Strung Out on Archaeology

An Introduction to Archaeological Research

Laurie A Wilkie

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315419510
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Archaeology

Teaching the basic principles of archaeology through an "excavation" and analysis of New Orleans Mardi Gras parades and the beads thrown there? A student's dream book! Award-winning historical archaeologist Laurie Wilkie takes her two loves and merges them into a brief, lively introductory textbook that is sure to actively engage students. She shows how her analysis of trinkets tossed from parade floats can illustrate major themes taught in introductory archaeology classes—from methods to economy, social identity to political power—introduced in a concrete, entertaining way. The strength of Wilkie's book is in showing how different theoretical models used by archaeologists lead to different research questions and different answers. The textbook covers all the major themes expected of brief introductory texts but is one that students will want to read.

Chapter 1:
The Parade, 2009

My daughter and I are sitting on a grungy street curb. In the gutter by our feet is a mass of discarded crawfish shells, wadded-up napkins, stepped-on Louisiana hot links, candy wrappers, broken strands of beads, and who knows what else. Fortunately for us, the stale-beer smell emanating from this clotted mass is currently stronger than the competing aromatic hint of piss. As I watch my daughter violently flick “popper" firecrackers at the street in front of her, I think of the sacrifices I have made in the name of archaeology. We’ve been sitting here for what seems like a day, but in reality, it has been about 45 minutes. We are not-so-patiently awaiting the arrival of the Krewe of Bacchus and its annual Carnival parade.

I am not good at waiting, and my bored eleven-year-old is not making the wait any easier. She should have been a pro at Mardi Gras by now—she attended her first parade at six months of age. Yet, every year, she manages to forget how long she has to wait for the parade to arrive, that it smells bad, that people push and shove, and that if she wants to pee, she just has to wait until we walk back over by the Amtrak station—the only place with a reasonably clean public toilet.

“What time is it?” she asks, for the fifth time in as many minutes. I tell her an earlier time than I did previously to see if she is even listening to my answers. She’s not.

“When is the parade supposed to start?”

“At five o’clock,” I answer, again.

“You just said it is after seven. Where’s the parade? It’s late.”

She doesn’t pause for any answers, and she has a routine of complaints she’ll spin through, ending with the inevitable, “I’m bored.”

I say nothing in response. I’ve already reminded her that the parade starts miles away so of course, it won’t reach us at the advertised start time. I have also already reminded her that the parades at Mardi Gras are always late. In the street in front of us, children are playing catch with footballs and other toys caught at earlier parades. Music is blasting. There are certain songs that are always played at Mardi Gras: “Mardi Gras Mamboo," “When You go to Mardi Gras,” “On the Bayou,” and so on. It is festive and nostalgic the first eight times you hear each of these songs in a Carnival season, but the next 48 times are a little grating on the psyche. People are drinking canned American beer pulled from coolers that double as seats.

Figure 1.1 Bead ladders lining St. Charles. Photograph by Alexndra Wilkie Farnsworth.

We are awaiting the parade in an area know as the no man’s land, the grassy median that divides the two sides of the street. We are on St. Charles Street, just to the southwest of Lee Circle and the freeway an area not popular with tourists who cling closer to the circle itself and to Canal Street. In the residential areas of the route, property owners rope off their front yards and set up yard furniture and tables to prevent others from standing on their property. The most passive aggressive piece of parade furniture is the children’s viewing ladder. Imagine a tall ladder with a booster seat attached to the top, as well as some sort of container for holding beads (Figure 1.1). Some are decorated with purple, green, and gold ribbons and other Mardi Gras themes. They line the parade routes in the residential neighbourhoods like sentries, protecting properties from the invasion of uninvited parade spectators. Perched at the top of these contraptions, small children hold nets and sign and invite floats to throw them as many favors as possible.

