New Federal Regulations Affecting American Archaeology, Museums, and Native American Artifacts: Did you Know? I Did not KNOW! Why?

by Tracy C. Brown

I must be honest with you. After reading the article below, which was just published in The New York Times (NYT), I feel confused, angry, and personally shaken to my very core. However, I am not going to write a long, personal opinion article here. They (whoever “they” are) say it is always best to gather facts and a thorough understanding of a topic before launching into a bitter, angry diatribe. Therefore, I shall abide by that longstanding wisdom for now. If you, as a taxpayer and a member of the American public, have any interest at all in Native American archaeology, museum collections, and artifacts, you absolutely must read the NYT article at the following safe link:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/leading-museums-remove-native-displays-183325697.html

Here are a few key questions:

(1) I am a professional archaeologist, a very well-read human being, and an intensive daily news hound. How and why am I (and many of you) hearing about these new federal regulations just now—–after the fact? As noted in the NYT article, these regulations went into effect only two weeks ago.

(2) Why was the American public never widely and intensively informed about these new regulations in the various news media? From inception to final promulgation, it takes a long time to conceptualize and finalize new federal regulations. Surely, I and everyone else should have been widely aware of these new federal regulations long before now.

(3) Oh, sure. I have known about NAGPRA repatriation ever since 1990. Everyone in American archaeology has known about that for a very long time. Why did the American archaeology community not go out of its way to widely inform the American public (and the Tennessee public) about these new regulations that went into effect only two weeks ago?

(4) Are these new regulations the product of a quiet, behind-the-scenes stealth operation between the Biden administration and Native American groups, with American archaeologists and museum directors sitting on the sidelines—–nervously biting their fingernails—–too scared and politically steamrolled to speak up for their own interests and to inform the American public?

(5) How far are we from that future moment when Native American groups finally demand that all American archaeology involving prehistoric Native Americans and Historic period Native Americans must cease and be shut down entirely—–forever? Will anyone speak up for American archaeology when that day finally and inevitably comes?

——This short article is dedicated to my recently deceased archaeological colleague and friend Donald B. Ball of Louisville, Kentucky. If he were still alive and had written anything at all about this subject, it would have been 1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit and thoroughly blistering. RIP old friend.

Merry Christmas!!!

by Tracy C. Brown

I just wanted to take this moment to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas. Yes, that means you too. Merry Christmas!!!

Does someone know how to make the weather colder in Tennessee today and tomorrow? This “Christmas in New Orleans” weather is just—-well—-not a longstanding Tennessee tradition. If this warm weather is a function of man-induced global warming, this might be how every future Christmas will feel weather-wise for our children and our grand-children.

Peace be unto you. Whether you believe in him or not, just remember as a matter of world history, Jesus really is the reason for the season.

Anthropology Should Be Defunded?

by Tracy C. Brown

The Republican Party’s lack of appreciation for the social sciences and social sciences education have apparently hit a new low. You may read about it by clicking on the following safe link:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mississippi-auditor-says-several-college-144453922.html

Let us all hope this is not the beginning of a nationwide Trumpite policy with associated public talking points. File this one away under the heading: “The Dumbing Down of America.” Good grief!!!

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month for 2023 IS underway Now

by Tracy C. Brown

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month (TAAM) began on September 1, 2023, all across the state of Tennessee. The overall TAAM celebration is sponsored each year by the Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology (TCPA), but numerous other governmental and private sector entities join in each September with their own special programmatic contributions to the overall celebration.

The annual 30 Days of Archaeology Blogfest is still being held as part of the 2023 TAAM celebration. Each day in September, a professional archaeologist, archaeology student, museum worker, or guest author writes a major blogpost summarizing one of their archaeological  projects or highlighting some special archaeological or museological subject of interest. The blogposts are almost always fun and interesting to the maximum, and they are usually accompanied with maps, photographs, and/or video clips. You may click on the following safe link each of the 30 days in September 2023 to read the blogpost for that day:

Welcome to the 2023 Thirty Days of Tennessee Archaeology Blogfest – President’s Welcome

A new blogpost will be available each day until September 30, 2023. Once posted, all of the blogposts remain permanently available to the public on the TCPA website. Information relevant to each blogpost is usually posted on the TCPA Meta/Facebook page, and people can post comments on each blogpost there. You may click on the following safe link to go to the Meta/Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Tennessee.Archaeology

This year’s blogfest should be great!!! Have fun everyone!!!

