This week in follow-ups
I’m on an early holiday vacation, which would usually mean no newsletter. But I’m trying to get back to something close to my previous weekly schedule, and I’d rather start now than in January, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s a New Year’s resolution, and I refuse to even give the impression of complying with that toxic tradition.
Fortunately I can keep this issue short by sharing two recent article I wrote, both follow-ups to previous work. First, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference voted to maintain its journal’s new image policy prohibiting the use of photographs of objects buried with Indigenous ancestors. For more background, you can read my original article on the debate here. But I think these two paragraphs from my follow-up story sum it up pretty well:
The debate within SEAC reflects tensions over the fact that archaeological ethics are quickly changing. Archaeologists on both sides of the issue expect similar image restrictions to spread to other journals, conferences, and classrooms in the United States and Canada. “We always hoped [the image policy] would be a model for other organizations going forward,” says Maureen Meyers, an archaeologist at the cultural resources management firm New South Associates who served as SEAC president when the image policy was developed. Deepening collaborative relationships with tribes “is going to lead to a fluorescence of knowledge about the past.”
But Steponaitis says SEAC’s policy and others like it “have already had a chilling effect on certain forms of research,” especially the study of iconography, which relies on detailed visual comparisons of artistic motifs across cultures and time period. “How can you start a research project not knowing if you will be able to publish it?” he says. “We’re not just approaching the edge of a slippery slope. We’re rolling down that slope.”
I also wrote a short piece in Science’s Breakthrough of the Year package on the possibly-to-probably very old humans footprints in White Sands National Park, which were deemed a runner-up in light of this year’s confirmation of the original radiocarbon dates. Love to maybe be in the middle of a paradigm shift!
And in an update on the Substack situation, this week many writers published an open letter to the company’s founders requesting official clarification on whether “platforming Nazis part of your vision of success.” I know we’re all confident they’ll be getting a clear, coherent, and ethical answer soon, right? In any case, I’m glad to have joined what seems to be a growing exodus.