Archaeology Sucks: Reports From The Field

I am also rowandriftwood on BlueSky, if anyone wants to follow me there.

This is me, if anyone wants to come find me there.

This week is a lot less pretty than last week. Got up in the dark, drove to work in the rain, and immediately got my car stuck in the mud. Fantastic start to a Monday morning!

So apparently this work location has been canceled for today due to weather conditions. Fan-fucking-tastic. I am completely on my own out here, off-road, and trying to figure out who to contact for assistance and how to explain exactly where I am.

Update: I have been found and liberated, and am now heading home. Mondays!

This week is a lot less pretty than last week. Got up in the dark, drove to work in the rain, and immediately got my car stuck in the mud. Fantastic start to a Monday morning!

So apparently this work location has been canceled for today due to weather conditions. Fan-fucking-tastic. I am completely on my own out here, off-road, and trying to figure out who to contact for assistance and how to explain exactly where I am.

Today, work looks like this.

It’s so beautiful out here today and the weather is ideal. Just one of those rare perfect autumn days that we hardly ever get past October. And yet I’m spending my day wondering whether the National Historic Preservation Act is on the chopping block in the next 4 years, whether I will still have a job, whether historic and cultural preservation will have the force of law behind them anymore in the U.S., or whether developers and landowners will just be able to bulldoze through archaeological sites with impunity.

Actually considering the wide range and overlap of pelvic structures of all sexes, it’s more likely they will identify your gender based on your belongings, burial, and culture! So basically, darling, serve cunt hard enough and the archeologists will see that cunt, too ❤️

never getting over “the archeologists will see that cunt”

Can confirm!

This geology bread is the spiritual twin of my archaeology cake.

If that doesn't have potential for some fairytale nonsense, I don't know what does.

In the right wintry conditions, an ice bridge forms between the Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait. Theoretically, this is the only place where you can walk from Russia to the United States (and vice versa), however travel between one Diomede to the other is strictly forbidden.

On the West side sits Russia’s Big Diomede with a population of 0. The smaller Little Diomede to the East has a small population of 82 (as of 2021).

[Source]

A bridge between Today and Yesterday, you say? Only there at the right time of year, with a certain amount of luck?

That absolutely has the makings of a quest destination.

Now I am thinking about Umberto Eco’s historical novel The Island of the Day Before. It is set in the 17th century and is about a man who has been sent as a spy for the papacy to figure out the secret of longitude, but he can’t quite wrap his head around how timezones work. He is stranded alone on an abandoned ship within sight of an island he knows to be on the opposite side of the international dateline, and basically has an existential crisis about it, and it’s kind of funny?

when i die i hope i come back as a beautiful microscopic granule of sand

these are all me in my next life btw

#these are mostly Foraminifera and I once spent a month sorting through thousands of these on a microscope slide#I did resent them terribly for a while but I respect them too much for any of it to stick#they were 40 million years old#their shells hold chemical memories of the water temperature and salinity#so we can use them to reconstruct past sea levels#we can read the shapes of dead continents through the bodies of these creatures#we can track cycles of earth’s orbital precession in space#so I guess even if you don’t get to come back as a beautiful microscopic grain of sand something will (@catadromously )

Every page of Foucalt's Pendulum is Eco going "Naturally, my readers will be familiar with the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rozenkreutz, so I am at liberty to make it plot-critical."

Now that I've finished FP this post is exponentially funnier. Wuh oh gamers.

Foucault’s Pendulum may be my favorite novel of all time, but it is definitely not for everyone! It is Umberto Eco’s fault that I wrote my dissertation on the Knights Templar. He single-handedly inoculated me against conspiracy theories for life. If you find the full text baffling and frustrating, there is actually an excellent abridged audio version read by Tim Curry. Highly recommended.

How are you spending your Tuesday night? I’m transcribing my ggg-grandparents’ 1884 divorce case file.

an 1884 divorce?? which country? what were the proceedings? I'm very curious

They were living in America in what was at that time Washington Territory (now Washington State). I plan to post more about it when I get some of the documentation transcribed, but here is a sample.

"3rd That Defendant disrespecting her marriage obligation as the wife of Plaintiff did at Walla Walla City in said County of Walla Walla at the residence of Plaintiff, during harvest time, of the year A.D. 1882 commit adultery with a man who is to witnesses unknown; that the knowledge of said act first came to Plaintiff within less than one year next before the filing of Plaintiff's complaint; that since said time Plaintiff has not lived or cohabited with defendant, and that said act of adultery remains uncondoned and unforgiven on the part of Plaintiff."

There are 33 pages in the file in total, most of which deal with the disposition of joint property shared by the couple.

The testimony of George W. Winchester, an eye-witness to the case:

I am acquainted with Mary E. and John M. Armstrong plaintiff and defendant in this action. I am not in any way related to either of said parties. I was acquainted with Mary E. Armstrong the defendant about July 13th 1882 in Walla Walla. In harvest time of that year I was sent by Mr Armstrong to the house in Walla Walla City to get some bread to take to the ranche[sic]. As I came into the kitchen I saw no one, and I walked into the sitting room. I stood in the door and saw a man come out of her bedroom, jump through the front door and run like a quarter horse down through Baker & Boyers walnut grove, presently Mrs Armstrong came came[sic] out of the same room that I saw the man come out of. I mean Mrs Armstrong the defendant in this case. She seemed much excited, and said, I thought it was Mr Armstrong who had come. No I said it did not happen to be him. I then asked her what all this excitement meant. She said, I had this frind[sic] in my room showing him some pictures and toys I had there. I then said that I thought from the appearance of things that he had seen them. She then said, George you are not going to give me away, are you? I said I did not think I would, but did not like such work going on, as Mr. Armstrong was a warm friend of mine. I think this subject was then dropped and I delivered the message Mr. Armstrong had sent by me. She spoke of this matter again while I was there and again asked me not to give her away, and said: if you will not give me away you can have what you want. I said I did not want anything but that I wanted to see her go straight. I had a family at that time. I am positive the man who came out of  the bedroom was not Mr. Armstrong. I did not notice anything particular about his dress, he was in sight but a few minutes, he was running to get out of the way.

It does not sound as if this was the only many involved in case. One so named was a doctor who was a prominent and prosperous citizen of the community, and was later the mayor of Walla Walla. I think Mr. Winchester would probably have recognized a man that well-known, though. Besides which the doctor was an older man, probably not up to a lot of sprinting. It is possibly worth noting that Mary E. Armstrong herself was 49 at the time, and that her and John's daughter-in-law once described John M. Armstrong as the meanest man she ever met, so I can't say I entirely blame her for seeking some fun elsewhere.