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Victor Talking Machine Company Publication whatwehearinmusi00oberiala on Archive. Prehistoric Music of Ireland.
Stroud, Gloustershire, United Kingdom: Nez Perce Tribe Guide to the Nez Perce Music Archive: A Legacy from Sam Morris. Northwest Interpretive Association Chicago University Press Publication apachelifewayeco00ople on Archive. Flutes of the World — and their stories …, Second Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Yuccas, Agaves, Butterflies and Flute Players: Additionally, we concur with our colleagues e. But what about cases where the research questions being asked are somewhat modest when compared with the enormity of available data?
One might naturally assume that an abundance of data would permit researchers to swiftly dispatch research questions of comparatively lower-orders of complexity, but as Trevor Barnes Thus, increasing the size of any dataset simultaneously amplifies the volume of meaningless noise as well, and as statistician Nate Silver Without sufficient understanding of how certain data will be marshaled to answer specific research questions, distinctions between useful data and noise become blurred, obscuring meaningful insights within needlessly bloated datasets.
Too often it appears that some researchers have been seduced into believing that by applying the growing array of analytical techniques to ever larger datasets, answers to as yet unformulated research questions will miraculously appear. However, if postmodernism left us with only one nagging intellectual legacy, it is the realization that numbers — like knowledge of any kind — are never produced in a vacuum.
As eloquently stated by Barnes Furthermore, as Bruno Latour Thus, without the development and implementation of adequate research designs and information management plans prior to initial data collection, archaeologists and other researchers run the risk of overwhelming themselves and needlessly complicating their ability to address even modest research questions in the era of big data Burger and Todd ; Isaksen et al. To illustrate this point, we wish to examine the particular history of archaeological practice in the southeastern United States, emphasizing that the present era is not the first in which American archaeologists have sought to make use of big data.
Several historical overviews of archaeology in the southeastern United States suggest that until the last decade of the twentieth-century the region contributed little to larger theoretical debates within the discipline as a whole Bense ; Brown ; Brown ; Dunnell ; Fagette ; Loren and Wesson ; Watson ; White This parochialism has been ascribed to both a unique form of regional pragmatism and a reluctance to chase the latest theoretical fashion du jour Dunnell Never satisfied with excavation strategies like the stratigraphic telephone booths derided by Kent Flannery Such practices have invariably resulted in massive collections of artefacts, field notes, maps, and laboratory analysis worksheets in those cases where analysis was actually undertaken.
Thus, prior to the development of the computing hardware and software necessary to manage such datasets see Lock Although what constitutes big data in archaeological research is notoriously difficult to define see Harris The datasets that result from such investigations are several orders of magnitude larger than those recovered in the majority of archaeological investigations.
As Martin Wobst However, since the majority of current archaeological investigations in the United States and Europe are contract-based i. Thus, the overwhelming majority of archaeological investigations presently conducted in the United States and Europe are of modest spatial extent and produce material assemblages that are commonly much smaller and less complex than those we define as falling into the category of big data. Although organized archaeological research in the southeast has a rich and complex history, like other regions of North America, before the s it was dominated by what Willey and Sabloff As they propose, most archaeological studies during these periods were devoted to describing significant attributes of artefacts, constructing culture trait lists, and building regional chronologies.
However, as Lyon This situation changed rapidly with the beginning of the Great Depression in As the United States struggled to solve an economic crisis that left more than a quarter of the its workforce unemployed an estimated 18 million people , endeavours that could employ large numbers of unskilled laborers became a critical priority for the federal government Fagette ; Lyon As Bernard Means a: Although the southeast was not the only area of the United States in which New Deal archaeological employment projects were undertaken see Means , a , b , it was the region that experienced the largest number of such projects.
Unfortunately, since these programs were designed primarily as vehicles for employing large numbers of unskilled laborers, the production of useful archaeological knowledge was a secondary concern for most government officials overseeing the programs that sponsored these investigations. Thus, there was always a critical shortage of trained archaeologists to supervise these massive projects and the armies of untrained workers they employed Dunnell Although established archaeologists like Fay Cooper Cole and Thorne Duel trained many project directors through the University of Chicago archaeological field school, there were always far too many workers to supervise and too much activity for every aspect of the fieldwork to be recorded adequately Lyon This is not to suggest that those archaeologists supervising these projects were not competent and dedicated professionals, or that the workers they supervised lacked the ability to quickly understand and adapt the demands of the work Sullivan et al.
Rather, in many cases it was simply that the projects were too large, and the number of trained supervisors too small, to ensure these every aspect of these investigations was successfully managed Cotter ; Dunnell Additionally, project budgets were devoted almost exclusively to fieldwork since it employed the largest crews, while funding for laboratory analysis, curation, and publication was always insufficient given the scale of these projects Dye ; Means a: These shortcomings were magnified with the advent of World War II, when most project personnel either joined the military or were reassigned to tasks considered more essential to the war effort.
