When It’s Not about Turkey and Football: Review of The Mourning Road to Thanksgiving by Larry Spotted Crow Mann
Buffer Neempau: “Well that’s fine, Sis, but why don’t you at least tell your kids the truth? They don’t know anything about the true history of our people.” Keenah: “Tell them what, Neempau? What truth? That the white people have tried to exterminate us since they got off the boat? How they almost killed us […]
Review of Lives in Ruins by Marilyn Johnson
Buffer Getting ready for a short Adirondack vacation, I packed the usual: more books than I could possibly read in 2 or 3 days. What does an archaeologist bring on vacation to read? Dusty old tomes containing hidden gems embedded in dull recitations of fact? No. I packed In the Garden of Beasts by […]
When the Summer Gets Hot, Coolly Crack Open a Book: Book Notes, Summer 2014
Buffer We all lead busy lives, and although often it is hard to find time to read, summer beckons as one of the best times to open a book you haven’t looked at before. This time of year can be busy for archaeologists and many others, but why not take a break with a book? […]
Book Notes, Spring-Summer 2013
Buffer Summer approaches. For many it begins with Memorial Day Weekend, and offers a little extra time to enjoy a good book. As the season is rapidly upon us, I make a few suggestions. These books will resonate with a wide audience, but there is one here for people interested in archaeology, one for people […]
A Very Definite Past Meets an Unfortunately Possible Future: Review of The Great Warming by Brian Fagan
BufferIn the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, certain recent, widely-reported comments remind me that I have put off for too long a review of a very important book by Brian Fagan on the last period of global warming, AD 800-1300. For example, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo notes the increasing frequency and severity of storms […]
Relax with Some Summer Reading
While conducting a Phase 1 archaeological survey on the hottest day of the year in the Town of Schodack, in New York’s Hudson Valley, my thoughts drifted occasionally away from the heat and insects to books I have enjoyed. Imagine you are there in the woods on a hot day in July. It’s humid and […]
1491 and 1493: A Review and Preview
1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann came out in 2005, long before I started writing in Fieldnotes. As I write this brief review, trucks are delivering and bookstore employees are unpacking 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Mann’s history of what happened since (and largely because of) the enormous […]
August Reading for Archaeologists-Adventurous Fiction for People with Heads Full of Facts
It’s July. You’re on an archaeological survey in the uplands west of the Hudson River, south of the Mohawk. It’s hot and humid. You peer through the haze. You have your doubts that you will find anything because the soil is poorly drained clay, and you don’t completely buy the argument that something important might […]
Current Northeast Paleoethnobotany II: A Few of the Highlights
BufferNew York State Museum Bulletin Series 512, titled Current Northeast Paleoethnobotany II, was published in 2008 and edited by John P. Hart. This book follows Current Northeast Paleoethnobotany (New York State Museum Bulletin 494), also edited by Hart and published in 1999. The new volume significantly updates progress in the field of Northeastern paleoethnobotany, as […]
Fieldnotes » Fieldnotes- A Hudson Valley Writer on the Ancient Custom of Christmas
- An Inside View of an Archaeological Project: The Adam Shafer Site in Cobleskill, Schoharie County, New York
- When It’s Not about Turkey and Football: Review of The Mourning Road to Thanksgiving by Larry Spotted Crow Mann
- Understanding Chert in the Mid-Hudson Valley: A Note on a Recent Workshop and Field Trip
- Archaeological Memoir: Sharing Our Histories on Social Media
- The Vampire Skeleton: A Scary Seneca Iroquois Story
- Review of Lives in Ruins by Marilyn Johnson
- Reconstructing Frontenac Island’s History
- Frontenac, Island of History
- Glimpses of Archaic Societies
