What would YOU want? (And a lesson from Royal Tenenbaum)

Hello again, fellow archaeology students. This weeks blog prompt really got me thinking (as I suppose it is meant to) and immediately reminded me of all of the times we, as kids, would ask each other what we would want if, or rather when, we died. I realize this sounds pretty morbid for kids to discuss, but having known many people who had passed on, death was something I pondered as a kid and much more as a teenager. At one point, I even wrote a will. Just in case. Needless to say, it is horribly out-dated and didn't need to be used.

To attempt to answer the first point, I will have to try to explain my personal opinion regarding burial and funerary practices. Of all of the loved ones I have known to pass, I have only attended one funeral, and though there was grieving and mourning, it was a party! We danced, there was a trampoline, plenty of drink (naturally), and everyone was able to bring themselves to share laughs and happier memories. This all happened because "it was what he would have wanted". And ever since that experience, I have wondered that same thing, and made it quite clear what I would want. This is probably the most personal blog entry I have ever written, but at least now the internet knows what to do with me when I go. C'est la vie!

To make this more interesting, and to answer question two, I have decided to test my partner's and my sister's knowledge of me and ask them what they think I would want and would properly represent me. Here's the comparison...

Arielle's Funeral and Related Grave Goods: According to My Sister

"I would include the pendants and rings you wear every day and put them in a leather pouch you keep crystals in. Feathers. Crystals. An acorn branch with oak leaves, a gingko leaf, and a lock of my hair to give you a part of me"

(I have tattoos for the aforementioned leaves. Pretty thoughtful sister, huh? *tear*)

Arielle's Funeral and Related Grave Goods: According to Danny

"I would bury you with your crystals and something of me to take with you, but really I know you wouldn't want to buried. I'd cremate you in the woods."

Arielle's Funeral and Related Grave Goods: According to Arielle

As I am guessing it is illegal to simply be buried in a hole in the woods without a casket, I would want to be cremated and spread in the forest or in a stream. I suppose to include grave goods, I would be buried in the forest at the base of a large tree, with trinkets buried with me. To be honest, I didn't expect this to get quite so personal, but here we go:

My grave goods would contain assorted crystals and gems from my collection. There are certain stones I would want passed on, and others could return to the earth with me. Apart from these stones, the only material items I possess that really identify me as me would be my jewelry; a long chain with 5 silver pendants which I have worn nearly every day for 6 years, but a part me would want those passed on too. The only other things I would want with me would be a bushel of forget-me-nots, though I don't think those would preserve very well. Sorry, archaeologists, I'm not giving you much to work with, but then again, I'm sure some people don't want to be found once they've moved on.

I feel like, at least for those places and cultures that are experiencing disintegration of traditional values and religious customs, the number of traditional burials containing those few trinkets locked away in caskets will decline. Or is it in our nature to want to be remembered? Somehow solidified in that moment in time, with pieces left of you to prove you were there and what you did was real. Whatever the case for the future, it seems more of me will be left by others than what I'd leave for myself. So, to end this very long blog post, I turn to Royal Tenenbaum, to remind us that what we find isn't always true, but maybe it's what they wanted :)

Sacred Stones and Incredibly Cranky Blogs

Where to begin with the comparison of these two texts... Maybe I'll grade them.

A+ to Ramilisonina for answering the interviewers questions with some poise while remaining engaging. As an archaeologist, Ramilisonina presents his findings clearly and cohesively, but does stray a bit into inference from the get-go. As a student of archaeology, I've been forewarned time and time again of just how much of this discipline is interpretation. While I can follow Ramilisonina's train of thought in linking stone megaliths in Madagascar to "Bluestonehenge, and would love for that story to be true (it's more fun to weave a story), I believe a bit more caution could be used in interpreting this site. For instance, what else was found at "Bluestonehenge" to lead to this interpretation? Was it simply the stones themselves? Personally, I want to know more about the primary findings at this site, though I hope this response was much more pleasant (and polite) than the blog response below:

C- to Luciano, whose blog response was basically what I said above, only an order of magnitude less polite. Let's start here: "Clearly it is incredibly difficult to transpose or import a belief system from Madagascar into a UK-based neolithic community, but this appears to be what Mike Parker Pearson has done, in conjunction with Ramilisonina." Though in the past year of my studies I have been shown the ugly face of academia, also known as academic papers, I personally believe that much of the emotion found in this particular text is unnecessary. To further my point, here's another reminder of a little gem: "...has invented the Stonehenge "domain of the dead" as an explanation for what he as found (or imagined)..." WHAT. Though part of me agrees with Luciano from an archaeological point of view, his means of expressing it take away from his point. 'Nuff said.

I realize I probably should have been focussing more so on the archaeological evidence shown by these two texts, but THIS is how academic arguments SHOULD be...

Introductions!

Hello fellow archaeologists! Welcome to my blog. Though I'm sure many people were dreading this portion of the class, I hoo-rah-ed at the opportunity to get a little creative and share my thoughts and experiences within the world of archaeology with the rest of you!

Although I've already done the intro post for this class, what better way to begin a blog by introducing yourself further! I'm Arielle! I am still fairly new to the island and to UVic, as I moved here from Calgary (yes, I'm a prairie gal) just last summer for school and love. I began my Anthropology degree at UofC, focussing mainly on primatology, but after diving deeper into archaeology and particularly, faunal analysis, I was swayed! Currently, I live with my partner and my puppy in a house with a great big garden and shelves dedicated to my bone collection. Most of my days are spent playing with the dog (year and a half pup), going on hikes, and finding forest treasures. I also love to knit and make art and costumes for summer festivals.

As for an academic future.. I'd love to continue on to grad school but who knows where I'll go. My main focus and love is in faunal analysis, so really, all I want is a lab where people send me bones and I get to hang out with them all day, getting cabin fever, trying to solve the mystery that are bone fragments. That's the dream.

This class was irresistible to me for many different reasons.. First, because human bones actually freak me out a little, and I think taking a class in which I have to stare at them a lot is a good way to move past that. Second, prehistoric ceremonial practices intrigue me and I think there is a lot more to these ancient people than we give credit. Archaeology can be a frustrating field, because really, how do we ever know anything? We can never ask.. We must infer. This freedom of interpretation is inviting to me and I hope to get great feedback on my own hypothesis through this blog!

Thanks for reading all of this! I hope to meet you all soon and can't wait to creep on all of your blogs too.


--Arielle HB

Here I am on a bone-hunt. SUCCESS! This was a deer skeleton in good old Alberta.

Here is one of the first skulls I ever found.. Decorated with dried leaves and flowers.

This is my puppy Piko. She also goes by Piko-chu, Pikomonster, Piko-de-Mayo, and Machu-Piko.

These are my two favourite creatures. My partner and my pup on a hike!