What's Exciting to an Archaeologist

So someone was still asking me for pictures from Nauvoo so here are a few. First for the most exciting thing I personally found.

Yeah, most people weren't very impressed when I said the most exciting thing I found was rocks. But this was the first solid evidence (at least in my opinion) of what we were looking for: the foundation of the frame home of Samuel H. Smith's home. (Samuel H. Smith is the younger brother of the 1800s American prophet Joseph Smith Jr.). We think this was the west wall.

Here it is more fully excavated. Notice the flat rocks laying on top of flat rocks in a long rectangular schedule.

Here are two pictures of the east wall. We didn't get the chance to fully excavate.

This is probably the third thing I got most excited about. It's an Isaac Hill Brick. Isaac Hill was one of seven brickmakers in Nauvoo in the 1840s. His bricks are unusual because they are concave and have "I HILL" imprinted them. This one was obviously imprinted (we had found one other that was not nearly as visible).

Here is the only other I HILL brick on display in Nauvoo (at least that I know of). Ours is better! At least more legible. It is on the top floor of the Seventies Hall.

This is probably the fourth most awesome find. And the first one that most people could relate too. It is a doll head just to clarify.

I had a lot of fun with these. Pig mandibles. But then again I like bones.

Now here are a few other finds along with things they match. Similar to how I did my Historic Archaeology post from last year. Most people will probably find these artifacts were exciting then my top 3. They are easier to relate too.

This is what I'm pretty sure is a raccoon skull in my palm. In the case below is what is labeled as a cat skull. Similar but a little different. We uncovered most of the raccoon skeleton. Awesome.

Any guesses?

This is my guess. A candle maker.

A doll appendage.

Several doll appendages.

Alright. Sick of pictures yet? Just so you know I did not take all of these pictures. Some of them are from my friend's phone and others are from the Head Archaeologist's camera.

Introvert Hints

As I've written before, I'm an introvert (until I'm not).* But it always surprises me how often there seems to be only extrovert feelings considered. I guess it shouldn't be surprising due to the nature of extroverts and introverts. But like I said, it still surprises me.
So here are a few things that I feel are not often portrayed but perhaps should be.

• Mingling is not super enjoyable for everyone.
• Being alone may be more comfortable than being with strangers.
• Sometimes those who sit back and observe do it because they prefer that and not because they feel like outcasts.

I would then say how you can apply these to life, but the problem is I don't know how very well because how do you know what each individual prefers. It's nigh on impossible at times. Which makes it quite awkward at times when someone does what they prefer for someone who would prefer the opposite.
Forget those "helpful hints." Life is easier when you only see your point of view because then you can always be right. Right?
*Honestly that could be a whole other post.

Always Something New

This post draws on some of my other recent posts.
Not long ago I posted about how getting joy out of little things makes you a good candidate for living forever. A few posts later I posted a movie of a bunny washing it's nose.
So how are these two related?
I worked with someone for  a while who was kind of a punk. When a bunch of us got excited about seeing a bald eagle fly overhead he said "who cares guys. After seeing 200 of them they are just birds." But if you have that opinion after 200 I'm not sure he didn't have that opinion after 5.
Yesterday I went on a walk with my nephews. We passed some calves and they got really excited about them wanting to go pet them which they did. I hung back at first. I've see calves before afterall. But then I got close and petted their soft noses and one of them licked my fingers with a surprisingly long, skinny, rough tongue. Never been licked by a calf. Another one tried to eat the hand cord of my camera. It got all slimy.  I was glad I went up close, and look at them just a little bit closer.
The thing with calves and bald eagles and bunnies is that there is always something else to learn from them. I had never seen a bunny clean it's nose before in real life (just animated bunnies doing it). And if you look at it that way everything can be excited.
Something else that helps me stay in that mindset that I like to think about is the following questions:
How would I draw that? What colors would I use? What is the contours?
How would I describe this if I was writing it?
You have to pay attention if you really want to make an experience come alive for someone else whether through visuals or language. And if you are paying attention enough to do that then suddenly it seems far more new than it had before whether the experience is actually new or you are just being more observant this time.

