Because history gives meaning to places, I have looked closely at reconstructing the history of Frontenac Island. This appears to be a very long and eventful history.
The NYSAA 100th Anniversary Meeting is Coming Up!
Frontenac, Island of History
“My Name Is El Niño. You Can Blame Me For Everything.”
The Funk Foundation’s New Grant Cycle
The Robert E. Funk Memorial Archaeology Foundation, Inc. is initiating a 2016 grant application and funding cycle for grants of up to $2,000.00. The Funk Foundation grants support archaeological research in New York State, and are ideal to assist stand-alone research projects or studies that are parts of larger projects. For example, Funk Foundation grants have been used successfully to support a range of services such as faunal analysis, radiocarbon dating, petrographic slides, and remote sensing. Grant applications must be received by April 15, 2016. The grant application will be reviewed by the Funk Foundation Board of Directors with award decisions made by June 15, 2016. For the 2016 grant cycle, we intend to fund grants for two applicants. For each grant award, the Foundation will issue a check to the recipient for 80% of the grant amount when the grant is awarded. The final 20% will be paid when the completed report of the grant research is received. Further information including the grant application forms is found on the Funk Foundation website at www.funkfoundation.org. The 2016 grant application forms will be posted during March, 2016. If you have any questions, please email Funk Foundation President Ed Curtin at ecurtin12003@yahoo.com, or call Ed at (518) 884-7102.
Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc.— Who We Are
A Hudson Valley Writer on the Ancient Custom of Christmas
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).
If a Monster Hid Among You…
If a monster hid among you, what would you do? Embedded in this story is another, a story from deep in tribal oral history, a memory of an era when Joe’s Ojibwe ancestors lived on the plains during a time of great hunger. It is a story of community law from the pre-reservation days. It is a story of the youth of Nanapush, a recurring Erdrich character from the beginning of her fictional history. In this starving time, the small community feared the presence of a windigo, a neighbor or family member secretly turned cannibal whose identity is unknown, but who must be found out and dealt with before killing (or further killing) takes place. Nanapush’s tale, repeated across the generations, is one of ancient law in which the customary application of justice may be problematic but provides a precedent nonetheless.
Review of Lives in Ruins by Marilyn Johnson
Getting ready for a short Adirondack vacation, I packed the usual: more books than I could possibly read in 2 or 3 days. What does an archaeologist bring on vacation to read? Dusty old tomes containing hidden gems embedded in dull recitations of fact? No. I packed In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins, and Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The Lamoka Lake Site, Schuyler County, New York: Was There a Southern Connection?
Lamoka-like stone projectile point technology is not just coastal, but may involve other conditions of a widespread nature (involving access to quarries, or the adoption of technology useful when the acquisition of high quality stone sources required too much time and travel). These conditions would suit immigrant communities if indigenous people controlled the quarry-chert sources. However, Lamoka-like technology is not necessarily diagnostic of immigration, as pebble sources of chert and other knappable stone are widespread in the Northeast, and could have been adopted by indigenous or coalescent native and immigrant communities in order to exploit local stone.