THE ARCHAEOREADER
WHERE A LOVE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND READING MEET
WHERE A LOVE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND READING MEET
The 4th book off The ArchaeoReader TBR is a fast-paced sci-fi where The Terminator and History Detectives collide. Daniel H. Wilson's The Clockwork Dynasty is SO much fun! In the first three sentences (quoted above), I was immediately hooked. Research scientist (part historian, part robotics engineer) June Stefanov is obsessed with a mysterious object her grandfather left her. As far as she knows, its history comes from a WWII battlefield at Stalingrad, where her grandfather witnessed the impossible--a man, gunned down, crush Nazi soldiers and live to walk away? June has made a career out of her obsession investigating advanced technology from centuries ago in the form of clockwork automatons. While looking over a porcelain doll with just such technology (side note: 1. I will forever be wondering about the true nature of porcelain doll fragments I've seen on survey (lol), & 2. I was instantly reminded of the (David Tennant) Dr. Who episode, "The Girl in the Fireplace" featuring 18th century clockwork robots), June finds herself pulled into something deeper than she ever imagined; a war among mechanical beings, called avtomats, originating around 3000 BC China. Switching between June's narrative (as the present) and the avtomat Peter's (as the past), this action-packed novel not only converges the past with the present but takes the reader from the Pacific Northwest (Oregon & Seattle) to London and China. There's quite a few fun nods to pop culture and I enjoyed such historic elements as Peter the Great's court and the East India Company's Battle at Plassey. A blend of historical and science fiction I can get behind! If you're a fan of HBO's Westworld and need something to fill the void while waiting for the 3rd season, this is your ticket. The Allure of ArtifactsAs June can attest, the allure of an artifact is REAL. Some archaeologists catch this feverish compulsion at an early age from a trip to to a museum. A long-time friend of mine told me they remember seeing natural history exhibits at the American Museum in kindergarten and that was it for them; having never stopped learning about past people. For many of us, its the exhilarating high that comes from touching something no one else has for hundreds of years. The late, great, rock star American archaeologist Janet D. Spector wrote: "When I excavate sites and touch things that have lain untouched for centuries, I know why I am an archaeologist" (Spector 1998:359). Of course, objects do not have to be hundreds of years old to hook an archaeologist's heart. Some of us are just as fascinated by recent garbage. Give us those funky cone top beer and soda cans any day (I love coming across cone tops on survey and will fully admit to being excited by a 1950s Black Cherry Shasta can that was probably discarded by some construction worker from the last time the site, I was monitoring, was dug into...)! Or a tantalizing tell-tale green kick-up fragment belonging to a champagne/wine bottle, the solarized, pearlescent amythest of a milk bottle, a cobalt blue medicine bottle with a clever cap that reminds you when to take your next dose, the raised floral decal of a teacup fragment, or how about even Atari video games?! A mentor of mine recalled to me once how she was struck by the simple presence of a nail polish bottle, found in a trash pit, associated with a Depression Era homestead. She found it meaningful because here was a woman who undoubtedly couldn't have afforded to spend (much) money on a frivolous item like nail polish but did anyway to do something for herself. I loved hearing that because it made this faceless woman more tangible. Some of the most memorable artifacts I've encountered are also personal items. Recovered at the Joint Courts Archaeological Project in downtown Tucson, two of my favorite objects have been a mustache mug and a copper lipstick tube manufactured for the larger-than-life Polish opera singer Ganna Walska's makeup line (both dating from the first few decades of the 20th century). Who was this waxed, mustachioed man avoiding coffee in his whiskers? Who was this woman that slicked a classic ruby red onto her pout? Though I never was able to find out because the context of these finds were from a neighborhood with a high turn around (as so often happened in dynamic communities experiencing population growth in the 1910s), a link to the past and people's lives lingered from their purpose. Purpose is a strong theme throughout The Clockwork Dynasty. As a mechanism created specifically for Pravda--or the unity of truth and justice--Peter's function is literally engraved on the part of him that represents his soul and is the driving force for his existence. While I wouldn't say I live for a single principal as a complex, free thinking human, its that function and meaning (and the infinite variables) are intrinsically linked to our material culture that is the real allure of artifacts. When I followed up with Mallory Tripplett, a graduate student at Central Washington's Anthropology program, who had responded to my Instagram stories asking archaeologists to share what material culture they have found influential to them, Mallory said: "With the soda and alcohol artifacts, I like that they can sometimes indicate leisurely activities where people were indulging and hopefully having fun. The medicine bottles are interesting because they can indicate very personal issues (real or perceived) that people were trying to fix and we wouldn't have a chance to know about this intimate aspect of their lives unless we found the artifact." Learn MoreBe it 1000+ old chert debitage, a can dump, or a mysterious part belonging to a 5,000 year old robot, a major driving force for archaeologists is that grasp of intimacy connecting us to people of the past. If you want to dig deeper I can't recommend enough Janet Spector's What This Awl Means and Arthur Asa Berger's What Objects Mean as an intro to interpreting artifacts. Like Professor Lu Ann De Cunzo's short story 'A Future after Freedom' (discussed in another blog post mentioning archaeology and storytelling), Dr. Spector takes up penning a fictional story around the purpose of an awl handle found in a precontact Wahpeton refuse pit. From the experience, Spector explains how she regained her own lost connection to the past caused by decades of objectivity. In What Objects Mean, Berger simplifies different theoretical approaches like Freud, semiotics, sociological analyses, economics and Marxist approaches, culture theory, and archaeological concepts and then applies these to certain objects. For instance, Coca-Cola bottles can be understood as a means of globalization and cosmetics as a way of participating in gendered norms (given the growing representation of men in makeup advertisements--check out the Instagram feeds of cosmetic lines like Tarte and Benefit--I'd love to see a new edition incorporate this). I have hyper-linked to sources where appropriate/available. All links and sources electronically accessed between May 6 and 10, 2019. *Some links are affiliates* References CitedSpector, Janet D.
1998 What This Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village. In Kelley Hays-Gilpin and David S. Whitley (eds) Reader in Gender Archaeology, London: Routledge, pp. 359-363.
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