Topographic Threshold: New Geoarchaeology Research Paper

Along with a former student (Dr. Travis Conley), we recently published a research paper investigating the impact of landscape topography on the preservation and distribution of soils that date from the Late Pleistocene and into the Late Holocene. The paper was published in the open access MDPI journal Geoscience. It is a free download for anybody interested.

Conley, T., Hurst, S., Johnson, E., 2020. Topographic Thresholds and Soil Preservation along the Southern High Plains Eastern Escarpment, Northwest Texas, USA. Geosciences 10.

The research took place at our research area near Post, Texas along the edge of the Southern High Plains. We have previously published a paper on this researcher in 2014, compliments of Dr. Laura Murphy. It is exciting to get some more of this Geoarchaeology research out there in the world.

3D model man-hole cover

I couldn’t help myself — I 3D modeled another City of Lubbock man-hole cover. I like the criss-cross design. The man hole cover provides access through an asphalt road

3D model of Lubbock man hole cover. Shot using iPhone 11 Max with 2X lens.

Stepping Back in Time — 3D modeling Aerial Images shot in the aftermath of the devastating 1970 Lubbock Tornadoes.

I am currently working on creating a 3D model of the tornado damage paths and surrounding destruction left behind by the May 11, 1970 tornadoes in Lubbock, Texas. These tornadoes were extremely powerful, and it lead to Tetsuya Theodore (Ted) Fujita developing the F-Scale. The Lubbock tornado was rated as an F-5.

Click here for the 3D modeling story from the Museum of Texas Tech University.

Click here for more information about the 1970 Lubbock tornadoes from the National Weather Service.

Do Dead Trees Speak?

A Siberian elm tree had fallen over, and looked really interesting. May it Rest In Peace.

3D Model of a See-Saw Pelican Chair From My Child’s Playground

I thought this very used pelican seat on a child’s playground see-saw looked interesting. I used Agisoft metashape along with images captured from my IPhone 11 Pro Max.

3D model of a city of Lubbock man hole cover

My son and I were walking through the City of Lubbock Canyon Lakes parks, and we spotted the interesting man-hole cover with a cool rust patina. I 3D modeled it using Agisoft Metashape and my IPhone 11 Pro Max.

Burrowing Owl Spotted!

Adventures of Quarantine Hiking

Burrowing owl spotted on hike with my six-year-old son. Image photographed with and IPhone 11 Max Pro 2x lens.

At the end of a long hike, at least long in the eyes of a six-year-old, my son made an exciting discovery.

At the conclusion, after ~1.5 miles of rest stops to watch ducks and pick mesquite beans out of decaying pods lying on the ground, my son spotted a very camouflaged burrowing owl Speotyto cunicularia poking its head out of a prairie dog hole.

Burrowing owls are the only owls active day and night, and this one was keeping a watchful eye on us. I was able to approach the hole a few meters away to get a photograph before it ducked back into the safety of underground.

I feel these little discoveries make a difference to be closer to nature when friends have to stay six feet away.

Bulletproof espresso

Bulletproof coffee consists of blending organic coffee, grass fed butter, and MCT oil into a rich and creamy drink. The benefits are introducing your body to healthy fats that increases clarity and helps to maintain weight through a healthy metabolism.
While I am not sold on the health benefits, it does make a delicious drink.

I enjoy espresso on occasion and I wanted to develop a method that incorporates the idea of bulletproof coffee, and at the same time reduce the time and number of steps necessary to make the drink. This is really easy, and all you need is the ability to make espresso. I have used this method with my pump driven machine, and I think it will also work with a pressure driven machine or a stovetop.

Simply add the grass fed butter directly with the espresso coffee into the filter. I typically only use one spoon scoop of butter. Then run your machine. The result is a buttery rich espresso. The final step is to add a couple tablespoons of the MCT oil. Voilà

My Life as a Cowboys Fan

My first memory of football and the Dallas Cowboys was at the age of 6.

It was the 1981 Cowboys vs. 49ers Championship game.

What I remember about the game is more of feelings, I remember asking questions about what was going on in the game, the rules, what would happen if the Cowboys won. I must have enjoyed watching it because it was with my parents and other family. But I also remember being intrinsically hooked to the game. Ever since that game football and more importantly the Dallas Cowboys have been a part of my life.

I grew up with early 1980s Cowboys’ football. Players like Danny White, Randy White, Drew Pearson, Tony Hill, and Tony Dorsett.

I remember when Bill Bates joined the team as an overachieving and undersized linebacker.

The Cowboys of my early youth were good, but could never get over the hump especially with teams like the Redskins and 49ers. I really enjoyed those Cowboy teams, it was more about the struggle.

I was hooked and totally immersed into the Cowboys. I remember, it was the fourth or fifth grade, and I bet another kid that Dallas was going to beat the Redskins that week. The Cowboys lost, and I cried after the game. My parents told me if I continued to take the game this seriously that I would not be allowed to watch it anymore.

I recall the last Monday night game of one season, it was the Cowboys vs. the Dolphins and Dan Marino. Dallas needed the win to get into the playoffs. My mom picked me up early from a cub scouts meeting so I could watch the game. Unfortunately they lost.

The mid to late 1980s were really bad. After the retirement of Danny White, quarterbacks such as Gary Hogeboom took the reins. I remember my Dad would start singing after an inevitable interception “Gary H o o g a b o o o u u u u m”.

