Thursday, October 25, 2012

November OAS - Welcome Dr. Bonnie Pitblado! (Nov 5)

Also, on Saturday, November 3rd, the OAS will be having its Fall Meeting in Stillwater; “Digging the Civil War:Sesquicentennial Archeology,” hosted by Stephen Perkins, Associate
Professor in Anthropology, Oklahoma State University.  The meeting will begin at 8:00 am in the Murray Building on the OSU Campus .

Thursday, September 27, 2012

October Events

October will be a busy month!  

Caddo Archaeology
On Monday, October 1 at 7pm at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Dr. Elsbeth Dowd will give a talk at the monthly meeting of the Cleveland County chapter of the OAS.  Dr. Dowd is the Interim Collection Manager of archaeology at the Sam Noble Museum.   Her talk is titled Backwater or Crossroads? Caddo History along the Mountain Fork.  The Ouachita Mountains have often been considered as the backwater of ancestral Caddo society.  In comparison to settlements in the Red River Valley, settlements among the mountains tend to be smaller – smaller communities, smaller mounds, and less exotic goods.  A close examination of settlements along the Mountain Fork, however, reveals a dynamic history, major shifts in ritual activity and regional affiliation.  Dr. Dowd’s presentation explores the history of the Mountain Fork Caddo from an archaeological perspective, with a focus on how small sites can tell big stories of movement through the mountains. 

Parasites and Ancient DNA in Archaeology
On Thursday, October 4 at 7pm at the Norman Public Library, Lauren Cleeland (doctoral candidate at OU) will give a talk at Science Cafe Norman. Her talk is titled From Parasites to Paternity: Ancient DNA in Archaeology.  It should be pretty neat stuff!

More Caddo Events
If you are into Caddo heritage, the Jacobson House in Norman is hosting a fantastic set of events this month:
Every Monday, 6:30-7:30pm:
     Caddo language classes with members of the Edmonds family
Saturday, September 29, Noon:
     Pottery pitfire with artist Chase Kahwinhut Earles
Friday, October 12, 7:30pm:
     Lecture on Caddo pottery with Chase Kahwinhut Earles and Jeri Redcorn
Saturday, October 13:
     1pm - Caddo archery
     2pm - traditional food tasting
     3pm - Caddo dancing

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Spring Dig and Exhibits - In and Out of Oklahoma

Well, I fell off the face of the earth for awhile, but now that the semester is done I am back online!  

First and foremost, the Oklahoma Anthropological Society Spring Dig is going on right now at the Bryson Paddock site near Ponca City.  It is running from May 25-June 3.  Excavation hours are 8:30-4:00.  A carpool is meeting each day at the Kanza Wellness Center in Newkirk at 7:00 am.  At the light in Newkirk, go east, the road will curve, but keep east about two miles till you get to a intersection. There you see a large sign to the casino. The Kanza Heath Center is on the southeast corner of that intersection. 

For more information on Bryson Paddock, visit: 


In Oklahoma, a neat exhibit is opening  on June 2 at the Sam Noble Museum on dinosaurs from China.  Yes, I know quite well that archaeologists DO NOT study dinosaurs, but the museum is also hosting a free and public opening event on Friday, June 1, that will feature cultural activities provided by the Confucius Institute of the University of Oklahoma.  It should be quite fun.  Perhaps more pertinently, a series of Native American art objects will be on display for the first time at SNOMNH starting from May 5-September 16!

And finally, for all those interested in the omnipresence of Mayan archaeology this year, check out the online component to the 2012 Lords of Time exhibit at the Penn Museum.  They've got a neat series of videos and links posted!

MAYA 2012: Lords of Time

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Monday, April 30 meeting

Our "May" meeting will be held on Monday, April 30 (2012) at 7PM and SNOMNH.  Our guest speaker Lauren O'Shea will speak about bison mtDNA from the Southern Plains and how this genetic information may help illuminate past human foraging strategies.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

April Cleveland County OAS meeting


Monday April 2, 2012, 7pm, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

Guest speaker is Derrell Cox, M.A., who will present a talk titled 

"The Value of Anthropology for Improving Human Health."

Monday, February 27, 2012

TV Shows Encouraging Destruction of Cultural Heritage

Dear friends,
I wanted to bring to your attention two television shows that are very disturbing to those of us who care about preserving our cultural heritage.  The first, set to air on Spike TV, is called American Diggers, and the second, on (of all places) National Geographic.  American Diggers, in particular, promotes digging up artifacts without regard for context and selling them for a profit.  The show may also mislead people - although the artifacts on the show were removed from private property, remember that removing any artifact from federal land is a crime.

A good summary of the problem from my friend Holly:
"This show promotes mining the past for personal monetary gain. The artifacts only tell part of the story- where they are found, soil staining, soil chemistry, associated artifacts, pollen, seeds, etc etc can give us an entire picture of what exactly was happening at that place in that time that led to that item being there. That knowledge is gone once the site is destroyed. Even for historic items- the poor, the children, the young, they are not in the texts from the time. Their stories are preserved in the sites left by them. Archaeologists are trained to "hear" those stories by exavating properly, knowing what samples to take, and what to look for in the dirt itself. This show promotes destruction of all of that"

Please consider signing the following petitions:

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-spike-tv-from-looting-our-collective-past

http://www.change.org/petitions/national-geographic-society-wwwnationalgeographiccom-stop-airing-the-television-show-diggers

If you want to find out what archaeologists actually do, check out this article!
http://newsok.com/artifacts-uncovered-through-archaeology-fills-in-clues-of-states-history/article/3651967?custom_click=pod_headline_life

All the best,
Elsbeth

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Bison Procurement - Monday March 5th

The next OAS talk will be Monday March 5, at 7PM at Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

Bison Procurement: The Bison Jump Systems of the Northwestern Plains by K.C. Carlson, M.A.


People of the Northwestern Plains pioneered a set of communal bison hunting strategies that required inter-band cooperation, topographic understanding, and a sophisticated knowledge of animal behavior. A bison jump is a communal hunting method employed by prehistoric hunters that involves running the lead animals in a stampeding bison herd off a cliff. Through the use of GIS analysis the complex system of bison jumps and cairn marked drive lanes can be seen from a new perspective giving us insight into the realm of prehistoric bison hunters on the Northwestern Plains. 

Monday, January 23, 2012

Dr. Stephen Perkins - MONDAY February 6

Hello and Happy New Year!  A few announcements:
- The next Oklahoma Anthropological Society Cleveland County chapter meeting will be on MONDAY, February 6th, 7pm at SNOMNH.  We are moving our meetings to Mondays this semester because of a Tuesday conflict.  Dr. Stephen Perkins from OSU will be giving a talk, topic tba very soon.
- Simone Rowe is the new chapter president.  Simone is a doctoral candidate at OU studying bioarchaeology of the Woodland period in eastern Oklahoma.  Thank you Simone for taking the reigns!
- We are working on rescheduling George Sabo.