Michael Wilcox will be joining us from April 2015 as Atelier archivist and researcher. A retired archivist with a background in archaeology, he has been involved in several previous productions in the background but will now take on occasional research assignments relating to new productions.
Rio Sonora Fieldschool
Michael and I were delighted to be able to join in as participants in the Southwest Folklife Alliance’s Rio Sonora Fieldschool based in Banamichi Mexico this past June. The idea of filming the field program and its visits on a casual basis soon turned into a more serious project to carefully record each local visit and to record some important aspects of the teaching program. The little film made to date is just a taster for this longer record of the group’s work over the week, but it gives some sense of the mix of visits, hands on experience gained and some of the back and forth of our conversation with the community. It seemed to me right from the beginning that in drought stricken Sonora the fragile flow of water and how local people made the best possible use of it, as they did of other resources too, was one of the key themes of the field school, and as it turned out we could have paid even more attention to this, because a threat to the river was building even while we were there.
The water of the river and the spring in nearby hillsides is the life of this region as is so crucial in all the arid lands of the American southwest and the Mexican northwest- truly el agua es la vida, as a friend commented. In Arispe we heard something of the history of the old Opata settlements along the river and their encounter with Spanish missionaries who saw potential to develop a breadbasket and great orchards in this quiet regional of fertile soils. We saw a reminder of the prehistoric irrigation systems once used here in a large boulder bearing a map of such a system carved into it many centuries ago. The remains of great water powered 19th century mills which once ground the special Sonoran white wheat once grown here (before the agricultural revolution of the 1930’s closed them down) when larger scale commercial wheat production became feasible further south. We witnessed careful stewardship of resources as we visited local ranches, learned an eco-building project, the work of a cheesemaker, a carpenter making furniture using naturally downed trees, and others too. We heard stories about the water consumption of new mining operations in the area, and general concern about a lowered water table.
And all through our brief week in Banamichi the weather was scaldingly hot with days of up to 118 degrees fahrenheit challenging our determination to be out on local visits. All around us each day were the welcome sounds of local water, flowing in the acequias on the one day in 12 local small ranchers could take a share, trickling in the nearly dry river bed, flowing with less uncertainty on a very large ranch fortunate enough to be able to pump directly from the aquifer.
Finally on the 6th of June we headed north to Tucson with 8 hours of filmed footage and many memories.
Just a few weeks later we heard that the monsoons had come, blessing the southwest and northern Mexico with plenty of water at last. We saw friend’s pictures posted showing how overnight the Sonoran deserts were blooming and the rivers full.
But on August 6 a disastrous spill of industrial chemicals and heavy metals used in a mine operation near the head of the river began to silently poison the Rio Sonora watershed. Within a few days, as people realised what had happened, a scramble to control and contain the damage began. This has now become the subject of national and international attention. Tragically there were further spills in the fall, as inadequate containment systems continued to fail under the pressure of the heavy rainfall last summer. Mitigation remains an ongoing project, and the polluters of course were fined, sanctions brought, assistance sought and short term remedies patched the problems of polluted water, the deaths of wildlife and fish and immediate danger to the people of the region. However the load of heavy metals released by the spill remains in the river silt and moved towards the enclosed sea of the northern sea of Cortez.
For a brief introduction to the local economy and the potential dangers of the spill see this good short account by SWFA friend and former field school staff, Mexican anthropologist Ernesto Camou:
For a taster on the SWFA fieldschools and in particular on this one in Banamichi see the film short from the 2014 field school that we made.
For information about joining the next field school in the Rio Sonora:
Southwest Folklife Alliance in the Rio Sonora: Banámichi Fieldschool June 2014
-Teri
Refining a Pilot Film
Archaeology from the Ashes is a film short about wildfire and archaeology in California. It focuses on the San Diego back country, where a complex topography and a convoluted wildland/urban interface together with older fire suppression practices which are now widely questioned contributed to the ferocity of a string of wildfires between 2000 and 2010. One of the lesser explored stories about the wildfires that are endemic to the American West in general is the impact that they have on archaeology and historic or otherwise valued cultural sites. In this film the subject is explored in the Peninsular ranges of southern California especially around the Cuyamaca and Laguna mountains, and Palomar Mountain. This area takes in public lands under the management of several agencies as well as tribal and private lands, where fire destroyed cherished facilities and cultural sites including sacred sites, historic homes and youth camps.