An Extraordinary Find in a Future Refuse Dump

by Tracy C. Brown

The professional archaeologists of today love ancient refuse middens, and they find interesting artifacts within them. Archaeologists in forwardly distant centuries will find extraordinary things in the huge waste piles of the human future. This is a brief story about one such future find.

In February 2019, not too long before COVID-19 first appeared, a truly extraordinary and very well crafted film came to American theaters. The title of this film was “Alita: Battle Angel.” Unfortunately, it did not do well at American movie theaters when it was first released, perhaps because it was crowded out by Valentine’s Day and blockbuster films people wanted to see a whole lot more. I remember when a couple of advertisements for this film showed up on my T.V. screen—–very briefly—–and suddenly no more at all. However, after surviving the horrors of COVID-19 over the past four years, movie enthusiasts are going back to see what they missed in the entertainment world during those four years, and this wonderful movie about a rare discovery in a trash dump is gaining increasing attention and public recognition today. One of these days, I feel certain this movie will be hailed as a cinematic masterpiece in terms of both a creative story line and a good bit of industrial light and magic.

The problem is finding a full-length copy of it to watch. You may be able to buy or rent a copy on-line. I am going to check the extensive collection of films at the Oak Ridge Public Library this afternoon, and if that fails, I too will try to find an on-line version to rent or buy.

I found a 2019 trailer for this film, and a couple of people on You Tube have creatively fused an excerpt from this film with Sia’s recent song entitled “Unstoppable.” The two were unconsciously and enigmatically made for each other. Please click on the movie trailer below and give it a close watch—–then go watch the whole movie. Your chances of being sorry you did are small if you like really good science fiction and rare archaeological finds in refuse middens. Here is the trailer:

I’m with Alita too!!! Her emotional vulnerability, her commitment, her willpower, and her strength to keep going against difficult odds remind me of my 29-year old daughter, who had her first baby (my first grandchild) in May 2022. Here is a photograph of Christian Decker, baby Asher Decker, and Leah Decker:

Problem Solved: Caches of Human Skulls and Mandibles in Arkansas

by Tracy C. Brown

I was surfing around the Internet this evening and ran into a recent article about some large caches of human skulls and mandibles excavated by archaeologists 40 years ago on a prehistoric site in Arkansas. This article was written for the general public, but at the very end of it, the author (Ian Randall) provides a hyperlink to the text of a more in-depth article to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in August 2023. Please click on the following safe link to access both articles:

Mystery of Hundreds of Human Skulls Found in Arkansas Finally Solved after 40 Years

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month for 2022 Begins Today

by Tracy C. Brown

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month (TAAM) begins today (September 1, 2022) all across the state of Tennessee. The overall TAAM celebration is sponsored each year by the excellent and venerable Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology (TCPA), but numerous other governmental and private sector entities join in each September with their own special programmatic contributions to the overall celebration.

The annual 30 Days of Archaeology Blogfest is still being held as part of the 2022 TAAM celebration. Each day in September, a professional archaeologist, archaeology student, museum worker, or guest author writes a major blogpost summarizing one of their archaeological  projects or highlighting some special archaeological or museological subject of interest. The blogposts are almost always fun and interesting to the maximum, and they are usually accompanied with maps, photographs, and/or video clips. You may click on the following safe link each of the 30 days in September 2022 to read the blogpost for that day:

30 Days of Archaeology Blogfest 2022

The first blogpost will be available today,  and a new blogpost will be available each day for the next 30 days. Once posted, all of the blogposts remain permanently available to the public on the TCPA website. Information relevant to each blogpost is usually posted on the TCPA Meta/Facebook page, and people can post comments on each blogpost there. You may click on the following safe link to go there:

Meta/Facebook Page for the TCPA

This year’s blogfest should be a great one. Have fun everyone!!!

A Belated Personal Memoriam for Dr. C. Clifford Boyd

by Tracy C. Brown

Another friend of mine from the old days of Tennessee archaeology—-Dr. C.  Clifford Boyd —–has died. His death occurred on March 9, 2021 after a long battle with cancer. The Archaeology in Tennessee blog and I would like to express our deepest love and condolences to Cliff’s surviving wife (Dr. Donna C. Boyd), the rest of his family members, and his many friends and acquaintances.

