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The Archaeology Channel Newsletter |  |
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Welcome to the second edition of The Archaeology Channel Newsletter!
From my perspective, the year 2004 was the worst and yet the best, but 2005 could be the best of all. My hopes for 2004 came up against the hard reality of an illness and operation that consumed much of the time and energy available for fulfilling the year's promise. What might have been a disaster for ALI and The Archaeology Channel, however, turned out to be a year of progress rather than reversal. TAC traffic grew from 4.1 million hits in 2003 to well over 7 million hits in 2004. We surpassed our 2004 goal for TAC to reach the top 15 archaeology Web sites as ranked by Google: TAC now is ranked in the top 10 out of 8 million sites! Financial support also grew in several key areas. Membership proceeds reached $5000 for the first time, a 60 percent growth over the previous year. Underwriting income grew 40 percent to $4275. Our first video production brought in $10,000. Even though non-membership contributions and grants both were down, our total income of more than $34,000 surpassed that of 2003 and is the largest since 2001, when the total was inflated temporarily by a $35,560 grant. I'll always wonder what could have been accomplished had I not fallen ill, but our continuing momentum signals a bright future. We are poised for new levels of achievement in 2005. We have a lineup of exciting new video and audio content (stay tuned for that!) for TAC. Lessons learned from the 2003 and 2004 installments of The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival, combined with our new partnership with the European association of archaeological film festivals, will help us make TAC Festival 2006 (now scheduled for February 7-11. See article below) the best ever. Our increased traffic and new underwriting partnerships now in the works will vastly expand our underwriting income. Growing TAC exposure and better communication with supporting Members will help us grow our Membership Program. Webcast of our first in-house video will attract new clients for our new video production service. These prospects and other opportunities created by our strong Internet visibility suggest that 2005 will see dramatic growth in our ability to deliver to the world the vitally important story of the human cultural legacy. And I'm sure we'll have some good surprises, which we'll be sure to tell you all about! Thanks very much for your support.
Rick Pettigrew
After two successful seasons in 2003 and 2004, The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival is now on the radar screen for our audience, our partners and film and video producers around the world. After scheduling the event for July for the first two years, we've decided to move the Festival, which is still the only public competition for archaeology-related film in the Western hemisphere, to mid-winter, when fewer activities compete for the attention of our audience. Some have predicted better attendance in the winter and we're willing to try it out! We've scheduled our next Festival for February 7-11 (Tuesday-Saturday), 2006. With the change in date come some other exciting changes as well. We are in discussions with the Oregon Festival of American Music (OFAM) to use the John G. Shedd Institute for the Performing Arts in downtown Eugene for at least part of our activities although currently we still plan to conduct the screenings at the McDonald Theatre as in previous years. OFAM is very interested to conduct an Elderhostel Program with us in conjunction with the Festival and we have applied to Elderhostel for approval. On the list of companion activities, we hope to include an Oregon Coast archaeological tour, kids' activities, a teacher workshop, and our Symposium on Heritage Film, as before, and more activities may be added. We haven't chosen our keynote speakers yet, but you should expect some high-profile names! This time around, we have more time to plan, raise the necessary funds and promote the event, so we have every reason to believe that the third installment of the Festival will be the best yet! In 2004, we accepted 54 film entries from 21 countries and screened 19 films from 10 countries. We expect this many or more entries for TAC Festival 2006. The deadline for film entries will be in August 2005. By the beginning of October 2005, we will know which films will be screened. We haven't decided yet on ticket prices, but we expect single-evening tickets will go for around $8 or $10. The timing of the Festival will be great for holiday gift certificates as well as low air fares and hotel rates. For skiers, this is the perfect time to sample at least six different ski areas within three hours' drive of Eugene. It's also the perfect time for beachcombing on the mild (but sometimes stormy) Oregon coast. Besides that, the warm and cozy theater seats will be an inviting refuge from the cool and wet February weather! We look forward to seeing you there
