July 6, 2009
WCVB-TV’s award-winning Chronicle newsmagazine featured a segment on the atlatl team, a group of anthropology students, at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Chronicle reporter and co-host Ted Reinstein traveled to campus to meet with the students and their professor, Robert Goodby, to learn more about how they are keeping knowledge of the 30,000-year-old weapon alive—earning praise in the field, in the media and in the classroom—and learning about early humans in the process.

Check it out!!!

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/19973236/

This is the link to the article on their website: http://www.archaeology.org/0901/etc/conversation.html

 

The new sport of ancient spear-throwing

Celine Rainville, captain of the Hurling Ravens (Courtesy Franklin Pierce University)

Franklin Pierce University senior Celine Rainville is the captain of the Hurling Ravens, one of the few college teams to participate in spear-thrower competitions. Referred to by the Aztec word atlatl, spear-throwers were the weapon of choice for prehistoric cultures the world over. Rainville talked with ARCHAEOLOGY's Eric A. Powell about how an atlatl coach motivates her team, where to get a state-of-the-art atlatl, and why today's undergraduates would want to master a 25,000-year-old weapon.

Is it tough explaining to people what an atlatl is?
A little. Basically I tell them that an atlatl is an ancient spear-thrower, not the spear itself. It's essentially a stick that can hold a spear, or dart, and acts like another joint for your arm, giving you the ability to hurl a spear farther. In prehistoric times they were used mainly for hunting big game--really big game, like mammoth, or bison. But we use them to throw spears at a Styrofoam deer decoy.

How did you get into atlatls?
Freshman year, my archaeology professor Robert Goodby introduced me to them. He took our class outside with atlatls and plenty of darts and we threw spears at a trash can. I was totally hooked. The anthropology club started sending students to competitions, and now we have the team. There's no official roster, but we get from 5 to 20 students at practice, which is pretty incredible.

What are your responsibilities as team captain?
Basically I organize practices, which we have once a week. We grab our atlatls and the decoy deer and spend about 45 minutes to an hour throwing. I also encourage the team, try to give them pep talks. For instance, I'll tell them to imagine a scenario where they haven't eaten for a week and they're going to have to hit this deer if they want food. That gives them some motivation.

How do you equip the team?
Everyone has their favorite atlatl. I actually own mine. The father of the former captain of the team made it for me after I did well at a competition. It's got a mammoth-ivory ball at the tooth, the part that holds the spear, and you can feel the difference it makes on the release.....

Anthropology Students Head to Philli

Robbie Michaelson

Issue Date: 2-4-09

Six students from the Anthropology Club along with Anthropology Professor Robert Goodby took a trip over break to present their work with atlatls at Archeology Institute of America's annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The students presented their atlatls to visitors at the meeting and showcased their knowledge on the subject. The club has been using atlatls for a number of years and can be seen practicing with them during the warm season. An atlatl is an ancient spear-throwing device used by many civilizations throughout history. These tools can be made out of any material, but the students work with wooden atlatls. They use them to throw spears at a target or just go for distance.

Celine Rainville, president of the club, sees the trip as a "great bonding experience" for the students and a chance for them to "geek out" over archeology. The fair they presented in was free and open to the public where many people were interested in their work. While the atlatls were a hit with the kids, Rainville was met with many adults that were fascinated by their work. "Everything went off without a hitch," said Rainville.

The meeting is divided into a fair on archeology and a conference on the subject. During the conference, distinguished archaeologists present their research to an audience. The students attended these conferences to learn more about the field. Junior Taber Morrell enjoyed the conferences and believes they are a glimpse of the future. "They were very interesting because a lot of people presenting were graduate students and that's where a lot of us will be in a few years."

Franklin Pierce University is among the few schools invited to the event. Students attending the school were first invited to participate in Fall 2007. Last year four students attended and former Provost Michael Bell had funding for the entire trip. According to Rainville the bad economic state our country is in hurt their funding this year. She estimates the cost of the trip this year to be somewhere in between $2000 to $3000. This year they had to work harder to get money towards the trip, but were able to receive the funds they needed.

The club hopes to attend the meeting next year where it will be held in Anaheim, California. Rainville believes the club will still focus on atlatls because many people do not know much about them and want to know more. "Atlatls are really working for us," said Rainville

The Raven Report is a publication put out by Franklin Pierce that usually features faculty and staff achievements. The Anthro Club was featured in it this time. They show a picture of us with Jane Goodall and mention the appearance in Archaeology Magazine. Here is the text:

of Archaeology Magazine,

To view the article, please visit http://www.archaeology.org/0901/etc/

conversation.html.

