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Meet an Anthropologist Mary Leakey Laetoli Footprint, 3

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Meet an Anthropologist Mary Leakey Laetoli Footprint, 3.6 MYA http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/footprints/laetoli-footprinttrails Olduvai Gorge-Proconsul africanus, 18 MYA partial skull fossil of ancestor of apes and humans Mary Leakey Animated Life Meet an Anthropologist Dr. William Rathje, 1945-2012 ? American Archaeologist ? PhD from Harvard and interests in archaeology, early civilizations, modern material culture studies, and Mesoamerica ? He started Le Projet du Garbàge in 1973 in Tucson, AZ, often referred to as the “Garbology Project” or the Tucson Garbage Project. ? Rathje demonstrated great creativity in thinking outside the ‘standard’ parameters of archaeology and was radical in thinking about human waste not from 10,000 years ago but from yesterday or 10-20 years ago. ? Did not take assumptions for granted ? Valued science and the evidence, ‘let the garbage do the talking’ Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage, 2001 • Looked at garbage to learn more about people and their patterns of consumption. He became interested in news headlines in 1980-90s about landfill waste. • He found a lot of news coverage warning about a crisis: “BURIED ALIVE: The Garbage Glut” was the cover headline of Newsweek, November 27, 1989. “Are We Throwing Away Our Future with Our Trash?,” the title of the “American Agenda” segment of ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings on December 2, 1988. The reporting claimed that fast-food packaging, disposable diapers, and plastic grocery bags were singularly responsible for “straining” our landfills. • William Rathje wanted to see if this was what the evidence said. ? Between 1987 and 1995, archaeologists from the Garbage Project at the University of Arizona systematically excavated, hand-sorted, measured, and recorded thirty tons of contents from fifteen landfills located across North America. The information that resulted from these digs was unexpected: ? Fast food packaging, diapers and plastics actually amounted only to 2% of landfill input Rubbish! Findings Continued ? Demonstrated that what was not on our radar screens was far more significant like construction debris (20%, 2nd largest category) ? Biggest contributor to landfill was PAPER • By using the evidence of waste, he showed that folks consumed a lot more alcohol than they reported. • Showed that Tucson residents threw out 10 per cent of the food they purchased and that middle-income households wasted more food than the poor or wealthy. ? Major insight and foregrounding of the discrepancies between self-reported behavior and actual behavior ? Highlighted the divide between what people may believe and realities William Rathje Garbologist Talkin’ Trash Reflections and Connections in Archaeology due TUESDAY by MIDNIGHT A Start Assignment Due May 18 by 11:59pm Points 35 Submitting a file upload At the end of each two week section on one branch or field of anthropology, you will need to submit 5-6 paragraphs connecting, addressing and analyzing the materials we have looked at together. Your assignment should be about one full page, single-spaced. For this assignment, you need to cite at least 5 sources: 1) The "Archaeology Overview" Page; 2) Either archaeologist we met (Mary Leakey or William Rathje); 3) Reflections on the garbology exercise and what other students' posted and shared; 4) Any additional video, website, or link listed under the Archaeology MODULE 5) ONE OUTSIDE source on ANY archaeological site, discovery, or finding that interests you!!!! This is your chance to briefly research ANY archaeological topic that interests you. You can look at any time period that you want. There are countless archaeological sites in North, Central, South America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Europe. If there has ever been a place you've heard about, this is your chance to check it out. YOU CAN USE ANY TYPE OF MEDIA YOU WANT--it can be a documentary, a website, a news article, a specific archaeologist, etc. Find a source you like and explore it for 5-10 minutes and then share your reflections with me along with a link to the cite please. Your job is to pull a claim, quote, idea or concept from each source and then discuss, interpret and analyze the material in 5-6 paragraphs. What have you learned about anthropology and archaeology? What is unique about anthropology? What questions do you have? Do physical remains from the past matter? Does the past matter to you? Why or why not? O G Apr 22, 2021 Please tell us where you got the garbage. You don't need to give ANY names--just tell us the general location, neighborhood or vicinity where the garbage is from. I found these trash in the apartment trash can near my house. . Tell us or show us with images what was in the garbage in detail. What groups or categories did you create? What oddities or solo-things did you find? I took one of the bags of garbage. The bag was a plastic bag from a supermarket. The garbage in it was completely unsorted. There were a lot of Chinese snack packaging, pet food cans, drink cans, Togo boxes, milk tea cups, a lot of masks and feminine products. . What does the garbage tell us about the people/person who made it? Based on the rubbish, I can probably know that the owner of this bag of rubbish is a female, from mainland China, probably an overseas student, because it is near the school. She lives by herself. There is only one trash can in her house and there is no classification. This phenomenon is normal, because people in mainland China are not as aware of garbage classification as other countries. Her food comes from restaurants, and it is Chinese food. The food style biased towards the north of mainland China; she may be from the north of mainland China. And its delivery because I can see the delivery company's receipt Edite ... Apr t 2:47am 0 # Please tell us where you got the garbage. You don't need to give ANY names--just tell us the general location, neighborhood or vicinity where the garbage is from. I collected all the trash on the back porch, so I found it on the back porch of my house. # Tell us or show us with images what was in the garbage in detail. What groups or categories did you create? What oddities or solo-things did you find? Plastic, paper, general trash, and cans were collected separately for each type. There are many water plastic buckets for plastic. This is because we buy water from Costco every week and drink it. And there are many boxes on the paper where food was wrapped. Seeing that there are a lot of chicken boxes, we ordered chicken often. And there are lots of ice cream peels and tissue papers. There was a lot of trash from Costco. # What does the garbage tell us about the people/person who made it? Looking at the trash seems to reveal the way that person lives. Since Korea separates all garbage and throws it away, it is separated by type. And because I often go to Costco to go shopping, there is a lot of waste from Costco items. And because each drink 2 liters of water a day, you can see that there are a lot of 2 liters of water. And because I enjoy eating ice cream, there is a lot of ice cream trash. Also, since Korean food is mainly made and eaten, it can be seen that most of the garbage is related to Korean food.