by Michelle Hilling of Archaeologica.org An exciting broadcast media event happens weekly on The Archaeology Channel. Working in conjunction with our partner, the daily news site www.archaeologica.org, we produce the Audio News from Archaeologica, a streaming audio broadcast covering the top archaeological stories of the week. Each edition brings forth new discoveries, new technologies and greater understanding of the ever-expanding limitlessness that is the history of the human race. At Archaeologica.org, headlines are collected daily. Once a week, these stories are compiled myself, edited by Claudia Hemphill and Matt Piscitelli, read by Laura Kelly, and produced by Rick Pettigrew. The Archaeology Channel presents the webcasts in Windows Media Player and RealPlayer at dial-up and broadband bandwidths. What started in June of 2001 as somewhat of an experiment has grown to have a solid following of regular listeners that is growing exponentially. The information for these reports is culled from various sources such as news wires, print media on the web, and educational institution research documents. As it is with other aspects of The Archaeology Channel, all of the work to bring this to the public is done strictly on a volunteer basis. It is a product borne out of the passion of each individual that has contributed to the multiple stages of its growth and development. In past years we have had the privilege to bring many, many exciting stories to the forefront. Looking forward to the New Year, we anticipate many more exciting and enlightening discoveries to come our way. Remember, visit us often! Photo: Michelle Hilling of Archaeologica.org
My journey began inauspiciously when weather delayed my flight from Eugene to San Francisco, causing me to miss my direct flight from San Francisco to Paris. A 24-hour delay in San Francisco meant I arrived in Bordeaux on Monday, October 25, and missed the first three films of the Festival. The Festival organizers picked me up at the Bordeaux airport and whisked me into the city to the Atheneum Municipal, the theater where the films were screened. I spent many hours in that theater, as the jury was required to watch films (41 films in all!) there from 10 am to 10 pm or more each day (with meal breaks) from Tuesday through Thursday. The jury included a French historian, a French journalist, a Danish-French archaeologist, an Italian film maker, and myself. We got to know each other very well. Despite some inevitable but minor disagreements about the films, we managed to conclude our work on very good terms. The ICRONOS hospitality was fabulous. All the Festival people stayed at the Hotel Trianon, a small, traditional, family-operated hotel only about 30 feet wide (sandwiched within a solid block of buildings in the central district of Bordeaux) and three stories tall without an elevator (I was billeted on the top floor, of course). All ICRONOS guests (and there were many, including film makers, jurors, ICRONOS staff, and others) ate two restaurant meals together: lunch at noon and dinner at 11 pm. I never got to bed before 1 am each day, so with jet lag I had very little sleep all week until about Friday. And I walked probably at least a couple of miles each day, which put some serious stress on my recuperating back. But I was enjoying myself so much it didn't really matter. I took advantage of every opportunity to network with the festival organizers, film makers, students, academics, and townspeople that I met. I was able to meet personally the organizers of the archaeology film festivals in Kiel, Germany; Brussels, Belgium; Mariemont, Belgium; Nyon, Switzerland; and Amiens, France; as well as, of course, the ICRONOS people. I found the people there to be quite warm and receptive, despite my language handicap-I was one of the few there who could not speak French, although I learned as much as possible very fast and could at least greet people and ask how they were. Along the way I also used what I knew of German, Danish, and Italian, but relied mostly, of course, on English. Surprisingly, my fellow jurors selected me to be their spokesman, so I wrote an introductory statement (in English) from the jury for the Saturday evening awards ceremony at the palatial city hall. They liked my writing so much that they decided I should speak the first two sentences in French! Not having had one day of French in school or at any other time, I was terrified at this prospect, but I practiced all day and made my statement, to the apparent delight of the assembled multitude. I brought along a camcorder with me to Bordeaux and asked an Italian film maker to record the event on tape, so I have proof this actually happened. In fact, you can see me give my Bordeaux speech by clicking on one of the following links:
WM Player
56k I watched very carefully all week as the Festival unfolded, so as to compare their event with ours. Their style is different from ours, but not altogether. One big difference is that they don't charge admission, as they pay for the Festival mostly from public funds. They screen twice as many films in longer sessions with shorter breaks, but nobody complained. They like to include the widest diversity of films, even if that means including some that are not cinematic masterpieces, but they see this as a service to the genre and to the public. They take the event very seriously and connect it with pride to the artistic traditions of Bordeaux. Speeches by public officials were a big part of all the many ceremonies conducted in public buildings in connection with the Festival. Clearly this event is embraced by the local and regional governments and the local tourism office. I came away with many fresh ideas about how to improve our Festival and also with renewed determination to make our event a popular fixture in our own community. I am now lobbying the European festival organizers to include TAC Festival within the umbrella of the international association of archaeology film festivals that they have formed. I have word from them now that this effort will be successful. I expect it will help us promote our Festival worldwide. It also will help all the Festival organizers more easily share valuable information, such as news about promising new films and film makers. And by the way, most of the people I met already were familiar with The Archaeology Channel . In fact, the organizer of the Amiens Festival, Tahar Ben Redjeb, told me enthusiastically that he had viewed all the videos on our Web site Editor's Note: Just in case your French is a bit rusty, here's what Rick said in France. Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me for speaking to you in English, but when I was younger I did not have the good judgment to learn French. Of course, this was not my only mistake at that time, but it IS one that has come back to afflict me this week in Bordeaux."
By Dr. Guy Prouty The video recording was the easy part! Afterwards, back at the video editing lab, I spent the next three months editing the tape down to 15 minutes with a computer program called Premier Pro, creating a 3D animation of a Chinookan plank house, obtaining historic photographs and additional footage, and securing copyright permissions from various resources I found on the Web, and recording the audio. Of course, during this time, numerous revisions were required to obtain the best technical product, to make the flow of the story proceed smoothly, and educate and entertain the audience. All of this required a careful balance. The production of the video required more time and frustration than what I originally thought due to various technical difficulties (I had to update my computer to adequately handle the 3.5 gigabytes of video data!), but it was a fun and fascinating project. My hope with producing professional archaeological videos is to promote a deeper understanding and respect for the field of archaeology, history/prehistory, and indigenous cultures. This is especially important since the public pays for most archaeological work in this country and they deserve to be enlightened. Newletter Special: Newsletter readers can see our first in-house video production even before we add it to TAC. Just read our final story. Photo: Trench Excavation at the St. Johns Site
Down in the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico, there's a group of Maya archaeologists who are sharing their knowledge with students and the general public. In 2003 they came together to form Maya Exploration Center, a non-profit research and education institution that became an Organizational Member of The Archaeology Channel in 2004. Through study abroad programs and educational tours, they guide participants through Maya ruins and provide nightly lectures on ancient Maya history, astronomy, and mathematics. Palenque, one of the most important Maya cities of the Classic Period (AD 250-900), is the headquarters for their programs. Participants stay comfortably in hotels within the nearby modern town of Palenque. The research programs of Maya Exploration Center focus on what is called "non-invasive archaeology." While MEC's archaeologists have been part of many excavation projects, they believe that excavation, by its nature, is a destructive process and that all avenues of investigation should be exhausted before a shovel ever enters the