I refuse to work in such conditions. And have found working as a nautical machinist much more satisfying.
Not that I don't like history, though: I keep on experimenting ancient iron smithing, but it has become an hobby (a very pleasant one!).

Don't know what a calculator has to do with that, but I've tried with the radio alone and it does not work!
You're the genius, tell me Cheesy

This Quote:

Sounds like all you're doing is registering how metal interferes with the radios aerial setup

is already very interesting!
The funny fact is, that apart from discriminating metals, this homemade metal detector can "find" metals at a depth of 30-40 centimeters, more or less like a factory-made good one.

This sentence Quote:

I know I shouldn't, but I do find the application of archaeology to something that's just a few hundred years old quite odd

remember me of a chat I had with a close friend, who earn a living programming softwares for archaeological applications, and is willing to move to the USA: but he told me that there're much more anthropological researches there than archaeological ones, and this somehow limit him.

I find US researches both funny and admirable: funny, because they focus on evidences that we'd throw away here, and admirable, because they can afford to use Xray machines, metal detectors, labs... dreams here, even for Roman or Greek sculptures.
Greetings,
Mauro.

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Atlatlista

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #32 - Jun 13^th, 2012, 7:06am

It's quite simple, Mauro. We have very little history here by the standards of Europe, and therefore a craving for history. It's a supply and demand curve. So, people are willing to spend lots of money on historical projects here that would garner little attention there. Our methodology is pretty cutting edge though, and I'd love to start applying it in a European context. Using metal detectors, x-rays, CT scans, etc to discover Roman battlefields would make me geek out completely.

CA, this war is older than the English Civil War and that seems to get lots of attention in the UK.

PS: Yesterday I found "something" with the metal detector. We need the lab to ID it, but I personally believe with all my heart that it's the toggle bar for a matchlock musket.

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Mauro Fiorentini

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #33 - Jun 13^th, 2012, 7:16am

Don't get me wrong, Alina, I'm always happy when there's an excavation, it's always exciting!
I'd love to invite you digging one of our Roman towns here - you'll find bronze coins, statuettes, tools, weapons, anything, and they'll make you go nuts. But then I think of our boxes, full of materials, that lie for years waiting for an analysis, or even only of a wash, and I think I'd do a better impression just to let you visit our digs and sites, instead of inviting you to dig them.
Did I told you that we're letting Pompeii fall? And that there's no money to restore the Coliseum?
Greetings,
Mauro.

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Atlatlista Ex Member	Re: Today's Finds Reply #34 - Jun 13^th, 2012, 10:08pm That sucks, Mauro. Today it rained, so I worked on cleaning and conserving finds, and then I learned a little of how to do Arc GIS.
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Mauro Fiorentini

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #35 - Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:09am

Arc GIS is great!
I remember I had to do a job for my medieval archaeology teacher, I had to work on cartography and aerial pictures of my Region!
It was a huge amount of stuff but it was really cool to explore the environment that way! Try also Arc Map!
How do you clean metals? And bones?
Do you also restore metals? I can suggest you some liquid mixtures to do so!
Greetings,
Mauro.

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curious_aardvark

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #36 - Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:32am

Quote:

CA, this war is older than the English Civil War and that seems to get lots of attention in the UK.

Nope.

Just from renactors. Kinda like your civil war - only most of the uk population don't know fact one about the english civil war. Not something that's taught in most schools.
I guess the 'problem' is that with a few thousand years of history to deal with the, more recent stuff just gets ignored.

The problem with the US is that history seems to be mostly considered to start from the europaen invasion and the destruction of the native population and civilisations.

Guess the modern american doesn't want to think about the actual bones that their current nation is built on.

Watched a fascinating program a while back that explained (with evidence) that the tribes that europaens considered to be the plains indians, were actual coastal tribes that had moved inland soon after the diseases the first europaens brought wipeed out the original plains indians. The coastal tribes - eing more used to visitors had a better inbuilt immunity.
And this explained why 'plains' indians would drive herds of buffalo over cliffs. The original plains indians, had lived more in balance with the wildlife but the coastal tribes faced with the abundance of buffalo just couldn't care less or see any harm in it.

Given that they didn't build cities or leave much in the way of artifacts or written records, they just died out and dissappeared.

So most of the money is spent on post invasion 'history' because that makes the current population feel better and ignores pretty much all the actual history of the continent before europaens arrived.

It's actually really sad.

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Masiakasaurus

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #37 - Jun 14^th, 2012, 8:43am

Quote from curious_aardvark on Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:32am:

So most of the money is spent on post invasion 'history' because that makes the current population feel better and ignores pretty much all the actual history of the continent before europaens arrived.

It's actually really sad.

It'd be sad if it were still true. I can't speak for previous generations or other school systems, but my small town, public education taught American History starting with the idea that ancient peoples crossed a land bridge from Northern Russia to Alaska. I then learned about the likely migration patterns of these early peoples (admittedly it didn't make much sense until I learned about DNA years later). Next we moved on to the extinction of megafauna in the new world which segued into the over hunting of buffalo populations following European invasion. Only after we learned all that did we go back and learn about the European discovery and colonization of America chronologically. There's a pretty sizable gap between megafauna extinction and European invasion that was glossed over, but we still covered the the highlights.

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Bill Skinner

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #38 - Jun 14^th, 2012, 6:38pm

There are a lot of movement patterns of the pre contact NA tribes that weren't really studied until recently. Some eastern woodlands tribes moved west in front of the European settlers but as far as the way the buffalo were hunted, Google "Buffalo Jump". Chasing buffalo over a cliff or into a swamp or into a river is a hunting tactic that is thousands of years old.