Anthro Club made the Manchester Union Leader!!!

                                                                                    (Sunday circulation: 73,000)

Manchester Union Leader

New Hampshire Sunday News

Front Page of the Lifestyle Section

Sunday, October 12, 2008

 Jim Fennell: Talk about your throwbacks...

Franklin Pierce University of Rindge has a widely successful college sports programs, including NCAA titles in men's and women's soccer. Bob Goodby hopes his team can add another.

In atlatl.

What, you never heard of atlatl?

Where have you been for the last 25,000 years?

That's how old this ancient -- and, we do mean ancient -- art of spear tossing has been around. And FPU actually has a team that participates in atlatl competitions.

Goodby is an anthropology professor at FPU and the adviser of the anthropology club, which also doubles as the atlatl (AT-LATT-el) team. So, that kind of, sort of, makes Goodby the coach and, as all good coaches do, he has his goals set high. "I look forward to the day when Franklin Pierce wins the first NCAA atlatl title," Goodby said.

Yes, he's kidding. I think.

Don't expect the NCAA to recognize atlatl as a sport anytime soon. First of all, there are probably fewer than 10 colleges that even have atlatl teams. And they don't take themselves too seriously. "It's nothing the school sponsors, and we only practice once a week," said Celine Rainville, a senior who helped form the team three years ago. "I never played sports, that's why I love this sport so much. It's something I can do. And it's so low stress. You really have to try to hurt yourself."

The team -- which changes daily, depending on who shows up -- practices on the softball field in the middle of campus. They have to stop practice when people are crossing the field, which happens frequently, otherwise they may end up spearing someone. You can believe some of them have thought about it.

The atlatl is a stick that attaches to a long, thin spear with a pointed arrow or metal tip. By using the atlatl, you can toss the spear, three to four times farther than just by throwing it. It was first used as a hunting tool, and Celine admits she sometimes envisions hunting down people she doesn't like so much when she's about to throw.

In other words, don't get her mad.

Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few atlatl clubs around the country that have competitions based on accuracy and distance. Goodby said you could toss a spear 300 feet using an atlatl.

The club at FPU returned to Boston this past weekend for the second year to give an atlatl demonstration at the Boston Museum of Science as part of fair hosted by the American Institute of Archaeology. They were also invited to give a demonstration last year in Chicago.

Goodby said it all started when he bought an atlatl for his students to use in class a few years ago. "We went to a field and they had a blast," Goodby said. "From that point on, the students took it over." And if I was going to FPU, I'd be very nice to those students. Especially when I was crossing the softball field.

http://www.franklinpierce.edu/about/news/pr_20081016Atlatl.htm

Prowess with ancient weapon earns recognition for anthropology students 

October 16, 2008

RINDGE, NH - The art of throwing with the atlatl - an ancient spear-tossing tool that preceded the bow and arrow - is being preserved and promoted by a group of students at Franklin Pierce University. The University is home to one of the few college atlatl teams in the nation, and students who can wield the weapon and describe its history are increasingly sought for demonstrations.

Atlatl Team members, who represent the University's Anthropology Club, recently showcased their marksmanship and explained the instrument's important place in early human survival at the American Institute of Archaeology's Boston Archaeology Fair at the Museum of Science. This was the second year that the club was invited to the event.

Students created an atlatl (pronounced at-LATT-el) exhibit and demonstrated atlatl throwing in the museum's theater, with spear points replaced with rubber stoppers for safety. Their audience included archaeologists, groups of school children and the general public.

"It was an amazing opportunity to educate people about an ancient weapon that virtually every society used on every continent," said Celine Rainville, a senior anthropology major from Highgate, Vermont. "People had never even seen the word ‘atlatl' and were not familiar with the instrument. As anthropologists and archaeologists, it's our job to get people interested in ancient cultures, so this was a great chance to spread the word."

The Franklin Pierce Anthropology Club has also appeared by special invitation at the American Institute of Archaeology fair in Chicago, and was recently invited to appear at the next AIA Fair in Philadelphia in January.

Celine attended the Chicago event in 2008 with the club. She said the conference confirmed that her academic major had relevance. "We were among a very small number of undergraduates at an event that attracted professionals, Ph.D.s and graduate students from across North America," she said.