earth. In accordance with that philosophy, MEC focuses primarily on the exploration and mapping of undocumented ruins in Mexico and Central America. Dr. Ed Barnhart, MEC's Director, was responsible for making the most accurate and extensive map of Palenque. The results of that effort were published in his dissertation and are available for download on the Center's website. A good map, along with accurate drawings of exposed art and architecture, opens the doors for many other non-invasive studies. Christopher Powell, one of MEC's senior research associates, has been using good architectural drawings to produce ground- breaking studies of Maya "sacred" geometry. Artist and archaeologist Alonso Mendez, another member of MEC's team, has been finding incredible solar alignments by first analyzing site maps and then confirming the alignments at the ruins themselves. These researchers, along with other MEC colleagues, have been advancing our knowledge of the ancient Maya greatly, simply by using the clues available on the surface The sustainability plan of MEC is simple: ongoing investigations enrich their education programs and the fees collected for the education programs fund their ongoing investigations. In this cyclical way, MEC hopes both to continue, and continually share, their research. Their educational tours are open not only to student groups, but to the general public as well. While some tours are pre-scheduled, such as the February 8-14, 2005, Tabasco and Chiapas Tour, most of MEC's tours are tailor-made for groups who get to pick their own dates and itineraries. If you're interested in learning about the Maya ruins with MEC, check out their website and contact them about arranging your own personalized tour Photo: Christopher Powell Explains Palenque's Temple XIX
Albert Goodyear has been excavating at the Topper Site since the 1980's. While digging this past May, Goodyear decided to excavate four meters (13 feet) lower than the stratigraphic layer containing Clovis artifacts. The Clovis tool kit was first discovered in New Mexico in 1936 and represents a proven relative chronologic marker for archaeologists because the tools almost undoubtedly date from 13,000 years ago-the earliest known stone artifact type in the New World. Upon finding Clovis artifacts, most archaeologists simply stop digging. After deepening his pit, Goodyear discovered the controversial tools that seem to match the early settlement date. It is widely believed that humans crossed the Bering Land Bridge (linking modern-day Alaska and Siberia) 13,000-14,000 years ago on their way to populating North and South America. This human migration occurred as the lowered sea level of the last ice age created dry land where the Bering Strait is located today, allowing early humans to cross to the new continent. This hypothesis, however, is just that, a hypothesis. Though the 13,000 year date and the Bering land Bridge have been etched into our heads by textbooks, the idea is still not proven conclusively. In fact, several recent finds suggest much earlier dates for populating the New World. Two million year old fossils in Indonesia indicate that early humans left Africa hundreds of thousands of years earlier than expected. Additionally, the recent discovery of Homo floresiensis, an apparently 18,000-year-old relative of Homo erectus on the Indonesian island of Flores, alters many of the presumptions of biological anthropology. More commonly known, however, are the suspected dates of such siters as Monte Verde, Chile (14,500 years ago), and Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania (up to 28,000 years ago) which both challenge the 13,000 year date of Clovis. Of course, there are still skeptics. Michael Collins of the Texas Archaeology Research Lab at the University of Texas Austin disputes that the stone tools found at the Topper Site even show signs of human manipulation. Others claim that such a rapid populating of a large land mass is difficult to fathom. Similarly, how can the New World and Central Asia be simultaneously populated given the disparity of distances from Africa? Genetic anthropologists who study human DNA have done many studies on genetic "markers" which possibly indicate early human migrations or when races or branches of evolving populations separated from each other. Genetic studies have shown that no DNA "markers" found in New World inhabitants would suggest any migration earlier than 17,000 years ago. Such evidence seems to call the 50,000 year date into serious question. Despite the controversy, comprehensive information including stone tool analysis and radiocarbon testing results will not be published until next year. Until then, we must wait and wonder if the Topper Site in South Carolina has changed how we view the migration of modern humans.