And that is why we are here: to collect the stuff thrown at the parades. This not just some greed-fueled quest; we are on a nobler quest than the hoards that surround us. We are here as scientists, social scientists, archaeologists to be exact. Alex is here as my able assistant; she is actually quite infected with the greed of bead lust, a trait that makes her a very useful fieldworker. We have a bag labeled “Bacchus 2009” that will contain all samples we will “excavate” from this parade. Later, the beads contained in this bag will be meticulously cataloged, with their colors, finishes, lengths, diameters, and shapes all measured, noted, and recorded in a standardized format that will allow me to compare this set of beads with those gathered at other parades at other times. It is this basic data drawn from material culture that will allow me to construct interpretation about subjects as varied as the economics, politics, and gender relations of Mardi Gras (see chapter six, eight, and nine). But I get ahead of myself. The parade isn’t here yet.

Vendors with pushcarts meander by with their wheeled bazaars offering a wide array of appalling crap like firework snaps, goofy hats, lighted necklaces, giant cigars, inflatable hammers, and any other number of goods that can be obtained at your local dollar store. I’ve already been suckered into buying the kid some of this expensive crap—anything to buy a few minutes of pre-parade peace. I lean forward to peer down the street and grumpily adjust the flashing rabbit ears that inexplicably adorn my own head (Figure 1.2). I think briefly about how I should have thought to dress as Indiana Jones or Lara Crift.

There are several ways to determine the proximity of an approaching parade. Night parades, like Bacchus, often have large spotlights mounted on a truck in the beginning of the parade. By watching the skyline for their methodical arcing, you can see, first, if the parade is even moving yet and, second, its approach. Sometimes, shortly before a parade, an electric company’s cherry picker, mounted at the same height as the tallest float in the parade, will slowly drive along the route checking that no utility lines will be hit and pulled down by a float. Mass electrocutions taking place at a Mardi Gras parade would be bad for New Orleans’ reputation, after all.

The best indicator that the parade nears is when you see the street vendor start to flee in the opposite direction. The sprinting vendors are closely followed by New Orleans' Finest driving en mass down the parade route. With their sirens bleating and chirping, motorcycle cops slowly drive along the parade route at the curb edge to for crowd up on the sidewalk. For the remainder of the parade, horse-mounted officers provide the same service—driving the crowd back from the street. There is good reason for doing this. People mob the floats, and it is common for these papier-mâché titans to hit parade goers. The parades feature numerous marching bands, whose lines stretch the full width of the street. I pity the high school students—especially the barely clad baton twirless—marching on the outside lanes of their bands, walking along the curb, and facing the drunken crowds.

Many tourists think that the city of New Orleans puts on Mardi Gras. It doesn't. The city pays for the police and the clean up. The city rents porta-potties. The city advertises Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is hosted by social organizations called krewes. The first New Orleans krewe, the Mystick Krewe of Comus, was founded in 1858. It was a secret society of American society men who wanted to reinvigorate Carnival celebrations in the city. Although the French brought Mardi Gras to New Orleans, supposedly as early as 1699 when the d'Iberville brothers first camped on the site that would become the city, by the 1850s, the yearly festival was marked more for its increased murder rate than anything else. A group of American businessmen reacted against proposals to outlaw Carnival by organizing a public procession that featured torch-lit floats and an exclusive mask ball. This uniquely American take on Mard Gras became popular in the old French city, and other krewes were organized. It is the membership dues and fund-raising activities of krew members and these organizations that pay for the beautiful parades. Even after the devastation of Katrina, New Orleans’ Mardi Gras has managed to avoid corporate sponsorship.

Figure 1.2. Laurie and Alex attending a 2009 Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. Photograph by Paul Farnsworth.

