Stephen Bodio's Querencia

We've just finished the current phase of fieldwork out in the Imperial Valley and I'll try to do some catch up posts to talk about some of our finds. My apologies for my long pause in posting.


We found quite a few groundstone artifacts on our survey. Above you can see a mano (hand stone) and metate (grinding slab) found on the surface next to each other. The Kamia who lived in the area in late Prehistory, were opportunistic farmers who grew maize and beans and used the manos and metates to grind corn meal.

If you look closely at this fine slab metate you can see the pecking scars that were used to shape it and to "sharpen" it after use. The glassy-smooth ground surface of the metate would have to be roughened periodically to more efficiently grind corn.

This picture shows an unusual discoidal shaped mano. In addition to maize, these implements were also used to process various wild plant seeds as well as mesquite beans.

This last find really surprised us. You see me in the picture above holding a large pestle. It's very heavy and made of granite that must come from the mountains twenty miles or more west of where we found it on the desert floor.

Stone mortars and pestles are representative of acorn processing technology that is very common in the non-desert portions of California. The Kumeyaay who lived in the mountains where this pestle came from, processed acorns from the oaks that grew there, and traded the meal for maize with the Kamia who lived down here in the desert and had no oaks of their own.

This pestle would have been pretty useless where we found it. It was found all by itself, no other artifacts or features in association. As heavy as it is and as far as it had been carried, you can just imagine someone on a hot day a few hundred years ago dropping it and saying, "I not carrying this thing another step!"

The NY Times has a piece today on seaweed quids that have been discovered at a 14,000 year old level at the site of Monte Verde in Chile. Monte Verde is about 50 miles from the coast, so this shows that there was travel to the coast or trade with people who lived there.

Tom Dillehay, the lead researcher at the site, asserts that this discovery supports the coastal migration theory for the population of the New World, a topic we have discussed here many times. I suppose you could say that, but only very indirectly. Demonstrating that people were familiar with the coast and its resources during this period of the peopling of the New World might indicate that they traveled down that way. I find discoveries like Arlington Man from the Channel Islands in California (who dates a few hundred years after the Monte Verde finds) more convincing proof of Paleoindian seafaring.

(Update: why tomatoes go quickly once they turn...)

Frantically working on a book proposal, but still surfing. Here are a few links for fun and annoyance...

I am with the Codger on this one: can't fault a tame bear for acting like a bear. More fatalistic societies don't:

"When an elephant kills its mahout in Sri Lanka and India, new mahouts clamor to take over. I co-advised a masters student who studied the macho phenomenon among Sri Lankan mahouts, and she found that 34% of mahouts said they would prefer a killer elephant to a non-killer. Why? Because they would gain status among their peers, and because the elephants' owners would be less likely to interfere with their work."

Julie Zickefoose visits the Fuertes paintings at Cornell. if you ever get a chance, go. Especially good on raptors of course.

WEIRD stuff on pigeon navigation (and by extension migration.) We knew they could detect magnetic fields: now they can see them?

And please run "Quantum Zeno effect" by me again...

"This is a known quantum effect, an utterly scientific version of "a watched pot never boils" - the more you observe such a statistical quantum process, the slower it gets, because each time you check you redefine the particle as absolutely being where it is. It's like driving the family car, but every time a kid asks "Are we there yet?" you get teleported back to where you started."

This NYT piece by Natalie Angier discusses our human tendency to make heroes and villains out of animals in nature. While some controls may be needed to re- balance situations that we have affected, I always have a soft spot for starlings, pigeons, crows, gulls and other "weeds".

Gary Nabhan has a new book coming on local and endangered food plants and animals. It is on my list!

Could Alzheimer's be a form of Diabetes?

Food and Big Nanny: the politics of raw milk (HT Bittman.) Sure there are dangers, but.. pasteurizing and, now, putting bugs back in because we need them? Hmmmm. Good quote:

"But grass-eating cows have become so rare that, to California health officials, they seemed unnatural. The norms of industrial dairying had become so deeply ingrained that a regulator could jump to the conclusion that all milk is dirty until pasteurized."

"Horrible Creeping Statism" as Peculiar says: apparently MANY states(twenty including NM) allow you to be asked for your papers on the street-- and the Supreme Court agrees! HT hb of Monadology, in our comments.