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Atlatlista

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #39 - Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:52pm

Quote from curious_aardvark on Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:32am:

Quote:

CA, this war is older than the English Civil War and that seems to get lots of attention in the UK.

Nope.

Just from renactors. Kinda like your civil war - only most of the uk population don't know fact one about the english civil war. Not something that's taught in most schools.
I guess the 'problem' is that with a few thousand years of history to deal with the, more recent stuff just gets ignored.

The problem with the US is that history seems to be mostly considered to start from the europaen invasion and the destruction of the native population and civilisations.

Guess the modern american doesn't want to think about the actual bones that their current nation is built on.

Watched a fascinating program a while back that explained (with evidence) that the tribes that europaens considered to be the plains indians, were actual coastal tribes that had moved inland soon after the diseases the first europaens brought wipeed out the original plains indians. The coastal tribes - eing more used to visitors had a better inbuilt immunity.
And this explained why 'plains' indians would drive herds of buffalo over cliffs. The original plains indians, had lived more in balance with the wildlife but the coastal tribes faced with the abundance of buffalo just couldn't care less or see any harm in it.

Given that they didn't build cities or leave much in the way of artifacts or written records, they just died out and dissappeared.

So most of the money is spent on post invasion 'history' because that makes the current population feel better and ignores pretty much all the actual history of the continent before europaens arrived.

It's actually really sad.

This is patently untrue. Half of our field school is dedicated to pre-contact archaeology, all of our TAs are PhD students focusing in pre-contact archaeology, and most of our funding comes from a sovereign native tribe - the Pequots themselves.

Oh, and today's big find was a quartz projectile point, probably pre-contact. We dug tons of test pits looking for the remnants of a village or locus of lithic materials but didn't manage to stumble across it.

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Mauro Fiorentini Slinging.org Moderator Forge your future with the hammer of your mind! Posts: 3072 Gender:	Re: Today's Finds Reply #40 - Jun 15^th, 2012, 3:52am Is that a plowed area? Have you access to some aerial pics of it?! If so, send me a copy and I may try to help you Greetings, Mauro.
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Atlatlista

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #41 - Jun 15^th, 2012, 6:34am

Quote from Mauro Fiorentini on Jun 15^th, 2012, 3:52am:

Is that a plowed area?
Have you access to some aerial pics of it?! If so, send me a copy and I may try to help you

Greetings,
Mauro.

It's not plowed, and like most of Connecticut, it is under extremely dense tree cover. I don't know if they've tried aerial archaeology. I'll ask today.

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Mauro Fiorentini Slinging.org Moderator Forge your future with the hammer of your mind! Posts: 3072 Gender:	Re: Today's Finds Reply #42 - Jun 15^th, 2012, 7:51am Trees can show you where a building is as well, as they usually grow on building's corners and walls. Just see if there're some trees grown in a strange way, I mean forming a square, a rectangle... we found some castles this way Greetings, Mauro.
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Atlatlista

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #43 - Jun 15^th, 2012, 9:35pm

Forgot to ask about this Grin

Oh well, there is always Monday. I don't think it will work as well for us, as we're trying to find the remnants of 375 year old wigwams.

I was working with our best metal detector today. I was his recorder, it was my job to pull tape, do paperwork and record the exact locations of finds. He unearthed 14 cut brass fragments in like 10 minutes. It was a pretty incredible little hoard. We're not sure what it means yet. I hope it means we're close to the village we've been searching for, as it is what the natives were using for their metal working at the time.

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Pikåru

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Re: Today's Finds
Reply #44 - Jun 16^th, 2012, 1:48pm

Quote from Atlatlista on Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:52pm:

Quote from curious_aardvark on Jun 14^th, 2012, 7:32am:

Quote:

CA, this war is older than the English Civil War and that seems to get lots of attention in the UK.

Nope.

Just from renactors. Kinda like your civil war - only most of the uk population don't know fact one about the english civil war. Not something that's taught in most schools.
I guess the 'problem' is that with a few thousand years of history to deal with the, more recent stuff just gets ignored.

The problem with the US is that history seems to be mostly considered to start from the europaen invasion and the destruction of the native population and civilisations.

Guess the modern american doesn't want to think about the actual bones that their current nation is built on.

Watched a fascinating program a while back that explained (with evidence) that the tribes that europaens considered to be the plains indians, were actual coastal tribes that had moved inland soon after the diseases the first europaens brought wipeed out the original plains indians. The coastal tribes - eing more used to visitors had a better inbuilt immunity.
And this explained why 'plains' indians would drive herds of buffalo over cliffs. The original plains indians, had lived more in balance with the wildlife but the coastal tribes faced with the abundance of buffalo just couldn't care less or see any harm in it.

Given that they didn't build cities or leave much in the way of artifacts or written records, they just died out and dissappeared.

So most of the money is spent on post invasion 'history' because that makes the current population feel better and ignores pretty much all the actual history of the continent before europaens arrived.

It's actually really sad.

This is patently untrue. Half of our field school is dedicated to pre-contact archaeology, all of our TAs are PhD students focusing in pre-contact archaeology, and most of our funding comes from a sovereign native tribe - the Pequots themselves.

Oh, and today's big find was a quartz projectile point, probably pre-contact. We dug tons of test pits looking for the remnants of a village or locus of lithic materials but didn't manage to stumble across it.

The Britts of course being the vanguard of social morality throughout the globe, most especially in places like India and Africa. No matter the country, the scale or place in history, the indigenous people always suffer at the hands of fortune seekers. There are very few peoples in this world who at one time in their history don't have blood on their hands. It's what we do going forward that matters and maybe someday man will shed that yoke and actually live in peace. It won't happen in my lifetime, of that I'm sure.

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