On the appearance of civilizaiton.

It must be the lack of sleep and coffee that's gotten me so jittery and crotchety. It's not usual for one to wake up in the morning cursing at their dreams for obvious intellectual laziness. Or I suppose it is if you stayed up until 4 AM killing hagravens and Foresworn on top of an ancient Nord ruin.

The feeling is mutual.

So I wake up this morning chastising myself because for some reason while in my dream I thought "Who built these ruins? They're so advance and just came out of nowhere". Damn it boy! You're an archæologist. You know goddamn well that's a stupid question. Civilizations don't come out of nowhere. They aren't just spontaneous. My problem with my in-dream reasoning is that it leads to presuppositions and it's intellectually lazy. It leads to presuppositions because when trying to rationalize the idea of "who built this advance civilization", the almost inevitable assumption is that something supernatural/out-worldly did it or that a civilization we're more familiar with did it. Case in point:

Nothing says authority like a poorly skilled hairdresser and a History Channel logo.

Ah History Channel - the only actual history covered is all about Hitler. But I've seems other reasoning that are just as bad. In the 19th century french explorer Henri Mouhot "rediscovered" the Angkor ruins in Cambodia, and his immediate reaction was similar to my dreams. (How he managed to rediscovered something that wasn't really lost is beyond me. The locals knew of the temples.) He was in disbelief of how grand the temple complex were. He could not reason with how advanced the temples seemed with how "backward" the locals were. And this lead to a subtle assumption: White(ish) people made it, because to Mouhot and many other people at the time, Western Europeans were the only capable of such feats. Presuppositions! And this has been used by all sorts of people: Some claim the civilizations of the Andes came from Japan because the vessels "looked similar". Some claim Nubians created the Olmec because of the facial features of the colossal head. Early British scholars assumed the creators of Great Zimbabwe were of Caucasian stock. Some believe the whole of the Americas were populated by Semitic people.

And for no reason, here's some subtle 18th century racism!

Now here's where the intellectually laziness comes in. The Nord ruins in Skyrim were already well explained in the history of the Elder Scrolls. Ysgramor lead the first humans out of Atmora to occupy Tamriel. They built the places. You would know that if read up on the materials ahead of time (some of which are available in-game.) It's also intellectually lazy to assume aliens created any of our modern civilization. You're explaining away a problem rather than doing the proper research. At the very least you should consider the more logical explanations. For Angkor, there existed ruins that dated before them namely Funan ruins, whose existence is recorded in both stonework and Chinese writings (in Oc Eo). As for why the current Khmers at the time of French Colonialism were not building large stone monuments: The Khmers underwent religious change from Hindu and Mahayana Buddhism to Theravada Buddhism. The new religion was not so demanding of their temples (though state leaders did build large temple to show their power, such as those at Udong, in modern Kandal Province, Cambodia.) More over, war with Ayutthaya (pictured above) sacked national resources. The kings no longer had the power to demand the peasant class to build as much as the Angkor kings did. The same goes for the example provided. The Olmecs didn't just appear. There were already numerous cultures predating the Olmec. The colossal heads by no means reflect realistic human heads and therefore couldn't be influenced by Nubians or other east African civilization (and fails completely anyway since the "typical" physical features of the Nubians and their descendants looked nothing like those heads). The superficial similarities between the pottery in the Andes and Jōmon (pre-Classical Japan) are just that - superficial. Anyone who studied those cultures can tell the difference between a Haniwa and Moche pot. The whole idea of the Americas being settle by Semitic people just blatantly ignores everything.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to Patrick Starfish when I try to pass those points to others

It's intellectually lazy because you're failing to think it through. You're failing to do the research. But it's all to common isn't it? I make archæological assumption all the time and most of us don't even know to question them. Some are so ingrained, we don't even see what's wrong because others may not see what's wrong. (Gender is one such concept where that happens.) So as I finish this noon with a strong cup of God-know-how-old coffee, I'll sit and hope people don't make the same bad thinking while awake that I did while asleep.

Ethnography

Here is a modern Apache person. The reason I chose this photo is because I want to question our perception of indigenous people. In our society, we tend to look at indigenous people as archaic and outside of time. This is false. Indigenous people are, in fact, contemporay people.

Here is another indigenous group, the Ainu:

Gisaeng and Geisha: Then and now

Notice that modern portayals of Geisha and Gisaeng tends to emmulate western notions of orientalism and the hyper-feminization of Asian women.

Archäologie

Bust of a female figure.

Late Jomon period Japan. 1000-300 BCE

Today

The anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Despite Cold War hysteria over being bombed to hell, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only civilian places to ever be hit by the bomb.

Here's hoping that they will be the last, ever, civilian (and non-civilian) places to be hit by the bomb.

Heatwave in Japan

Via NHK World:

A heat wave continued in most parts of Japan on Thursday.The temperature reached
39.4 degrees Celsius in Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture. Tajimi is the first
Japanese city to record temperatures above 39 degrees this year.Weather
officials say the hot spell is likely to continue through the weekend, and are
cautioning people to guard against heatstroke.Five people died and at least 330
were taken to hospital with symptoms of heatstroke across Japan on Thursday. In
Ibaraki Prefecture, a 36-year-old farmer died after working in a hothouse

Just a reminder to Riverside folks that heat is a serious thing. Drink a lot water, and try to stay indoor. Avoid using electricity since that doesn't help and only lead to environmental problems.

The Harada House

It's actually a rather plain looking house. If it weren't for the historical marker on the ground, you wouldn't know what it was. Passing by it often, I always thought it was a haunted house.

But now, I love that house. Not because it's spectacular. The old Victorian house in Riverside are far more aesthetically pleasing. The Harada House represent for me the power of determination and righteousness in the face of a hegemonistic society. From it's founding by a Japanese American family, who fought alien land laws, to it's abandonment due to the racist policy of internment, and subsequently to it being an icon of the Asian American experience, the Harada House stand in it's simplicity as a testament of the human will and the power of questioning authority.