Once Upon a Time, Dental Care Didn't Exist

The horror.  

Best.  Graphics.  Ever.

Tuesday was the first day of presenting case studies, which took up a lot of our morning time.  Each pair of students had been assigned to read and present on a case study demonstrating the correct usage of bioarchaeology or forensic anthropology in the field.  All the case studies were very different, and it was really interesting to see how my classmates explained them.  We then watched an hour-long film called The Inca Rebellion.  Now.  I don’t know if anyone else has noticed (probably not, due to the amount of more worthwhile things you could spend your time on) but all educational anthropology videos are made in the 80’s.  Even if they aren’t actually made in the 80’s, like their copyright is 2004 or something, they are still made in the 80’s.  The quality is 80’s quality, all grainy and dulled colors.  All the people in them have huge, thick glasses and nasally voices and big hair.  All of them.  And they all have really overdramatic music.  Without fail.  In fact, I would even go as far to say these things are the criteria one needs to meet to produce an anthropology film.  Anyway, we watched one.  Pretty sure I’ve played video games on N64 with better graphics. 

Today was also about material culture and what it can demonstrate about a suite and such.  I actually had a leg up in this aspect because I had just taken Historical Archaeology at the U.  This class included extensive ceramic and glass analysis.  So that was nice.  The most interesting part was how Heidi demonstrated that even tough we can know what an object is and what it’s used for, we can never fully understand it’s meaning.  This was achieved by all of us taking one thing that belonged to us and butting them all in a bucket.  Then, someone else attempted to write an archaeological analysis of our item.  It was really interesting to see how meaning can be so hard to achieve or how it can have absolutely nothing to do with an object.

The reason floss exists.  

We also did a lab for coding pathologies on bones and teeth.  It was fun and interesting except for some of the cavities were top ten grossest things I’ve ever seen.  Some of them took up whole teeth.  It was a little awful.  We also took another quiz.  Everyone needs to study more.  That’s enough about that. 

The highlight of my day was discovering French Meadow Sandwiches is the place we go for lynch.  I had given up on this particular cafeteria, but dear god.  These sandwiches are the embodiment of Jesus on earth.  I had one with chicken and goat cheese and spinach and roasted peppers.  And it was TOASTED.  My day was complete.  But not actually because I still had to watch Dr. Who season four.