NZAA Professional Development Cell
The cell organises workshops aimed at professional archaeologists assisting with their professional development.
Workshop Series:
On 6 July 2007, we will be running ARTEFACTS FROM EXCAVATION TO MUSEUM?, to be held at Highwic, Auckland. This looks at the new provisions of the Protected Objects Act and how they affect consultants, HPT authorities, museums, iwi, collectors and landowners (note as the people on the ground we are often asked about what happens to objects so we need to know the facts as they affect all interested parties). We will have Ailsa Cain from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Bev Parslow from HPT, Kath Prickett from Auckland Museum, and possibly one other speaker (yet to be finalised).
A further workshop is being planned.
Follow the link for contact information.

 

New Zealand Archaeology
Archaeology in New Zealand Vol 50(2) out now:
Notes and News
Fieldwork
Recent Reports
Heritage assessment beyond NZ Sara Donaghey
Otago theses and dissertations, Ian Smith and Jean Spinks
Reviews"

 

New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials
Pu Manaaki Kahurangi Incorporated

 

Explorers' Antarctic hut on endangered sites list, threatened by climate change
The Antarctic base occupied by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole on foot early last century has been included on a list of the world's 100 most endangered sites.
The list, compiled by an international panel and released Wednesday by the World Monuments Fund, identifies what are considered to be the world's most endangered historic, architectural and cultural treasures. "

 

Chicken of the Sea: Poultry may have reached Americas via Polynesia: - Science News
Archaeologist Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., disagrees. In her view, both a black-boned breed of chickens now found in Central America and the blue-egg variety in South America originated in Asia.
Pre-Columbian transfers of various plants, animals, and cultural traits occurred in both directions from Asia to South America, Meggers holds. The most likely sea route ran north of Hawaii and down America's Pacific coast, she says.
Moreover, the claim that the Inca possessed chickens "is historical fiction," asserts archaeologist Michael E. Moseley of the University of Florida in Gainesville. No chicken remains have been found at Inca sites, although the Spanish sometimes referred to a native duck breed as "chickens," he says.
Further work must be done to confirm the age of the El Arenal chicken bones and to establish that Polynesians regularly visited South America, Moseley adds.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007