Although there are some notable exceptions Caldwell ; Lewis and Kneberg analysis, interpretation, and publication of many major New Deal archaeology projects languished for more than five decades, if they were completed at all Boudreaux ; Hammerstedt Gendered readings of the New Deal emphasis on archaeological fieldwork identified more closely with males at the expense of laboratory work identified more closely with females has not gone without comment Claassen ; Sullivan Although women did participate directly in New Deal fieldwork Sullivan et al. Along with the diminished status assigned to laboratory work, United States involvement in World War II necessitated that most large-scale employment opportunities be redirected toward the war effort.
The Powers Phase Project was a multiyear archaeological program undertaken in southeastern Missouri by the University of Michigan in the late s and early Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology . Carvalhaes, C. (Ed.) (). Mississippian Community Organization: The Powers Phase in Southeastern Missouri - Michael J. O' The Powers Phase is the name given to a short-lived complex of communities (c. square kilometers of the Little Black River watershed of southeastern Missouri. Series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology.
Thus, it is of little wonder that many New Deal archaeological projects remained unpublished for decades because insufficient resources were devoted to the analysis of excavated materials a large number remaining unpublished. Furthermore, as we commonly tell undergraduate students, it is not unusual to devote at least three days of effort in the laboratory for every day spent in the field. As might be imagined, the trial-and-error method for perfecting field practices, particularly in situations where it was common to excavate entire sites, had impacts on both the quality and the inherent comparability of the data generated by these various projects.
However, many of our present archaeological research practices, including the recovery of macro- and microscopic plant and animal remains, the detailed mapping and photography of features, the use of standardized field and laboratory forms, and even the long-term curation of recovered materials, were developed as New Deal archaeologists attempted to improve the quality of their work Schroeder ; Sullivan et al. Unfortunately, these advancements in field methods occurred in an era with severe limitations in database construction and management.
Prior to the widespread availability of mainframe computing, archaeologists lacked the ability to examine the enormous amounts of data they generated and reveal their underlying multidimensional relationships Lock As Boyd and Crawford Investigations of sites such as Jonathan Creek in Kentucky, where a large multi-mound Mississippian community was almost completely uncovered during more than two years of continuous excavation, resulted in the publication of a brief summary site report of less than one hundred pages, produced more than a decade after excavations were completed Webb ; Schroeder , As a result of the challenges presented by organizing and analyzing these massive datasets, southeastern archaeologists commonly retreated to ceramic analysis, with other artefact classes frequently receiving less extensive examination Ford and Willey ; Griffin , ; Johnson Although ceramics are certainly important elements in examining the spatio-temporal dimensions of the past, as recent analyses of New Deal archaeology demonstrate, domestic and public architecture, community patterning, and other artefact classes derived from these investigations can also be used to address a range of critical research questions e.
The problem, of course, was that New Deal researchers had only limited abilities to organize and analyze their data when compared to contemporary scholars. How exactly was an archaeologist, supervising a multi-year project that employed hundreds of excavators, uncovering more than 10 hectares of a deeply stratified multi-component site, and recovering more than , individual artefacts, to organize all of this disparate information in the era before computing?
In truth, we are utterly amazed at the accomplishments of this generation of archaeologists given the severe limitations under which they worked. Following the conclusion of World War II, many of those involved in New Deal archaeology, like William Webb and David DeJarnette, helped create or expand university anthropology programs and archaeology museums throughout the southeast Fagette ; Lyon Even without a need to employ large field crews as make-work projects, these scholars continued to have an affinity for large-scale archaeological investigations in the post-Depression era.
In place of large crews, these investigations frequently made use of mechanical equipment to strip overburden and speed the process of identifying and excavating subsurface features.
In the end, rather than several weeks of minimally invasive site testing, we emerged with data from 12 years of archaeology that revealed more than 7 acres of the village. Although organized archaeological research in the southeast has a rich and complex history, like other regions of North America, before the s it was dominated by what Willey and Sabloff Time and Archaeology One World Archaeology. Unfortunately, these advancements in field methods occurred in an era with severe limitations in database construction and management. Like Means b , we believe these scholars have demonstrated that much important information remains to be gleaned from these older collections. People on the finish of the Ice Age chronicles and explores the importance of the diversity of cultural responses to the worldwide environmental adjustments on the final glacial-interglacial boundary. Although women did participate directly in New Deal fieldwork Sullivan et al.
Furthermore, these excavations were seen as essential for training students; convincing a younger generation of southeastern archaeologists that, when possible, multi-hectare horizontal exposures were the preferred method of field investigation. Although many of these projects were undertaken for their inherent research potential, others were part of post-war regional development efforts e.
Bareis and Porter ; Chapman ; Pritchard Thus, the construction of highways, dams, and other infrastructure projects encouraged a second wave of large-scale excavations in the southeast, despite the fact that in some states less than half of New Deal excavations had been completely analyzed and published Hammerstedt