American Museum of Natural History

I've just begun a collections management internship in the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Myself and two other interns are cataloging artifacts in the South American artifact collections. Much of what we've seen this week is ceramic, although there have been some textiles, as well as bone tools. My favorites so far are the Peruvian whistling vessels, which are essentially two conjoined jugs, often in the form of humans or animals.

Archaeolink Prehistory Park

What a week! I can't believe I only left Chicago about 10 days ago. I'm volunteering - in exchange for a tent and board - at Archaeolink Prehistory Park. It's a half indoor/half outdoor museum about ancient Scotland, located in a small town called Oyne, way up in the northern part of the country in Aberdeenshire. The park has all sorts of exhibits, demonstrations, and reenactments, including story telling (Flick is an amazing story teller), ancient survival skill lessons - how to start a fire, make pottery coils, and cast metal - and a Halloween celebration culminating in the burning of a giant wickerman.


Since I arrived at Archaeolink, I've helped cast a bronze ax, held weaving demonstrations in the visitors center and the Iron Age hut, and, when asked about my accent, told visitors that the Celts kept Americans as pets (I hope no one belived me!).

The bronze ax casting was amazing. Mark has been doing casting demonstrations for years and said this was his best one yet. In the Bronze Age hut, he's build a ceramic furnace in the floor, with the bellows stoking the fire from underneath. To cast, he fills a ceramic crucible with bronze bits (that he's gotten from discarded piping). Once the charcoals are hot in the furnace he puts the crucible in and puts more charcoal on top of it. The bronze has to get very hot, so we kept it in the furnace for 45 minutes. I worked the bellows for most of it, but a visitor, who works as a welder, wanted a turn, so I was able to get some pictures.

Pouring the bronze was such a spectacle. After lining the mold with soot, so he could get the cast out once finished, Mark took long pincers and pulled the crucible out of the furnace. The clay was glowing red and the bronze gave off a green-ish flame. In the picture you can see the hot bronze just poured into the mold. He then put soot on the top, and after it cooled a bit, he turned the mold over and, voila, a bronze ax!

While the days here are action packed, the evening are rather. Since everyone else commutes to the park, I've been up to some solo exploring in the evenings.

I hiked to the top of Berry Hill, which I am camping at the base of. It indeed has raspberries growing all over it. From the top you can see the breathtaking landscape, including an old hill fort a few miles away. I found out that this is called Dunnydeer Hill and I plan to hike to the top soon to explore the ruins.

Dunnydeer Hill looms over the closest real town - Insch. It's three miles away, so I've taken the bus there a few times after work. Insch has a train station, an Indian restaurant, a general store, a post office and two pubs. The people I have met are really cool - if I stay at Archaeolink long enough, I should really think about staying in town instead of in the tent...

Green Saraha

Lost Tribe of the Green Sahara, the article about Gobero is published in National Geographic magazine:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/green-sahara/gwin-text