Category Archives: Archaeology

Why are Humans So Creative?

March 13, 2013 By in Archaeology, Art, Uncategorized

BBC-artefacts

Unsigned and undated, inventory number 779 hangs behind thick glass in the Louvre’s brilliantly lit Salle des États. A few minutes after the stroke of nine each morning, except for Tuesdays when the museum remains closed, Parisians and tourists, art lovers and curiosity seekers begin flooding into the room. As their hushed voices blend into a steady hivelike hum, some crane for the best view; others stretch their arms urgently upward, clicking cell-phone cameras. Most, however, tilt forward, a look of rapt wonder on their faces, as they study one of humanity’s most celebrated creations: the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci.

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Photo of engraved ochre from Blombos Cave,  courtesy Wikimedia Commons and Christopher Henshilwood.

Pacal’s Shiny-Jewel Tree

November 28, 2012 By in Archaeology, history, Inscriptions, Language, Linguistics, Maya, Mesoamerican archaeology, Uncategorized, writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

This story begins in darkness—darkness both literal and metaphorical. On a dripping wet day in 1952, an archaeologist stood in a small dank corridor deep inside a pyramid known as Temple of the Inscriptions, in the old Maya city of Palenque. In the shadows ahead, a massive triangular stone door blocked his way. For four field seasons, Alberto Ruz Lhuillier and his Maya crew had cleared tons of rubble and fill from steep steps leading down inside the pyramid. The archaeologist had no idea where the steps would take them, only a persistent thought that it could be somewhere important.

The crew struggled another two days with the door, finally shifting it enough for a man to squeeze sideways past. As Ruz moved beyond it, he shone a flashlight into the void. “It was a moment,” he later wrote, “of indescribable emotion.”  Read more.

Photo: Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque by tato grasso

Merchant Adventurers: When the Medieval Norse Sailed to the Canadian Arctic

November 14, 2012 By in Archaeology, North American archaeology, Vikings Tags: , , , , ,

Something about the strange strands didn’t fit. Patricia Sutherland spotted it right away: the weird fuzziness of them, so soft to the touch.

The strands of cordage came from an abandoned settlement at the northern tip of Canada’s Baffin Island, far above the Arctic Circle and north of Hudson Bay. There indigenous hunters had warmed themselves by seal-oil lamps some 700 years ago. In the 1980s a Roman Catholic missionary had also puzzled over the soft strands after digging hundreds of delicate objects from the same ruins….

From my story in the November 2012 issue of National Geographic.  Read the entire story here

The Secret Weapon

May 16, 2012 By in Archaeology, First Nations, Native Americans, North American archaeology Tags: , ,

Each July, along the dappled stream banks of Kodiak Island, just off the Alaska coast, a weedy looking wildflower produces a few dark-blue hooded blossoms. There is nothing particularly memorable about the appearance of Aconitum delphinifolum. Its leaves are thin and rather spiky. Its scrawny-looking stem cannot hold the weight of its flowers: its neighbors keep it upright. But this eminently forgettable looking plant, a member of the buttercup family, possesses a dark secret. Aconitum delphinifolum contains a toxin capable of killing one of the world’s largest animals, a 40-ton humpback whale. Indeed, the local Alutiiq people have long understood this: their whalers once enlisted it as a lethal weapon.

Please click here to read more.

Photo:  Humpback whales, NOAA Sanctuary collection,  Dr. Louis Herman

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