These fires cause great losses of course, but also interestingly they often also reveal- previously unknown sites and specific types of archaeological finds. In their aftermath archaeologists are often able to see the historic and prehistoric landscape more clearly, at least temporarily. As one archaeologist explained, she sees the fires on wild land at least as being in some ways like the tides of the ocean, rolling in and out, regularly revealing things which are soon covered over by vegetation again. To observe this is not to ignore the damage that big fires can cause to the ecology of the land, to wildlife, to mature trees, to human habitations and general infrastructure.
Archaeological work also sometimes reveals the fire footprints and fire management practices of the past.
Few realise the role that archaeologists play in keeping the fire services informed about sites that need protection or special handling when possible during fires, or in doing post fire assessment of impact on the cultural resources of burned areas.
The original film short has been through a few iterations and may become a longer piece one day. However versions of the original, which was part of my MA dissertation at the University of Bristol in 2011 have been screened at Cambridge University, and at the University of Southern California as well as for several international festivals and events in recent years.
Light on a burned landscape.
West of the Taff
I have a little book project focused on Cardiff archaeology, legend and folklore. It is going more slowly than originally planned but working on the sections is giving me a chance to re-explore all sorts of archaeological legends and the odd corners of Cardiff folklore run into since first moving here in 1978. Some of them I used in teaching, or in working on other projects in interpretation, but I never wrote any of it up formally.
I have now established about 30 stories to explore in this book. In reviewing what I knew, I found I had about 60 pretty quickly. So the initial problem was to sift through everything and reject half my original ideas and then to begin to locate sources and illustrations for the rest. Now I am going to be a bit more inclusive. Still, the sifting involves having to think about the way a reader might use the book. Probably as the basis for some trips of exploration around town with friends or family. Possibly on a visit to Cardiff from other places, but maybe a resident looking for local information.
An interesting aspect of researching the book is also having an excuse to sit down with folklorists, archaeologists, historians and archivists of my acquaintance who might have interesting insights, contacts and sources for me. This has been great fun so far, and I am enjoying the views from the eyrie of the local history collections at Cardiff City Library which is high above the city centre and has big view windows.
At the top left of the map where you see the Blackfriar’s monastery, and the river Taff flowing is quite near our old house. Began by working on the chapters for legends, sites and history west of the Taff first. Gotta start somewhere!
Figuring out the boundaries I want to establish is harder. Cardiff was a very small place until the industrial revolution, and then it began to grow rather rapidly. There is plenty of interesting and much older archaeology in the area, and older buildings such as the occasional farmhouse, church and cathedral which dotted an inhabited pre-urban rural landscape along the shifting river banks of the Taff in the center of town, the Ely River on the western flank and the Rhymney on the eastern flank.
Well, these rivers are not boundaries to the modern city, but if I include their drainages out of the surrounding hills, that gets us close and makes some sense. The southern boundary of my concerns could simply be the Bristol Channel, but as Cardiff Council has owned the island of Flatholm in the Channel for many years, maybe I need a trip out there too?
Ye Sygne of Swanne
Off to the North Country I went to help produce an episode of archaeological television. So, what would be my line? One of the decisions interns have to make is what aspect of the production they most want to work on. A few months ago I might have said camerawork, but I am firmly moving into direction now, so that was really the position I wanted to shadow.
Very soon after arrival we were challenged to help with a new project, creation of a blog site which would maybe bring the program live to its followers in the future for some interactive experience from off site. This reminds me of the old “Challenge Anneka” program which ran in the UK years ago, but at that time it was all done with a bank of phones as I recall.
Setting up a blog at high speed and making it work well in three days turns out to be at least as perilous as you might expect and the logistics are a bit tricky when doing it from remote sites without much advance planning. But we got it going, (more or less) and learned some good lessons that will help us improve it when we go south next week to try blogging another dig. New host site, new design, new rules to keep us from doing too much filming and to allow us to do occasional longer edited pieces.