And finally, Andrew Stuttaford joins the chorus against Ben Stein's anti- science movie and silly- ass interviews, quoting Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man:

"It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”

A friend recently gave us some antelope tenderloin, shot with a bow in Wyoming last fall. I grilled it last night, along with some venison sausage that my wife added to her catch-all pasta and feta dish. A Meat-lovers Tuesday.

Having never grilled this particular critter, I kept it simple: cut to small steaks, let sit overnight in olive oil, pinch salt, ground pepper and red pepper flakes. I grilled on low for about 20 minutes, turning every 5 and basting frequently with clarified butter and a little Mr. Stubbs. Result? Tender enough to eat with a fork (although we ate most of it with our hands) and delicious. Now I know why they have to run so fast.

This morning our reader Arthur Wilderson forwarded two links of interest, here and here. The first begins a discussion of "meatless meat," the Soylent Green concoction some posit as a substitute for animal protein. Evidently PETA is offering $1 million to the first mad scientist who invents the stuff.

The second is a discussion thread from a hunters' group who wonder if there's anything they wouldn't kill? Shades of our question about eating dogs, below. However, read a few comments--some are quite unusual. Hard to imagine what sort of hunters' group this might be?

Samples:

"Some animals I would kill in a pinch for food, but there are a few different species that I simply will not kill at all. Primarily, rabbits, chipmunks and skunks. For one, I am not fond of eating scavengers, none of them taste good IMO and I really have a soft spot for all 3..."

Rabbits? My daughters share your soft spot for them, but both agree with me they're delish!

And these folks (some of them "senior members" of the hunting group) seem somewhat conflicted.

"Me being quite squeamish when dealing with the blood and guts part of hunting, I stick to varmints...."

"I don't like the taste of any game save it be fish. Yes, I know that someone has a recipe that would make me change my mind but I've tried most of them and just don't like it. I used to hunt, elk, deer, pheasant, duck, dove and most any game that Utah has to offer. I found that I usually had to find someone to give my kill to as I didn't want to eat it. This typically wasn't a problem there is usually someone you are hunting with that will take the game. I guess for lack of a better description I had a streak of morality hit me..."

"I'm not really a fan of hunting ducks because they mate for life. Just seems weird. Not against other people doing it by any means, just not my thing. Don't really like bird hunting at all, come to think about it..."

Huh! Sounds like there might be a larger market for meatless meat than I thought!

Many readers seem to have responded to my Amazon Wish List, but only a couple- Lauren's Colin Simms and Mike's Joe Brown-- have come in yet. Books by mail are notoriously slow, but I shall personally thank each donor as they come in, and review every one.

I also have some non- gift reviews coming up-- for instance, Ray Troll and Kirk Johnson's wonderful Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, which I found via Brian Switek at Laelaps. (Troll is an old acquaintance from Bozeman days, when he worked the book and museum circuit there.)

Finally, with a little luck, some gun, falcon, and writing blogging- all yet in flux....

Cat Urbigkit provides a splendid sequence of a young Bald eagle taking a shot at a Merganser.

Labels: eagles, Raptors

Tom McIntyre (his most recent book is here) sent this You Tube of a Saker falcon attempting to catch a hare in Arabia. It is much like we do, except that WE still use salukis to help (ok, Asian tazis) and we don't chase the hare with the truck!



The hare still gets away though-- which also happens with us more often than not.

Labels: Falconry

Busy busy busy which is good, but lots of stuff out there as well...

The BBC discovers that places with guns are more peaceful and safe than London, though they can't quite believe it. HT Reid.

Relatedly, the Atomic Neds have a pleasant encounter in Los Alamos. I agree- if you have pistols at all you MUST have a 1911.

Alphecca links to a great quote, from Canada no less: "Gun control is the only kind of policy that we have where the proponents of it will point to its utter failure as evidence that we need even more of it."

Paleontology: any of us who follow dinosaurs or have an elementary knowledge of cladistics know that T- Rex and birds are more closely related to one another than either is to lizards or snakes, but public opinion is beginning to catch up, albeit with cutesy headlines. Brian at Laelaps provides some only slightly exasperated clarifications.

Humans nearly became extinct 70,000 years ago-- they definitely achieved endangered species status, at least. They also nearly split into two species. Some classical speciation and origins stuff going on here. (HT David Zincavage for the second.)

Archaeology: Peculiar & Mrs. visit a spooky Gallinas culture ruin. These stones would tell strange tales, I suspect, and mysteries still abound. Their neighbors didn't like them, all trails turned away, and virtually every one found was murdered. A bit about them in this good book.