Then Jerry Jones bought the team and that was the last of Coach Laundry. A disappointing way to go out. But I really got excited with Jimmy Johnson as coach.

The 1988 season was my favorite year. I watched every single game. The Cowboys drafted Troy Aikman from UCLA and Steve Walsh from the University of Miami. The Cowboys only won one game all year, and that was a victory over the Redskins with Steve Walsh at the helm. The excitement and enthusiasm of the new coach and young players was infectious. I was thankful to the Vikings with the Hershel Walker trade which built a good part of the 1990s Cowboys team.

The early 1990s were the glory years. Watching young players such as Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irving develop into hall of famers was amazing to watch. Winning Super Bowls seemed easy at that point.

However, since 1996 Dallas has been through a plethora of coaches and quarterbacks trying to recreate the magic of the early 1990s teams. It is not so easy to win Super Bowls

I have tried given up watching the Cowboys many times. During the 1997-1998 seasons I was a ski lift operator in Montana living in the mountains with no TV. This about kicked my habit of the Cowboys. Then I started grad school in pursuit of my PhD in Anthropology. I wouldn’t allow myself time to spend a Sunday watching the Cowboys if I had not made much progress with my research.

But here I am now. Almost 40 years old. I followed the last Cowboys draft in April and was happy and surprised with the new draft class of Frederick, Williams, and Escobar.

I wish I could stop watching them. I have a lot more things to do. I have manuscripts to write and publish, spend time with my wife, and we have our first baby coming this fall. Yet, here it is the start of the season and I can’t wait. Will the offense line solidify with Frederick? Will the new 4-3 defense allow Ware to become the best DE in the league? All questions that I want to see answered and I do not want to miss a thing.

It feels like watching the Cowboys is in my DNA. Watching and talking about the Cowboys with my Dad was an important part of my life. It will be interesting to see if my love of the Cowboys is culturally transmitted to my son. Being a fan of a team like this is so much more than just watching the game.

GIS in Archaeology

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is a necessary tool for all researchers in the field of archaeology regardless of area of expertise. Archaeology above all things is a science of material culture and a critical facet of understanding material culture is interpreting the relationship between material culture across the landscape and also how material culture is related to different components of the landscape. Archaeology is like a great detective story, it is an attempt to understand pieces of an unknown puzzle.

A key principle in the geographical sciences is that the closer things are to each other the more related they will be.

Archaeologists use this principle to understand past human behavior by mapping in the location of sites, their features and artifacts. By examining the spatial distribution of artifacts and sites – archaeologists can then interpret past spatial behaviors at a site, and the different types of activities that took place across a region and within their territories.

There are 4 key benefits of using GIS in archaeology:

1). Examining spatial patterns across a site or region for interpreting past behavior. Included within GIS packages are powerful spatial statistics.
2). Correlating the relationship between sites, or individual artifacts within sites to the landscape. The landscape in GIS can be modeled with such things as elevation, distribution of water, location of lithic resources, most prominent landmarks, etc.
3). Making pretty maps. A lot of archaeologists stop at this level of expertise, and this is an important aspect. Archaeology is a visual science and making great maps are important for displaying the location of artifacts and sites on the landscape.
4). Managing data. The story of archaeology is told across space and time. GIS offers a great database function to manage information that is tied to a place on earth. Artifacts collected in the field occur from a particular place with an x,y,z coordinate, however, intangible information can also be tied to space, such as an oral history told by an elder about a particular site or place.

Software

ArcGIS: is the most popular commercial software coded by ESRI out of Redlands, California. It is very expensive, but most universities do have an academic license for this software. The main benefit of ArcGIS is that it is easy to use, and this is the main type of software taught at universities.

Grass GIS and QGIS: Grass GIS was developed by the U.S. Army with the help of several universities and other federal agencies. This software is free! It has been around a long time and is now a lot more user friendly to start up and use. There is more of a learning curve in getting started, but for coders I feels this software offers many more benefits to developing add-on specific applications than for ArcGIS.

Caveat: I am not a coder, but have learned to work through the specific commands of the software.

I have been using Grass GIS for several years now and prefer it over ArcGIS for some functions, but I use both in combination. I was attracted to Grass GIS early on due it’s availability on Macs – ArcGIS only works on PCs. Another big difference between ArcGIS and Grass GIS is how it handles files. In ArcGIS different types of files can be scattered all across the hard drive of a computer. I have spent countless hours for an important source of data that I have put in a subfolder and can not relocate. If you are working on a map with a data source and move that file in an organization attempt to clean up your hard drive, then ArcGIS will not be able to display the information on the map. Although in recent versions of ArcGIS, ArcGIS will automatically load other data sources within the same map if you can locate one of the files and if the data sets are within the same folder. In contrast, Grass GIS stores your datasets within its specific folder structure system associated with a particular map and projection. Therefore, you are less likely to lose data on the computer, but it is a more rigid system and requires that all of the data is in the correct projection and set geographic boundary. I spent a lot of time figuring this out about Grass GIS.

QGIS (Quantum GIS) is a more user friendly shell for GIS and works with Grass. It is also open sourced it works on most platforms including a mobile Android version. If you are interested in Grass GIS then you will also use QGIS.