I may adapt the idea to this site in three weeks time when I begin to film for my own planned documentary short in California.
In the Courtyard
Last week I participated in the Mini Masterpieces programme being run during summer session at Bristol University. My challenge was to complete a short video, from pitch to final edit in just over two weeks, with the assistance of a professional team. I would direct, something I was a little better prepared for than a month ago, having taken a workshop on directing previously. I was interested in a particular courtyard (in Cardiff) currently occupied mostly by artist’s studios and wanted to work out a proposal for a pitch that would focus on this space. Went through a lot of ideas, and we agreed it would be most interesting to find a way of making the structures around the courtyard the protagonist of the film. However, in the time given, for the life of me I could not work out how to do this without doing something twee. Anyway, the film got made, and the courtyard was used. I was not unhappy with the way it came out in some ways, but I found the end result a little overpowering. This is a good lesson to me that things have a power on the big screen and you need to rein it in and be more reined in on what you put together because it rather shouts at you in the end on a larger screen. It would be interesting to re-edit this, to find some way of toning it down and making it more subtle. Definitely need to work with music differently. Anyway it was an interesting experience, and I will link to the end result soon. The problem of making a structure or an object the protagonist in a film in an interesting way is one I will come back to since it is so useful in archaeological filmmaking. (see also my note at FD4F http://www.filmdirecting4women.co.uk/blogs/so-what-comes-next/
A Visit with Lucy, Darwin and Michele Guieu
Michele Guieu is a French artist who recently created a largely ephemeral installation contemplating her own relationship with and influences from palaeontology, Darwinian evolutionary theory and her experiences living in Africa with her parents as a child. The Art Produce Gallery is a small space adjacent to an excellent coffee bar in San Diego. It’s nooks and crannys were used with ingenuity to host a combination of temporary mural art, finely observed drawings, photography, digitised film and a range of artifacts which was woven into something much more splendid than the component parts. The supportive gallery and responsive artist were able to create a program of lectures and events that added further stories, ideas and musical bricolage to the installation in an intriguingly free wheeling way. Guieu herself commented that she found it somehow pleasing to create a piece of art which was so impermanent. In fact the 3 dimensional collage of sound, visual and intellectual stimuli offered by Lucy, Darwin and Me was very successful, and although the run has now ended in San Diego, I hope that she will continue to work with the ideas and bring them to life again somewhere else. This was a particularly intriguing and generous use of mixed media that invited the visitor into a complex dialogue across several cultures and vast tracts of geological and evolutionary time. Exceptionally engaging.
For further information about this work see: michele guieu.com
Screen Media Commentary: Six Generations
RESEARCHER GAVE CHUMASH THEIR HERITAGE???????
This article (and film clip) appeared in the LA Times today. The headline is problematic, since Harrington’s handling of his fieldnotes meant that the information only came back to the Chumash through the hard work of many who searched out the fieldnotes and deciphered them rather than through some generosity of spirit on Harrington’s part. I found it very interesting because of my past involvement with Chumash area archaeology and anthropology, and teaching about the Chumash and about J. P. Harrington himself as well as having run several fieldschools where we engaged with aspects of Chumash history and with Harrington’s own story too. I have a very high regard for the work of Dr. John Johnson at the Sant Barbara Museum, and I think that the reported research and Ernestine De Soto’s contributions are very worthwhile, but the background to the newspaper story is the exploration of what lay behind a television documentary that appeared last fall. Paul Goldsmith made this program called “Six Generations” which goes much further into the story touched on the the paper. (Goldsmith posted some of his own notes regarding the production on the web as well – http://www.paulgoldsmithasc.com/sixgenerations.html)
He is an accomplished cinematographer with past work in documentary, advertising and fiction films. In this television documentary, done over a period of years, he directs as well as doing the camera work. Johnson acted as executive producer as well as being one of the subjects of the film, in the sense that it explores his own research along with De Soto’s life, family history and experience with Harrington, both in her own life, and in her work with his papers.