The throws so coveted by parade goers—the plastic cups, the doubloons, stuffed animals, party favors, and beads—are all bought by individual krewe members. The throws are everywhere at Mardi Gras, but no one has seriously studied them—until now. As an archaeologist who studies the recent and, sometimes, contemporary past, I realized that the material culture of Mardi Gras deserved archaeological study. My sites are the parades themselves. My physical tools are my ability to beg, catch, and jump; my mental tool are the intellectual and methodological tools of archaeological thinking and doing. While I don’t use a trowel or shovel, I am still conducting a kind of excavation; I control for the variables of time and space in my collection strategy just as an archaeologist digging in the ground does. Instead of being surrounded in soil, my artifacts are held in place ever momentarily by air as they travel to the place where they are deposited—my hand. Most things archaeologists find have been discarded by their users and left to accumulate and be covered over long periods of time. You might say by collecting the objects directly at the time of discard, I’m merely simplifying the archaeological process.

As the police approach, the crowd rises. Those who have been sitting on curbs or lawn chairs get to their feet. Children are put on top of coolers, ladders, or shoulders so they can see, and everyone jostles toward the front. My daughter and I are short; we absolutely have to be in the front if we are going to catch many throws. The first part of the parade consists of black cars with dark tinted windows carrying miscellaneous and mysterious dignitaries associated with the Krewe of Bacchus. A large black SUV emblazoned with the logo of Blaine Kern Studios eases by us. Some people clap golf-tournament-style. Blaine Kern is synonymous with Mardi Gras for many. His studio creates most of the magnificent floats that characterize Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. Each parade starts differently; some feature stilt walkers, Shriners in little cars, and masked and robed horseback riders. There is typically an American flag and banner honoring veterans of the military branches. These marchers receive boisterous applause.

At night parades, there are flambeaux carriers holding flaming torches who with gas tanks filled with naphtha strapped to their backs. The first torch carriers were enslaved people, and it is reputed that many of the modern carriers come from long family lines of flambeaux carriers. Flambeaux carrying has a performative aesthetic associated with it, and many carriers twirl, throw, and swirl the torches creating another-wordly light spectacle as they parade. The tradition was once to toss pennies at the feet of the torch carriers. The nice interpretation of this practice was that it was a means of thanking or tipping the carriers; but, I suspect there was no small element of racist intent to the practice—white men tossing pennies to watch a black man with a torch bend over to retrieve a few cents. Today, if pennies, or even quarters, are thrown, the flambeaux carriers pointedly ignore them or glare in the direction of the tosser. The better sort of New Orleanian will discretely approach a flambeaux carrier whose work they’ve enjoyed and slip them a folded bill or two.

The early part of the parade features few throws. The riding lieutenants on horseback may throw some aluminum doubloons featuring the krewe logo and parade theme, and the Shriners toss some handfuls of candy. Some parade goers covet the doubloons and maintain collections that date back to the 1960s, the heyday of this throw; but most people are here for the beads: shiny plastic beads. The bigger and longer, the better; and if they are beads specific to the parade of Bacchus, well, that’s the best!

We will collect and catalog these throws as well, but they are not the main focus of our study. Still, by recording this information, it will be available to other interested scholars to use. This is standard archaeological practice—an ethically responsible archaeologist will record all materials encountered. Many sites include multiple periods of occupation, so an archaeologist interested in a British Roman period site, for instance, will still record and collect evidence from the Anglo Saxon and Medieval sites that overlay the Romanera occupations.

The royal float approaches, and Alex and I strain to see the top of the float where the king sits. Since its founding in 1968, the Krewe of Bacchus has featured a celebrity king. In most krewes, the king is a member of the organization who has high standing in the city. Bacchus is different. One doesn’t need to be of old New Orleans blood and good breeding to join Bacchus; one only needs to be nominated by a member and be able to pay the annual dues. The krewe generally includes from 1,000 to 1,300 members, and the parade is one of the largest of the season. This year, the newspapers have told us to expect 33 floats, including the ever-favorites Bacchagator, Bacchasaurus, Bacchawhoppa, and King Kong family floats.