For more information on the Topper Site, check out
these Web links:
Prehistoric Research (Savannah River Archaeology
Research Program)
Reflections on Our Past: The Archaeology of South
Carolina
(Chicora Foundation)
The Topper Site: Beyond Clovis at Allendale
(Center for the Study of the First Americans)
US Excavation Site Yield Vital
Discovery (Gamecock)
Photo: Dr. Goodyear Standing by His
Extraordinary Finds
If you act soon, you can actually join an archaeological field expedition to the Sangro Valley of eastern Italy this coming summer and help support ALI at the same time! This remarkable opportunity for you and for ALI is the first fruit of a new partnership between ALI and the USDA Forest Service, who are sponsoring this trip under the umbrella of their international program, Heritage Excursions. This archaeological excursion will take place in the Sangro Valley in the Abruzzo province of eastern Italy; it combines intensive work on an archaeological excavation-the Sangro Valley Project's sites on Monte Pallano-with visits to some of the most beautiful cultural and natural attractions in the Sangro Valley (Val di Sangro). The Abruzzo region is located to the east of Rome and extends from the Apennines to the Adriatic Sea; it encompasses nearly 11,000 square kilometers (three quarters the size of Connecticut) of coastal areas, hilly uplands and mountains. Known as the "green province," the Abruzzo is home to some of Italy's oldest National Forests and Parks. It has a long history of human habitation, dating from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods through today. The aim of the Sangro Valley Project, a collaboration among the Forest Service, Oberlin College and Oxford University, has been to study society, economy, and settlement change within the context of a Mediterranean river valley system, the Sangro River valley, in the territory of the ancient Samnites. Using both intensive and extensive archeological survey, the aim of the Project is to assess human impact on, and transformation of, the Sangro Valley between the prehistoric and Medieval periods. Since 2000, the Sangro Valley Project has been working with the USDA Forest Service and the Italian Archaeological Superintendency on a number of collaborative projects, such as this excursion and the creation of the Monte Pallano archaeological park. The USDA Forest Service also serves the Italian Archaeological Superintendency as an advisor for an emerging integrated plan for sustainable development using cultural heritage and environmental resources to attract cultural tourism. In the 15 days from June 26 to July 10, participants will tour medieval and Renaissance towns, attend an introductory lecture on the Sangro Valley Projectattend an introductory lecture on the Sangro Valley Project, spend six days excavating the urban site of Monte Pallano (early Iron Age through Roman High Empire), and visit a new seaside museum, forested National Park of Abruzzo and two other Roman-era archaeological sites. This This is an in- depth tour focusing on the cultural heritage of a part of Italy lasting 15 days from June 26 to July 10, participants will tour medieval and Renaissance towns, on the cultural heritage of a part of Italy famous for its well preserved natural and cultural wonders Download the application to meet the deadline, which has been extended to February 15. To promote this program the Forest Service has become an underwriter of The Archaeology Channel. If they fulfill their goal of 22 applicants by February 15, they have pledged to make a contribution of $2500 to ALI. So if you have the financial resources and the time, please consider signing up for this experience of a lifetime!
Upcoming Video: A Journey Through Time: Archaeology at St. Johns As a special bonus for our TAC Newsletter readers, we've made our first in-house video production available to you even before we add it to TAC! This is the video referred to by Dr. Guy Prouty, ALI videographer, in the preceding story. It's about excavations led by ALI Executive Director Dr. Richard Pettigrew at the St. Johns Site, a late prehistoric Chinookan village site in Portland, Oregon. It's scheduled to go up on TAC around the middle of January 2005. Here's an abstract of the video: Two hundred years earlier than the Rivergate Industrial District in northwest Portland, Oregon, native Chinookan people of the lower Columbia River lived in huge plank houses at a settlement we now call the St. Johns Site. The site and much of the rich wetlands that supplied the people with a bounteous food supply now are buried beneath thick fill and urban facilities. This video describes this now vanished lifeway and takes you inside an archaeological excavation that is shedding new light on the complex society of the first Portlanders.
To see the video, select one or more of the following
options: You must have either Windows Media Player or RealPlayer installed. We recommend you upgrade to the most recent version. Those with dial-up modems should use the 56k options while those with broadband hookups should use the 300k options Photo: Historic photo of actual Chinookan house, with occupant named "Indian John."
Please let us know what you think of the newsletter. We welcome any suggestions for improvement. Contact us at: info@archaeologychannel.org
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