The clip from the film is quite substantial, and I would like to see the whole thing soon, but let’s consider the clip for a moment since this will probably reach a much wider audience than the whole film. Documentaries, even short pieces like this have conventions which change over time. In this one we begin in the center of things, introduced to Ernestine as she looks at a museum exhibit on her people, and she starts by explaining her personal sense of Chumash identity, with its roots in personal experience, in recent genetic research and in deep engagement with collaborative documentary research over a period of years.
Goldsmith talks about the challenges of structuring the film so that the audience takes away some depth and complexity of information, and not just a general impression that Ernestine is an interesting and attractive woman whose family has suvived through some generations of tough times. It would be good to hear him expand on this further. He mentions that he tried earlier versions of the film on audiences for several years before arriving at the edit that was broadcast in the end. He does not yet have anything posted on the reaction to the broadcast, but I think this is likely to be an excellent teaching film for many purposes.
Visiting the Purton Hulks
Last week’s field trip involved the reconnoitre of the Severn foreshore between Sharpness and Gloucester on the eastern side, and then down to Lydney on the west bank. This means we largely looked at maritime and industrial sites, and of those we saw, the most spectacular was the “Purton Hulks”. Also the most interesting in retrospect, because uploading my photos to facebook and putting a few preliminary comments on them attracted quite a polemic litle piece from one of the other students.
He had been disturbed by some of the narratives about archaeological preservation we have been exposed to in general terms I think, but specifically at Purton had been irritated by some trritorial claims made by one of the people showing us around the site. Our guide suggested that in the past he had used his former military training to scare off someone vandalizing one of the wrecks. He was in full storytelling mode, and I took it with a pinch of salt, but this is an interesting place and it does not surprise me that it attracts some passionate support.He also made it clear that he thinks it almost criminal that this place is not a scheduled ancient monument and he and others expressed a hope that it will become one.
Sites like this pose a dilemma, it is tempting to hope they can be protected, but protection here is an ongoing obligation to a site that is difficult to manage, has little potential for visitor development of any numeric significance becasue of location, and is under continual attack by the natural elements in a river bank with significant tidal and flood action on a regular basis.
It seems to me that this is one to interpret using more boards locally, vodcasts and perhaps cell phone tour technology. Getting money to do anything beyond a vodcast would be expensive, but might be dooable crusade.
Bonekickers
Here’s the problem: They make TV dramas about all sorts of occupations; crab fishermen, lawyers, doctors, ice-truckers. The excellent A Very Peculiar Practice even made academic environments look intriguing and Third Rock from the Sun had some fun with anthropology. So why can’t they make a good dramatic or humorous series about archaeologists then? Bonekickers, a 6 part series shown in the UK on ITV in 2007 was a try at this. Conceived by writers with a good track record, it featured very competent actors and interesting camerawork and editing. It was reasonably well funded and marketed. It was, sadly – a turkey. Never renewed, it attracted embarrassing professional criticism from archaeologists as well as some poor reviews by critics and general moans and groans. Why?
The style of the thing was rather Da Vinci Code meets Time Team meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mix well, then overheat. The result was mildly amusing and engaging up to a point, but on the whole not good enough to be sustainable. At least not in the eyes of schedule controllers anyway. Why not? I personally think the storylines, cast and so on might have been better off simplified. Anf if some attention had been given to character development so much the better. Well, I say that, but actually the stories are probably a little too clever too. Taking the time to introduce characters properly seems to me to make a better basis for a serial on TV.
Will someone try again? A slightly different genre has produced a great hit in Time Team, of course. If you don’t know it this is a long running series about archaeological excavation featuring real archaeologists working on brief excavations of real sites, and interpreted by the actor Tony Robinson. Now franchised in several countries including the US, it is a long term hit. There are also many one off documentaries of course, or the archaeological contribution to shows like Coast. Just not the same. Hey, you know I did actually go out and buy the Bonekickers DVDs with a full set of episodes so you know I must have a soft spot for it because I don’t buy many DVDs.