A dachsund wearing chainmail

A dachsund wearing chainmail. That is all. Via Copyranter.

Live like a cave man - in Dick Clark's Flintstones house

Dick Clark had a caveman house in Malibu? And it's for sale?! Time to dust off those Flintstones fantasies. Yours for only $3.5 million. Per the LA Times:

The unusual architectural retreat sits on a mountaintop within a nearly 23-acre site. Free-form walls punctuated with expanses of glass bring in ocean views. The one-bedroom, two-bathroom custom house, which has the interior ambience of a bright cave, has vaulted ceilings in the living and dining rooms, a fireplace and a wine cellar.

The 'paleo lifestyle' doesn't get any better than this. Drink in the pictures. 

Faces of Meth: Archaeology Edition

USA Today reports that methamphetamine users now make up a substantial proportion of archaeological looters in the United States:

Alone among survey respondents, U.S. archaeologists described methamphetamine addicts as often responsible for looting, in 18 states. A 2005 Bureau of Land Management report has noted "many" suspects arrested for thefts from federal archaeological sites also ran meth "labs". And Archaeology Magazine in 2009 noted more reports of meth lab operators stealing Anasazi relics. In the survey, Proulx collected comments such as "Meth nuts are the relic collectors," from one Arkansas researcher, as well as similar ones in California, Oregon and Southeastern states.
"The survey started to get these comments from U.S. archaeologists, just popping out of the responses," Proulx said. She suggests that since meth labs are often found in isolated areas, just like archaeological sites, geographical coincidence may explain the complaints. Meth addicts are known for repetitive behavior and may find digging at sites soothing, she adds in the study.

Digging is "soothing" to the tweaker. I like that. USA Today is reporting research by Blythe Proulx in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice (November 2011), which found that North American archaeologists reported high incidences of drug-related looting and crime at archaeological sites (the whole issue, which focuses on antiquities crimes, is worth a look - if you have access).

The research confirms other reporting, like this piece in Boing Boing from as far back as 2005.  Archaeology Magazine reported a similar story in 2009. Drugs, gun-running, and antiquities looting go together in the American west, but not all the crimes are equally punished:

The involvement with drugs is a mixed bag for officers who specialize in cultural resource crime. On one hand, meth makes the looters careless and more likely to make mistakes (though paranoia may temper that). But once a suspect is caught, looting offenses take a back seat to drugs charges--violators of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act face two years in prison, but only if the value of the artifacts exceeds $500, while drugs and firearms carry much steeper penalties. Bowman and others also wonder how well-equipped narcotics officers are to notice, assess, or know what to do with antiquities they find. Some, especially federal agents in the Southwest, know to call in specialists. That is not always the case. 

Drug cases can make it easier to recover artifacts--suspects relinquish them more easily when they have drug cases hanging over them--- --but also encourage prosecutors to plead out or simply drop looting cases. The result is that there is little additional risk for a tweaker or drug dealer to diversify into the antiquities trade. Furthermore, the looting-meth connection is difficult to quantify--looting alone is nearly impossible to assess accurately--complicating policy-making. And many still see looting as a victimless crime.

For some of the gory 'faces of meth' photos made famous by the Multnomah County Sherriff's Department, click here or here. Today's tweakers, tomorrow's looters!

Blogina Lente

I've been on a bit of a blog holiday this winter. After a few years of regularly tending the garden I needed a few months to let the weeds grow. 'Blogina lente', one might say, after the Latin festina lente ('make haste, slowly').

Blogging is a strange form of writing, since it's amenable to so many paces of writing. In a newspaper a change in volume of an order of magnitude would be unthinkable. But I've seen blogs with 3 posts a year, 30, 300, or even 3000 (that's 4 orders of magnitude!). As an author, it's a strange kind of pressure knowing that in some sense the volume of your output is what keeps the readers coming back. This blog still feels personal enough that churning out posts simply to have more posts feels wrong. Yet I feel a tension between the intimacy of the blog-space and my responsibility to the readers who are kind enough to come back, and tell me that they enjoy what goes up here.

Anyhow, I hope I haven't lost any of you regulars. Many interesting things are in the pipeline. Come back soon!   

Gaming: Let's Play Ancient Greek Punishment!

From perverse game designer Pippin Barr comes the game you've all been waiting for: Ancient Greek Punishment! Choose from Prometheus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, the Danaids, or Zeno, and relive their thrilling punishments. This is a game you could literally play forever. Makes me feel nostalgic for playing some games on my Apple IIc. Click here to get started!

My boy Prometheus, punished for his mantic pretensions.

Our boy Sisyphus. Only a few more feet to go!

Links January 18

Been traveling the last few weeks. Some belated links to a variety of archaeopop subjects...

The New York Times asks, "What's up with all the UNESCO sites?" A good introduction to the problems of WHL listing.

“The dark side, of course, is consumption,” said Francesco Bandarin, assistant director-general of Unesco and head of its World Heritage Center, speaking of the consumerism that so often surrounds heritage sites. “And consumption and preservation do not go together.” If a site is “within an hour of a harbor,” he added, “it becomes inundated by a flood of tourism and geysers of money.” 

The post-eviction archaeology of Zuccotti Park (OWS-Archaeology). Some objects are now curated at the Columbia archaeology lab! 

The first thing I noticed was change. Lots and lots of change: pennies and nickles mostly. Going through the gutters taking pictures of objects in situ before picking them up attracted attention and as I got to talk with a number of people I learned that earlier that morning (I arrived around 8:30am) people had already been seen picking up change. This would explain the lack of quarters and dimes.

How to downsize a transportation network: the Chinese wheelbarrow (Low Tech Magazine, h/t Exiled). Invented 1000 years before the European model, still more efficient. This 'European technological superiority' thing is a historical blip.

Fascinating historical research on the relationship between education and industrialization (VoxEU)

Peru's Culture Minister (was) Susana Baca

Clarification: I was late to this one. With the resignation of the Prime Minister and reshuffling of the Peruvian cabinet in mid-December, Baca was replaced as Minister of Culture by Luis Peirano Falconí, a professor of communication studies at the Pontificial Catholic University of Perú. Good luck to Prof. Peirano.

From The Guardian. Susana Baca!



Chosen in July by President Ollanta Humala, Baca is Peru's first Minister of Afro-Peruvian descent. It's a joy to see a giant of culture actually in charge of culture, but I can't say I envy her: being a great artist and being a great administrator are, shall we say, different skill sets. I hope she can find a way to juggle her career while looking after the nation's culture. Not to mention its overworked archaeological sites!



Negra presuntuosa indeed. Bring 'em on, the world could use many more.