[...]]]> This past year I’ve been working on a side project to use the iPad as the primary data collection device for recording rock art in the field, replacing paper forms that can number in the hundreds. Last week I presented the idea and the results of field testing at the Australian Archaeological Association Conference.

The premise is fairly simple, to use a database app (I used Tapforms, but there are a number out there of various functionalities and prices) and translate existing paper forms into digital ones. The great advantage of the iPad is that one can integrate the camera and GPS functions into the form, so sketching the rock art becomes unnecessary when you can just snap a photo. The biggest advantage is the post-fieldwork paperwork – where before I would have taken me two months to backup the forms and move the data into a table, it now takes two minutes.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that, and there are some interface and user considerations. The iPad is still an expensive piece of equipment to bring out to the field and there’s the perpetual fear of dropping the device. Most users (not just archaeologists) complain about the glare of the screen under sunlight, and the key thing to remember about the difference between an iPad and a paper for is the way one interacts with both. On a paper you can write and draw, on an iPad you’re limited to tapping on glass so it’s not one for scribbling notes on. How do we get round that? I used voice memos for all long chunks of texts.

You can see my presentation slides here, or by clicking on the image.

Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Vol 30, 2010

Description from the website: The Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association is an international, peer-reviewed, open access online journal. [...]]]> The latest Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistoric Association (BIPPA) has just been released online, featuring a number of papers that were presenting in Hanoi in 2009.

Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
Vol 30, 2010

Description from the website:
The Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association is an international, peer-reviewed, open access online journal. Its purpose is to disseminate rapid communications and field reports on the archaeology of East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Mountains in the Religions of South and Southeast Asia: Place, Culture, and Power 4th SSEASR Conference, Thimphu, Kingdom of Bhutan 30 June – 03 July, 2011

Mountains are [...]]]> Readers might be interested in this upcoming conference in the Kingdom of Bhutan (hey, I think the conference venue alone makes it worth the trip!)

Mountains in the Religions of South and Southeast Asia: Place, Culture, and Power
4th SSEASR Conference, Thimphu, Kingdom of Bhutan
30 June – 03 July, 2011

Mountains are associated with the central values, practices, beliefs, and identities of religious cultures and traditions throughout the world. The physical and symbolic geography of mountains has inspired people for millennia with feelings of awe and wonder, as well as of fear and trepidation. In South and Southeast Asia, these experiences have sparked creativity in the realms of both religious discourse and practice. Mountains are perceived and revered in sacred texts, rituals, and practices as markers of both the transcendence and immanence of spiritual power: they are identified as gods or the abodes of gods; they serve as temples or places of worship; they house the ancestors and the dead; and they are sources of inspiration, cultural pride, and local and national identity. As links between nature and culture, mountains occupy a prominent place in the history of the region.

The sacredness of mountains is believed to manifest in two principal ways: mountains embody religious power and are sites for its manifestation. In the first instance, specific peaks are singled out by particular cultures and traditions as embodiments of special sanctity: these sacred mountains have well‐established networks of myths, beliefs, values and practices such as pilgrimage, meditation, and sacrifice (e.g. the Himalayas). Mt. Everest is considered the residence of Miolangsangma, the goddess of good fortune; as a result, indigenous peoples have banned the killing of animals (snow leopard, yak, etc) that reside in the higher elevations of the Himalayan zone. In the second instance, mountains that are not revered as embodiments of religious power may nevertheless be the locations of specific religious sites. These sites are subject to reinterpretation and they can become locations of cultural negotiation and conflict. In East Timor, for example, sacred caves, which were once central to local religions, are now linked to the Catholic Church and reinterpreted through a new religious lens. The Cordillera region in the Philippines, which encompasses most of the mountain range of Luzon, provides another instance of partial and selective sacrality. The entire mountain is not a symbol of reverence but its high terrain terraces are believed to be places that sustain life, the environment, and agriculture through ritual and religious practice.

Beliefs about the sacrality of specific mountains often reflect the coexistence of different religious traditions. Some Southeast Asian cultures believe that the ancestral spirits of mountains descended from the mountains in the spring in order to transform into gods of the rice fields; they would then return to the mountains from fall to winter and were once again worshipped as mountain gods. Another example is the peak of Mount Kailasa (in the Tibetan plateau), which is the pagoda palace of Demchog in Tibetan Buddhism and the abode of Siva in Hinduism. In Indonesia, many Balinese believe that there is an inseparable association between the Hindu temple and the mountain, but at the same time, they may continue to practice a form of pre‐Hindu worship.

Bhutan is a country of mountains, not only because mountains occupy almost 80% of the country, but also because throughout history, the life, culture and religion of the Bhutanese people have been inseparably related to mountains. Hence, the Royal University of Bhutan and the Institute of Language and Culture Studies, Thimphu are our natural hosts.

Mobile Arch

Part of my pondering over whether I should get an iPad (or wait for the second generation one), Mobile Arch is a blog about the use of mobile technology with archaeology. The site’s quite young, but it promises [...]]]> Just wanted to share a couple of sites that I’ve come across in recent times:

Mobile Arch

Part of my pondering over whether I should get an iPad (or wait for the second generation one), Mobile Arch is a blog about the use of mobile technology with archaeology. The site’s quite young, but it promises to talk about the role of mobile gadgets with archaeological use, and review apps that might be useful in the field.

It Surfaced Down Under!

Run by Damien Huffer, a PhD student at the Australian National University, Damien blogs about the  illegal antiquities trade in the Southern hemisphere. His latest post talks about last month’s conference in Berlin.

Chinese scientists reveal ancient man’s route to East Asia People’s Daily, 12 October 2010 [...]]]> Research from China analysing the mDNA of East Asians suggests more evidence that early man migrated to China using the “Southern Route” from Arabia, India and Southeast Asia rather than from a northern Central Asian route. [Update: Link has been fixed]

Chinese scientists reveal ancient man’s route to East Asia
People’s Daily, 12 October 2010

The research results of human molecular genetics support the theory that human beings originated in Africa, which means modern humans living on Earth are all descendants of prehistoric humans who originated in Africa about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Which route did China’s ancestors travel along when they migrated from Africa to East Asia?

To provide new scientific evidence to solve this question, Ma Runlin, researcher from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Su Bing, researcher from the Kunming Institute of Zoology under the CAS, recently cooperated with other scientists to conduct sampling research on the genetic materials of modern humans in the East Asia region.

Ma noted that there are two hypotheses about the route taken by the ancient Chinese as they migrated from Africa to East Asia, namely, the “South Route” and the “North Route.” According to the South Route hypothesis, the ancestors of modern humans in East Asia first traveled to the Arabian Peninsula after they left East Africa, and then migrated into the Southeast Asia region (including Yunnan Province of China) along the coastline of the Indian Ocean.

…

The group of researchers led by Ma sampled the DNA of 3,826 men from the Korean Peninsula and from 116 regions in both southern and northern China, mapped the geographical distribution of Y-chromosomal haplogroup variants and identified the formation time of related haplotypes.

The researchers also analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of the men sampled because mitochondrial genetic information is inherited only from the mother, which is called “matrilineal inheritance.” This way, scientists found out where our “mothers” came from.

Research results show that about 93 percent of the Y-chromosomal haplogroups of people sampled contained genetic information that supports the South Route theory, while some 7 percent of the results show that there is indeed a gene inflow from Central Asia and Europe.

More details here.