"Do as I say..."? From an essay in the Boston Globe(!): "This year [RFK Jr. is] pushing wind farms, as far as the eye can see. You mean he no longer opposes the Cape Wind project off Uncle Teddy's mansion on Cape Cod? Not a chance! Kennedy wants to plant wind farms all across states like North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas. No Beautiful People live there."

HT Annie Hocker-- RTWT. Though I must add that I see fur as pretty green...

AR, Nanny state and other offenses: Mike Spies sends the good news that dog owners in LA are fighting back. According to the American Sporting Dog Alliance (anyone have a link to the actual story?):

"...Concerned Dog Owners of California filed a lawsuit this week against the City of Los Angeles, seeking to overturn a new ordinance mandating the spaying and neutering of all dogs.

"The lawsuit is primarily based on constitutional grounds, and alleges that the ordinance violates the civil rights of dog owners in several ways.

"The American Sporting Dog Alliance believes that the importance of this lawsuit extends far beyond the City of Los Angeles. It marks the first of several anticipated legal challenges to onerous laws and ordinances as dog owners turn to the courts to fight for their rights on constitutional grounds. This lawsuit is based on legal issues that exist in every state."

Here is a link to a story that is pretty funny on some levels. But what the story AND MOST COMMENTERS seem to miss is: you need to present your papers if stopped in New York City??

"Pliss to present your papers, Kamerad.."

Molon labe.

And of course, Random Weirdness. From Doc H: Purple Hair and Bad SF covers; which leads directly to: Imaginary Romance Novel Covers-- the funniest thing I have seen this month. This one's for you, Rebecca.

Labels: Roundup of Usual Suspects

My cousin Marnie, recalling the chat about sustainability we enjoyed over pricey cappuccino at a seaside resort last summer, sent this recent piece by Michael Pollan.

Marnie writes: "Either Michael Pollan is channeling you or you are channeling him, and you're both channeling Wendell Berry."

Pollan's piece quotes my hero WB in defense of virtue as a dissapearing commodity in American culture and specifically on the virtue of self-reliance that planting a garden embodies. Pollan, who writes often about his own gardening, sees that effort as a more substantive response to climate change concerns than say, changing a light bulb.

After seeing Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth,' Pollan says the most frightening moment for him came after the closing credits, "when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart."

Pollan develops his theme in an effort to explain why, after we've given away so much personal responsibility to various specialists ("...our meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the environment to the environmentalist, political action to the politician...") we are left with such pitiful "solutions" as switching to other kinds of light bulb or auto fuel as the only actions we might successfully take on our own behalf.

"Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it. "

Wendell Berry's writing and thinking, suggests Pollan, points to a better way:

"[Berry is] impatient with people who wrote checks to environmental organizations while thoughtlessly squandering fossil fuel in their everyday lives — the 1970s equivalent of people buying carbon offsets to atone for their Tahoes and Durangos. Nothing was likely to change until we healed the 'split between what we think and what we do.' For Berry, the 'why bother' question came down to a moral imperative: 'Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.'"

Amen, Brother Wendell!

But what a shame that Mr. Berry needs a spokesman. I read the Pollan piece and wrote back to my cousin:

Berry is the prophet of our age. You’ll see him quoted more and more over the next decade, I’m sure. And after he is safely dead (also likely in same period), his lauding by pundits and politicians of every stripe will soar. Somewhere in the ground on a Kentucky hillside, Wendell will be spinning in his grave.

I think Pollan is an important figure and I enjoy reading him. He speaks for the urban/yuppie set for whom references to carbon footprints, hybrid SUVs and fair trade lattes have real-time relevance. That demographic (which is mine, to some extent) needs him. But Berry himself does not need translating. If you read his novels you’ll enjoy them and understand them perfectly. If you read his essays you’ll feel empowered and inspired and ashamed, all without needing anyone to parse out the reasons for it. I am getting into his poetry and theology now and know there’s yet another opportunity here for enjoyment and enlightenment.

We did get a garden in this year, but it’s small. We’ve got 7 tomato plants, 2 basil and 2 peppers. But these are the things we will actually eat, so we’ll get a good return on investment. I’d like to keep it going this year into the fall and winter with salad greens, just to experiment. As for “giving up the beef,” we’ve largely done that but still of course eat meat. We ate a lot of local game this year (including last night's grilled deer sausage) and will be eating more I suspect as the economy tanks.