In the past three decades, advances in methods from excavation to analysis have painted a captivating fresh portrait of Neanderthals, our closest relatives. Here are 10 things we’ve learned.
Archaeology
12 posts
Archaeologists, whether willingly or unwittingly, have played a role in promoting colonialist structures that oppress indigenous people in countries around the world. Nowhere has this been more evident today than in El Petén, Guatemala.
Oral tradition influences the way people interact with the social and physical world around them and transmits knowledge and institutions that affect cultural norms, behavior, and the environment.
We should not expect COVID-19 to behave in the same way as historical pandemics of plague. But both show how inequalities exacerbate mortality outcomes.
Preservation and dissemination of data are at the heart of efforts to digitize and make accessible collections of legacy data from archaeological excavations.
Geoarchaeological analyses in New York Harbor reveal intriguing evidence of past oceanic transgression even as we fortify our coasts for the future.
It is true that the moon landing did not do much for archaeology. Yet, the space program and the space race, the military-industrial complex of the late 1950s and 1960s, along with other lines of research, created the fundamentals of what we use in spatial technology in archaeology today.
How can we build a diverse and inclusive archaeology when the unequal access to our discipline starts at such a young age? If we want to understand the nuances of human history, we must make sure it is not about rich white people . If you run public outreach programs, I invite you to think carefully about to whom you direct these programs, and who shows up, and make a change to broaden your audience. If we each do our part, we can build a discipline that is as diverse as the past peoples that we study.
There is more than one way to eat a dovekie in northern Greenland: they can be eaten frozen, boiled, or whole (excluding the feet and beak). In the past, many dovekies were prepared and stored for the long winter in one of two ways. First, a hunter could simply cache the birds under stones to keep hungry foxes and dogs at bay.
Lynne Goldstein has enjoyed a distinguished archaeological career, and numerous archaeological projects, publications, and committees benefit from her dedication and enthusiasm for the field.
The Archaeology Division of the AAA received a Community Engagement grant from the AAA Section Assembly Executive Committee to help support a two-part event that will take place at the Annual Meeting and at the adjacent Tech Museum of Innovation.