Cyndi's Two Cents

Cultural vigilance

Commentary.

The drought in my neck of the woods continues to worsen.  A pop-up shower dumped a hair over a tenth of an inch last week, for which we are grateful, but it left us wanting more.  It’s nothing like the drought of 2012 when we didn’t get rain until early September and came close to selling off our cow herd, but there are others just a few counties away that are in dire straits.  With cattle prices low and hay prices high or hay simply unavailable, many are caught between a rock and a hard place.  My husband always says, “The first loss is the least loss.”

As is the case for many of you reading this column, the television is seldom turned on at our place during the summer months.  History, National Geographic or other educational programs get more play than any other year-round, but especially now.  We do catch a few television news programs, especially when there is an important announcement.  Jim and I watched President Trump announce his pick to replace Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court on the television in the barn office.  We listened to the president’s Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh talk about his upbringing, his experiences and his family and discussed how well-rounded and qualified he seems to be.

Jim said, “It all sounds good, but what I really want to know is if he believes animals have the same rights as humans.”

Isn’t it sad that our thoughts even go there?  We need to stay vigilant.

A few weeks ago, a program on one of the educational channels on tv featured archaeologists and anthropologists excavating and analyzing human bone fragments and stone tools along an old and long-dry river bed in Africa. On the same channel, another night, archaeologists and anthropologists were excavating and analyzing human skeletons and weapons from a battleground turned burial ground in South America.

Arrowhead hunting was a shared passion in my family. From shards of pottery to hide scrapers; tiny spear arrows to massive axe heads – each find was a grand discovery. My brother spent several years during high school and college working for the Illinois Archaeological Survey. Like a love of agriculture, a love of archaeology must be part of the genetic make-up in the Young family.

One of the goals of anthropology and archaeology is studying cultural evolution and understanding culture history. It is rather amazing that pieces of bones and other artifacts can shed so much light on civilization. Artifacts tell the story of how these people cooked, what they ate, how they ate, what they threw away, how they hunted, where they lived, and so much more. The behaviors and even the beliefs of these early people can be determined by what they left behind. Burial sites tell the story of the religious practice and the cultural interaction with others who lived at the same time.

These people who lived more than fifteen hundred years ago were gregarious. They depended upon one another as families, as clans, and as trading partners. They became organized and had clan leaders. As I understand it, archaeologists learn a great deal from the burial sites of leaders, but they also learn a great deal about the culture from how the “regular” people lived.

I am disappointed about much in the culture in America today. I know this sentiment is shared by many. If we don’t like it, we need to go to work to make some changes in our local communities and probably, too, in our own homes. We need to remain vigilant.  We need to exercise our right to vote.  But there is more we can do if we really want to improve the quality of our culture today and for generations to come.