Anthropology

A friend of mine from the those other days every so often drops me email or calls. He used to travel up to Alaska every year doing physical anthropology. I called him “bone man”  but he’s Theo. I met him some years ago on a human remains site we worked up around Redding, CA. It was a rich site, damaged by what the California Native American monitor called Pirates, Graverobbers, and Extortionists. Otherwise known as PGE. But PGE paid for the work perhaps out of conscience or federal environmental law. Not sure which one. Theo and I shared a hotel room in this small town and every day came back covered in this red dust. We would park it in the hotel bar and the regulars would see us coming and cast the usual jokes about our appearance and lifeline. They were rough and ready but friendly. I remember snippets of the conversations,

Hey, look who has arrived. Its our rich boy scientists.
Yah. They look tired… And thirsty…
Hey rich boy scientists. Want some hot milk to help you sleep?

We’d all laugh and we would buy a round of drinks. Those guys would have “boilermakers” and we’d do a few rounds of draft beers.

If you have read this puny attempt at a weblog, you probably remember me discussing how archeologists do like to drink. And not warm milk either. We would sit after the jokesters left for dinner and have a few more beers. Sometimes it would be Thursday and we would not be working Friday; so we’d stay longer for dinner. Other days we would leave for home. We worked a variable schedule. On the days I left for home, I remember driving home caked in the red dust.

I’d get home and my wife would draw a bath and have a cold budweiser for me. I think I mentioned that archeologists do like to drink beer . We would start talking about the “archeology” and the doing of it. Its an active thing you see. Its doing archeologiy in the active sense. Being an archeologist is more than just reading 10 books and getting a degree. Its a way of thinking and doing and living. I felt the most connected those days with friends, family. It just seemed I had it all engaged.

Anyways, Theo and I still take time to talk and its always good. We remember those moments and others. I remember desert moments that Theo never lived through. I seem to dwell more on archeology sometimes. I think I secretly miss it more than what I admit to.

Such it is. It was lesser than and more than and equal to. It was a time of being, a solitary endeavor filled with notables and less than. Some folks I met, I would not choose to be around again. Others though seemed more than. The space they occupied was like one of those burgers. Super-sized.

I started thinking again about it flying back from North Carolina for some reason.Then I remembered that my wife is taking me to the volunteer day at Cal. I get to wander a museum collection. I get to see old friends named Boaz and Kroeber. I get to remember and feel trapped but free.

Way back when, when I first studied anthropology; I read about these things called cultural universals. It was an interesting set of ideas that Murdock, Strauss, and others defined. They saw these as an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide. An interesting concept that provoked a lot of discussion in graduate school. The ones that these guys came up with include a whole bunch of language, social, myth and ritual concepts. The one I always thought as so important is music. Well perhaps after sex. But consider what we take for granted with music. It frames the human existance, gives us sets of meaning or lack thereof. Provides balance or imbalance. It lures us to reality or makes us fade out to idealism. We often talk about those artists that influence us at various stages of our lives. But I think our desire around this universal evolves and perhaps that’s an important concept along with the whole universal idea. The concepts themselves evolve and become to mean something different as we paddle the lives we own. You can see how the whole musical thing evolves in your own life. Remember some song that was important for some reason way back when. Have you heard it recently and had it suddenly dawn on you it shook your world? But now, your world is different so the music that shakes it is different.

I often think we don’t give enough to these universals and their importance. Whether we believe in them or not, the idea that they may evolve to become more important based on how our culture evolves is rather provocative. Lets face it, that there is nothing so constant as change.

So who shapes your world and who cracks the walls down so you can reach some other horizon? I like Eddie Vedder and the songs for Into the Wild myself. They bother me, irritate me, make me question. I like U2’s Joshua Tree album. It takes me back to a desert scape. I like Born to Run by Springsteen and finally I like Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

But just because you like a thing does not mean you can easily listen to it. Some of the music I like bothers me at a basic level. The music of Joan Baez still does. Harry Chapin makes me feel sad sometimes. His was a life snuffed out too early.