This year’s celebrity king is Val Kilmer. Alex has never heard of him. “I think he played Batman and Tarzan at some point,” I explain. With the king’s float, the throws begin. Each float can be seen as a microcosm of the parade. The king’s float is multi-tiered, with only the king perched on top of a throne surrounded by large purple grapes. Grapes are a theme that reoccurs on other floats, and which creates a sense of aesthetic unity to the parade. Later, I will discuss ways that different parade organizations also use material symbols and color schemes to signal their organization’s identity to parade goers. Behind the king is a large representation of Bacchus himself, the god’s hand outstretched in a pose that could be seen as either a wave or a tossing gesture. At the human king’s feet are bags beads and doubloons with his image. He wears a large crown and a kingly beaded and fur-decorated cape over white satin leggings and knee-high silver boots. When so moved, the king waves and throws gifts to his admirers; other times, he drinks from a giant chalice and allows others on the float to throw on his behalf.

The grapes and chalice may be symbols of the Greek God, and his gifts are a foreshadowing of the generosity of the floats to follow. King Bacchus in his costume is dressed more like a king from a Medieval-themed dinner theater. While every parade season features a new King Bacchus, each wears the same costume, ritually ceding their identity to that of the Roman god of wine. The men attending to the king are dressed in formal wear. Their black suits and white shirts demarcate them as important but not to be confused with the king. On the bottom level of the float are small children bedecked in smaller versions of the royal garb. They are the most enthusiastic throwers of the king's treasure, and they represent the future of the parade. The most generous of the parade are also the ones with the most ornate and structured floats. The most elite organizations have floats that are only used in their parades, while smaller groups share floats with other parades by simply labeling them with different names. This self-conscious use of materials to convey understanding is what makes Mardi Gras so rich for archaeological study.

Even before the float is before us, the crowd has assumed the begging pose—our hands have flown up beseechingly in unison, and our voices call out for gifts in a whining buzz. In the roar, a few words can be made out. “Throw me something.” “Here! Here!" “beads!” We see the rain of beads cascading off the float as it approaches: perfect glittering circles arcing through the air. The crowd surges upward, jumping and grasping, hands hoping to clench around this plastic piece of wonder. We join the crowd, expressing our hunger, trying to make eye contact with a sympathetic rider who will throw something gently to the short girls in front. We are swallowed by a thicket of arms and hands. We hear beads being caught around us, the distinctive clicking of flesh and plastic. It only incites our fervor.

We do not get a clear look at the costumed figure who is Kilmer, even though King Bacchus defies the New Orleans city ordinance that requires all float riders remain masked at all times. Riders also must be tethered to the float by a harness. Lots of drinking takes place on floats, and before the harnesses were required, riders had a habit of flopping off of floats when they hit potholes. No maskers fall off this float, and it speeds out of reach. We are now in the street, and we find ourselves pushed back on the curb by the mounted police clearing the road for the first marching band. The crowd retreats backward. The lucky few who have caught favors are inspecting their treasure and reliving their success. “Did you see how I caught that? I must have jumped five feet straight up!" The lootless look on enviously.

It is hard to explain bead lust to the uninitiated. There are psychology studies that demonstrate that humans are hardwired to be attracted to shiny things. That is certainly the case with the beads. It is the rare individual who can watch the distribution of beads at Mardi Gras and not want some for themselves.

Despite our pleas and upward springs into the air, we come away from the king's float empty-handed and regroup while the first marching band performs. Alex is despondent. “I’m not going to get anything!” she wails. I remind her that the beginning of the parade is always roughest, and that when the tall people get their fill, we’ll be able to catch things as well. This is little consolation. “And don’t forget the viewing standings after Lee circle Once the floats hit the viewing stands, the parade stops so each float can be viewed and each band perform.” Where we are on the route, the parade will come to a halt every few moments, which will allow us to approach the float and beg more personally for throws. As a child, Alex was cherub-faced and always did well obtaining stuffed animals and beads. She is still reasonably cute, even at the awkward front-edge of adolescene.

As we wait, I scan the crowd. There are a bunch of students from a local univer...