My last personal interaction with Cliff was a friendly e-mail exchange and a telephone call with him about one of our old friends who worked on the Tellico Archaeology Project in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time, much to my shock, Cliff was hospitalized with a very bad case of shingles. We chatted a bit about that because I too suffered from a milder, but still excruciating, case of shingles way back in 2011.  Despite being so sick, Cliff was in an amazingly good mood, and I no doubt offered him my classic piece of humor about shingles:

Well, Cliff. You can at least be thankful it was not a case of vinyl siding.

If he had cancer at that time, best I can recall, he did not mention it to me. This is one reason I was so surprised and shocked to hear about his death. Unfortunately, I did not hear anything about his death until just a few days ago.

I do not measure American archaeologists and physical anthropologists by the bloat of their curriculum vitae or the lengths of their publication lists. Rather, I measure them by the content of their personal character—–meaning how genuine, truthful, kind, loving, compassionate, and supportive they are with the many people they encounter as they pass through this life on planet Earth. Cliff may have been short in physical stature, but he was a true giant as a human being who kindly loved and cared for his fellow human beings. I will always remember him for that alone, although his archaeological accomplishments in Tennessee and Virginia were formidable. The same can be truthfully said of Donna Boyd. In all of my life, I have never known two anthropologists of better personal character.

You may read a lengthy and detailed obituary for Dr. Cliff Boyd by clicking on the following safe link and scrolling down when you get there:

Obituary for Dr. Cliff Boyd

Photograph Credit: Radford University

Question of the Week: I Gotta Know

by Tracy C. Brown

Why are so many people—–all over the world—–so anxious and hankering to know when American Indians quit—–I repeat——quit—–making chipped stone arrowheads? Is this some sort of quest K-12 school teachers dream up as an exercise for their students?

Please. Just click on the reply button and give me some answers in a comment. Thanks!!!

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month for 2021 Begins Tomorrow

by Tracy C. Brown

Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month (TAAM) begins tomorrow (September 1, 2021) all across the state of Tennessee. The overall TAAM celebration is sponsored each year by the excellent and venerable Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology (TCPA), but numerous other governmental and private sector entities join in each September with their own special programmatic contributions to the overall celebration.

Last year at this time, the public health threat posed by the COVID-19 virus either closed down or put a significant damper on some of the open-to-the-public, face-to-face festivities usually associated with this annual celebration of Tennessee archaeology. As most of you already know, the COVID 19 Delta Variant is eating Tennessee and the rest of the southeastern United States alive right now. Unfortunately, I have not read or heard anything about how this new viral variant has affected the scheduling of the face-to-face aspects of this year’s TAAM celebration. The COVID-19 Delta Variant is primarily sickening people who are not fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and people who refuse to wear excellent-quality face masks (e.g., KN-95). If you have been fully vaccinated, do not have suppressed immunity, do not have multiple comorbidities, and wear a KN-95 face mask, you are probably good to go for attending any face-to-face indoors or outdoors archaeological activity that does not involve taking off your KN-95 face mask to eat food or slurp a beverage. However, if you are not fully vaccinated and refuse to wear a face mask, please keep your sorry ass at home. Yes—–there was judgement in that last sentence because people like you are dangerous to both yourself and your fellow man and woman.

The annual 30 Days of Archaeology Blogfest is still being held as part of the 2021 TAAM celebration. Each day in September, a professional archaeologist, archaeology student, museum worker, or guest author writes a major blogpost summarizing one of their archaeological  projects or highlighting some special archaeological or museological subject of interest. The blogposts are almost always fun and interesting to the maximum, and they are usually accompanied with maps, photographs, and/or video clips. You may click on the following safe link each of the 30 days in September 2021 to read the blogpost for that day:

30 Days of Tennessee Archaeology 2021

The first blogpost will be available tomorrow,  and a new blogpost will be available each day for the next 30 days. Once posted, all of the blogposts remain permanently available to the public on the TCPA website. Information relevant to each blogpost is usually posted on the TCPA Facebook page, and people can post comments on each blogpost there. You may click on the following safe link to go there:

Facebook Page for the TCPA

Have fun everyone!!!