Its amazing how anthropologists take a small idea which may relate to something, drill into it, produce a idea which ties that small idea to other ideas that cross cultures. Here is a small and simple one I did. I was driving to work the other day and noticed that it was a beautiful day here. People were out walking their dogs. Then I noticed that of the six couples walking that five of the dogs were be held on the leash by the woman. It dawned one me that when my wife and I walk, I rarely hold the leash. Is that just strange? My wife attributes it to some remaining “anthropological synapses” that just won’t go away. I think its not so much the thing itself; but its the idea of the thing. Its a relationship thing between acts, ideas, beliefs, and behaviors.

Truth be told, I like finding things which perhaps other scoff at, admit seems less than interesting; but when you see things in a different perspective, it becomes interesting. Light years ago, I studied prehistoric spatial relationships amongst western desert hunter-gatherers. I had noticed with the years spent recording prehistoric cultural resources, that the number and size of prehistoric cooking pits and hearths grew. The hearths simply got bigger in size. I wondered whether there was some kind of cultural continuity going. Was it merely because the rocks degenerated and were replaced? Were there different uses for the different sized hearths?

Suddenly, I remembered this class I took at graduate school. It was on non-verbal communication. We studied the idea of proxemics or spatial relations between people. It was as if a light bulb started appearing. What if people expect so much distance between themselves sitting around a fire? What if the firepits grew because populations using the sites were growing? I started compiling the location of the larger firepits with other indicators of population size.

Its sad to say at this point, the whole thing fell apart for a variety of reasons. My tenure at the place ended under cloudy conditions. I was accused of filing erroneous expense vouchers by someone simply wanting my job there. It was ugly and I wanted out. I left this thing behind which still jabs at me every so often. I was so close to I think finding something that tied material culture to people and their lives. And I had to leave it behind.

Others have told me since it was not a big deal. Everything just changes and I should adapt. But to me it was not hearths. It was the people around the hearths and how they arranged themselves proxemically. It was a shattering revelation. Then it ended.

So… Its not the dogs either and the people walking them. Its something else. Its the ability to see a thing and process it with that remaining pair of “anthropological synapses”. I hope I never lose those. I’d hate to only ramble through life and never see the ties that bind.

A few times in the past years I’ve dwelt on what it meant to be an archeologist to me. What anthropology has meant and means to me. I think there must be more than a few armchair anthropologists and I’ve wondered how many people have moved on from doing archeology to other things. Its interesting that I still use the term “doing”. Its an active thing when you practice anthropology. I think of technology as more passive. Sciences like anthropology require one to be active in their pursuit. You do them because you love them, want them, desire what they have to offer. Perhaps I’m remembering this because Indiana Jones and the 4th movie are coming and I remember this day years ago going to the theater in Lancaster, CA all charged up with Indy and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. We all laughed when he said that line “its why we’re doing archeology” or whatever it was.

Now I tend to remember those days with some degree of desire of almost a love lost. I get buried in memories of those days sometimes and wander around only engaging in theoretical field surveys, walking at 30m separate. Listening to the quiet. Archeologists can be very solitary beasts but not when the professional meetings come up. Then all that repressed social energy comes bounding out. Beers are drunk, people are drunk.

Someone told me the chief advantage of growing older is to remember all the things and dwell a bit on those that might have been. Memories of the times get more cherished and we fade in and out of reality. We gather those memories like solitary flames burning on candles that light our path. Slowly but surely each of the flames of those days are snuffed out and we find ourselves with new flames, new desires. Careers tend to move on but I will always be an anthropologist. I’ll always think and feel and do it. its a active not a passive. If you have never done it, you will never know and movies and docu-dramas cannot get you close. Its a unique thing to touch human past, try to interpret with an imperfect record what culture, life, society, religion may have been.

I would say if you ever get a chance to take a field class and you’re curious. Do it. You most likely will meet this interesting new breed unlike any other new breed. Technology and IT and Services and Linux and it all pales in comparison. Its archeology and I miss it.