Consuming and Creating: Part 7: Song and Dance

Sometimes when things are stressful or life is hard I like to go into denial and read a book. I've heard of other people doing similar things. The Mormon Pioneers are often said to have walked all day and then spent the evening in song and dance. I always thought that was a little odd but I could understand it in terms of a type of denial. Not long ago I had a stressful as well as exhausting day of work but instead of just reading a book, or laying around doing nothing I convinced some friends and we went to a free outside performance of singing and dancing. We might have done a little of the singing but we didn't do any of the dancing. We also did quite a bit of laughing. I enjoyed it and I think it was the best thing we could have done. Instead of sitting around complaining at each other we got out and laughed and thought of lighter things. It's not the state of denial I feel like books usually give me (because as soon as you stop reading it all comes rushing back), it was a genuine stress outlet. The stress was mostly gone. I think I have come to understand those early pioneers just a little better, and it works.
Caveat:
I would just like to state that on several other occasions in similar situations I just needed time to recoup in an alone time atmosphere. There is certainly a need for that too but I have also seen the advantage of lighthearted social situations. But again that alone time was typically walking around admiring the beauty of the earth.

So my hesitant conclusion is that pure consuming forms of entertainment may work as a form of denial but true stress relief may come more easily and thoroughly with creative entertainment.

Drat. Now that I've written all that and come up with my hesitant conclusion I am responsible for doing it... and not just picking up a book whenever I'm depressed. I hate when I learn too much as I write these posts.

Complaining

I heard a quote a few weeks ago that I had a hard time believing. It was from an early Mormon pioneer who said that during their trek west despite all their struggles and trials they never complained. I wonder how long after the trek the quote was given...
Recently I was around someone who every time someone made a comment about a car being small or the beds being plastic he would say "well at least you have one." I found it slightly annoying because it made me feel like I was complaining when I previously hadn't felt like I was.
So I guess the question is what is really complaining. Is it the words, the tone of voice, the mentality, or a little bit of all three.
"It's raining a ton."
"We've been working all day."
"I'm exhausted."
All of these could be said with a spirit of complaining or resignation or even satisfaction. And just because you say it in just a commentary type way or even exhausted when you think about it 20 years later will you think it was complaining.

Movies

I saw that some of my nieces and nephews were enjoying some of the movies on my brothers blog so I thought I could try that out.... they probably won't be as cute but someone still might enjoy them.

Some of us went to a show put on by the BYU Ballroom Dance Company. This was part of the best number featuring Link and Zelda as well as various other computer game characters.

Maggots swarming over trash bags of dead mayflies (they smell like dead fish). Hopefully this doesn't gross anyone out too much.

Here is a much nicer video. It was such a cute little bunny outside in the parking lot this morning.

Adventurous Not Stupid

This month I have been called insane several times. I've got a good friend that I've been hanging out with a lot. We play on each other's strange ideas. One day when we were playing in puddles... well actually we were building dams to keep the runoff water going into the storm drain... someone stopped and told us that we were standing in very dirty water. They had just seeded the area (well two days before, and those two days since it had rained pretty much all day). And I got thinking there were three options:
1) we are stupid
2) we aren't paranoid
3) we are adventurous
Personally, and I suppose unsurprisingly, we decided we are the second two. Not the first (at least most of the time).
So here are some of the things we've done.

• Lay down in the middle of an intersection. (After dark, in a old historical town when and where there is rarely traffic).
• Run around outside in numerous rainstorms and watch heat lightening in the distance.
  
• Play in puddles.
  
• Cook eggs in a mountain of ash from a 2 day old fire.
  
• Play in mud hills.
• Lick long dead animal's bones found in the dirt. (It helps you distinguish whether they really are bone or not, and is a widely used practice).

  

  Tongue print still evident in the middle left.

• Climb in a kiln. (Not in use).
• Stalk a raccoon.
  
• Run through a swarm of mayflies.
  

The thing is, we have been having loads of fun, sure we may not be overly cautious (like about lightening or dirt) but we aren't stupid. We didn't sit in the middle of an intersection during rush hour. We covered our hair while running through the mayflies. We didn't get too close to the racoon, etc.
We may be a little crazy but we aren't doing illegal things or trying to hurt anyone. Just fun, and curious. There's a difference. At least in my book.