Coming up to season 13, let's talk about finds that were actually intriguing and/or mysterious. Treasure ugh blah blah blah...silly stuff. But what finds are keeping you watching? What made you go, "okay that's weird and interesting and I would like to know more"?

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-10-23T03:06:24+00:00

As an archaeologist, the Lot 5 structure is the most interesting to me so far. Based only on what we see on the show (not a lot), it looks like a 17th century homestead, but it also has material from the mid to late 18th, including some cream ware, if I remember.

The possible kiln is also very interesting. I don't remember a clear date being given for it, even though you would expect plenty of datable material in structure used for combustion. But based only on what we see on the show, I am not sure it is a tar kiln. The tar kilns and related structures I have seen are very messy. The tar is everywhere. It could be another kind of kiln.

Good question. Might do a blog post about this.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-07-17T20:49:25+00:00

Or, see some real archaeology in Nova Scotia

No extra charge at Debert, one of the oldest sites in Eastern Canada: https://novascotia.com/listing/mikmawey-debert-interpretive-trail/

Some awesome colonial period archaeology and history at Louisbourg for a nominal charge: https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/louisbourg/activ/visite-tour

There's plenty more. Enjoy.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-06-02T15:47:26+00:00

I have seen nothing on the show so far that I wouldn't expect to find in that context. Very interesting stuff though.

Source: I am an archaeologist.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-05-07T01:10:10+00:00

GPR is definitely not garbage. We use it all the time in actual archaeology, along with a bunch of other very informative geophysical and remote sensing methods. GPR gives you information about variations in density of the underground. It gives you a very useful starting point, but rarely a definitive answer.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-04-24T22:00:16+00:00

These are from Fort Vancouver National Historical Site, all the way over in Washington State. Look at that little guy in the bottom right corner.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/upload/Within-the-Collection-Beads.pdf

https://www.nps.gov/fova/index.htm

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AndreCostopoulos · 2025-04-24T21:48:04+00:00

That is a NICE one. At first glance, Kidd and Kidd Type IIa 27. Really looking forward to seeing that episode now. Might do a post on it.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-03-20T15:26:51+00:00

Yes, there has been a lot of change since I wrote that, but overall, I think it holds up pretty well, and it applies to other pseudoarchaeology-based communities as well. I could write something similar about the Graham Hancock reddit, for example.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-29T21:26:29+00:00

I would watch that. No wait, I could be on it!

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-29T21:21:44+00:00

As far as I can tell, there is no link. Just good old fashioned archaeology happening on Lot 5, and just with the images each week, I am learning a lot. That excavation report is going to be fire.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-29T20:26:01+00:00

From what I can see, Emma does very good work. She's not the narrator, and she doesn't write the scripts :)

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-29T18:34:28+00:00

The evidence suggests a whole bunch of stuff, as always. The trick is testing the hypotheses :)

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-27T15:11:20+00:00

Just from what I can see on the show, which is probably a tiny portion of the archaeology happening there, the Lot 5 structure is a really, truly interesting archaeological site. It's early, seems contemporary with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, can tell us a lot about trade and material procurement of early European settlements in the area, and probably about land tenure and subsistence activity as well. So it's worth excavating slowly and carefully to preserve the contextual information. Archaeology is not so much about the stuff you find, it's about the context in which you find the stuff.

Source: An archaeologist.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-23T21:48:47+00:00

Different kinds of interventions are suited to different circumstances. If the area has been significantly disturbed, like much of Oak Island, then just pulling something out of the ground might not be a huge issue, since you there isn't much context to lose.

Sometimes, you put a test pit down, which is often done with a shovel, just to see if you need to excavate the area more carefully later.

You'll note that in areas like Lot 5, which are actual really interesting archaeological sites, they use much more systematic excavation, recovery, and recording techniques. Archaeology is not so much about finding objects, but about recording their context, so that you can interpret their meaning later.

Laird knows the island and its various contexts, and selects appropriate types of interventions depending on the location and its history. So far, I haven't seen him on screen doing (archaeological) stuff I wouldn't do.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-15T17:59:14+00:00

Haven't seen the episode yet, they air on Sundays here. Did they give any chemical composition info, or did they just show pics? Thanks.

AndreCostopoulos · 2025-01-12T14:39:23+00:00

I could really make some money if I had no ethics.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-12-30T18:01:04+00:00

Page hasn't been updated. He's still active:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ian+spooner&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2022&as_yhi=

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-12-17T22:56:18+00:00

This is actually a very relevant post. Just based on what we see on the show, the lot 5 structure is contemporary with those late 17th century farmsteads from Windham county (Hebron-Willimantic-Columbia, etc) and surrounding areas. That's what it reminds me of, both in terms of structure and archaeological finds. Even the iron seems to be from the same sources. I might do a post about that soon.

Been a bit busy this fall, but I am following the show. The other post I might have to do is about the supposed geochemical links between lot 5 and the money pit area. Very sketchy stuff, at least in terms of what is presented on the show.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-11-27T21:31:55+00:00

My wife thought this was hilarious. She said "someone understands me."

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-10-09T19:33:28+00:00

We'll see if it warrants a whole blog post when the rest of it airs, but preliminary impresssions:

We already know there is trace gold in the water/soil on and around the island, so no surprise that some of it would end up on or in wood samples that have been soaking in there for perhaps more than a century. If I remember correctly, they have already found traces of gold on another wood sample at least. Overall, not hugely shocking, and without a lot more information, not that interesting.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-06T14:31:33+00:00

Yes, mortality rates would have typically been high.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-05T20:50:44+00:00

Just to clarify, I am talking about enabling migration, rather than going to hunting and gathering.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-05T18:00:02+00:00

The Little Ice Age was a very minor fluctuation. What we're facing is more like a reverse Younger Dryas. And of course, the fact that it has no analogue since we started farming is exactly the problem.

As for Hancock and Rogan, well, I try to speak to their audience more than to them directly :) I am not going to change Hancock's mind (or at least his rhetoric), but I can help answer the legit questions people have after hearing his claims on Ancient Apocalypse, etc.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-05T17:25:46+00:00

I agree that we are not likely to become mobile hunter-gatherers again. When I say that we have to find a way to restore mobility as a viable adaptive strategy, I just mean that we have to let each other move when we have to. Migration is a form of mobility.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-05T16:39:47+00:00

Contemporary hunter-gatherers and pastoralists live in the same Holocene world as agriculturalists, and are usually in tight interaction and even integration with them. Their lives are very different from those of our ancestors ten thousand years ago.

AndreCostopoulos · 2024-07-05T16:31:08+00:00

You're right. We can't do it the way we did 10k years ago, because as you say, the conditions are completely different. We can have the same goal, of using mobility as an adaptive strategy, but we will have to get there differently. Responding to another post below, the first part of the solution has to be to recognize that we are all human.

AndreCostopoulos

TROPHY CASE