Fieldnotes
An Archaeology and CRM Blog
Robert E. Funk in the field, Upper Susquehanna Valley, New York
Photo courtesy of the New York State Museum
The Robert E. Funk Memorial Archaeology Foundation, Inc. is now accepting proposals for grants for research in New York State archaeology. Grant applications must be received by May 7, 2018. The grant applications will be reviewed by the Funk Foundation Board of Directors in a competitive process with award decisions made by June 22, 2018. Further information including the grant application forms can be found on the Funk Foundation website at www.funkfoundation.org. If you have any questions, please email Funk Foundation Board President Ed Curtin at ed@curtinarchaeology.com, or call Ed at (518) 928-8813.
The 2018 grants are for amounts in the range of $1,000.00-$2,500.00. They are ideal to assist parts of stand-alone research projects or studies that are parts of larger projects. For example, Funk Foundation grants have been made to support a range of services such as faunal analysis, radiocrabon dating, petrographic slides, lithic analysis, and remote sensing. Funk Foundation grants do not support fieldwork other than technical applications such as remote sensing.
Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is from an 1820 book named The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The Sketchbook is a collection of Irving’s stories put together as a marketing strategy meant to undermine the pirating and unauthorized publishing of his individually released stories in England. It also contains a group of stories reporting on a fictionalized Christmas vacation spent in a remote English manor called Bracebridge Hall. Bracebridge Hall is the just the kind of place where ancient Christmas customs (fast-disappearing in a modernizing world) might be expected to survive, or even flourish under the guiding hand of an aged lord of the manor and the eager participation of the younger generations (I count two younger generations and various age-cohorts of children populating the Christmas festivities).
Manju Puri and Ramesh Giri are newlyweds living in Kathmandu, Nepal. Saturday, their lives were changed forever by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that destroyed their home and crumbled their city. I met the Puri family three years ago, while traveling, and they warmly welcomed me into their home. I got to know their family, and we seemed to adopt one another. Making a living has always been a struggle for them. Manju’s mother, father, younger sister, sister-in-law and niece all live in a small village in the district of Sindhupalchok. Brothers Rupak and Dipak live in Dubai and work to send money home to their family. Manju and Ramesh live in Ghaurighat, a suburb of Kathmandu and also work various jobs to add funds to the communal supply of money. For a family who by no means lives in excess, losing everything they did have is difficult to imagine.