The University's atlatl team also competes - and has earned awards and medals - in regional competitions in the Northeast, said Dr. Robert Goody, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce. "I am not aware of any other nearby colleges or universities that have an organized atlatl team," said Goodby. He added that classroom teaching and field work have been enhanced by his students' interest in the 25,000-year-old hunting tool, which throws a 6-foot-long dart up to 100 yards.

Read more about the Anthropology Major at Franklin Pierce University.

This article can be found here: http://www.bu.edu/today/node/4930 

Big Dig

Native American site discovered at BU’s Sargent Center

By Vicky Waltz

Vanessa Giraldo and Meg Bishop, anthropology students at Franklin Pierce College, took part in an archaeological dig at BU’s Sargent Center for Outdoor Education. Photos courtesy of Robert Goodby

Little is known of the Native American tribes that roamed New England forests thousands of years ago, but an archaeological survey conducted last month at Boston University’s Sargent Center for Outdoor Education, in New Hampshire’s Monadnock region, has uncovered tantalizing evidence of the area’s earliest inhabitants. 

Last spring, Robert Goodby, a professor of anthropology at Franklin Pierce College, approached Sargent Center officials about the possibility of an archaeological dig on the Hancock, N.H., property. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discovered sites along the river, directly to the south of Sargent Center,” he says. “So I had a strong suspicion we’d find more on the property itself.

“This dig was particularly important,” he continues, “because up until the last decade, there was little evidence of Native American occupation in the Monadnock region.”

In July, Goodby moved his classroom to the banks of the Nubanusit River, where he and eight students hoped to unearth remnants of the area’s distant past.

It didn’t take long. The first day they recovered quartz chips, a broken quartz tool, and a piece of pottery. By the end of the third week, they had found more than 1,000 objects, including arrowheads, spear points, and animal bones, and on the final day, they discovered the remains of a small cooking hearth. “Because of the site’s remote location,” Goodby says, “the soil was virtually undisturbed, and the artifacts were in surprisingly good condition.”

Situated between the Nubanusit River and the outskirts of a large wetlands area, the site is one of the largest in New Hampshire, measuring nearly 500 square yards. “Tribes traveling by canoe would have found an abundance of food and other resources in the wetlands,” Goodby says. “The soil is sandy and well-drained, which was ideal for settlement.”

Using handheld trowels and shovels, Goodby’s students dug 19.5-inch holes at 9-yard intervals. “Most of us had spent more time looking at pictures in books than at actual stone tools,” says senior anthropology major Vanessa Giraldo, “so spotting genuine tool fragments was pretty challenging.”

While the artifacts indicate the site was repeatedly occupied between 1,000 and 6,000 years ago, it’s impossible to know by whom. Traces of the fine-grained sedimentary rock called chert and the metamorphic stone quartzite — neither native to the Monadnock region — indicate the tribes also traveled through the Upper Hudson River Valley and central Vermont. “Most likely they were ancestors of the Abenaki, a tribe of hunters and gatherers whose descendants still live in the area today,” Goodby says.

Further lab analysis will provide additional information on the artifacts’ age and origins, he says. Goodby hopes to return to Sargent Center for future digs to learn more about the area’s history.

“We’re looking forward to collaborating with Dr. Goodby on many forthcoming projects,” says Robert Rubendall, director of Sargent Center. “Finding evidence of human activity that dates back four millennia is very exciting, and we intend to learn as much as we can from it.”

Founded by Dudley Allen Sargent in 1912, the Sargent Center for Outdoor Education began as Sargent Camp. It was acquired by Boston University in 1932, and it became the summer location for Sargent College’s physical education and health majors. Today, the camp features 25 miles of hiking trails, a 60-acre pond, a high ropes course, and basketball and volleyball courts.

Retracing a tribe's past

Professor believes site in Swanzey, N.H., may hold remnants of centuries-old fort built by Abenakis

Article found here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/26/retracing_a_tribes_past/

By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff  |  August 26, 2007

SWANZEY, N.H. -- The scraping tool was lying in plain sight in a sandy hollow. But no one had noticed the quarter-sized bit of stone, which Native Americans may have used to scrape animal hides 11,000 years ago.

Enter Bob Goodby, an associate professor of anthropology at Franklin Pierce University. Minutes after he walked into the woods on a sun-splashed day last week, he spotted the tool, bent down, and scooped it up.

It was not the archeologist's first stroke of luck.

In recent months, largely by chance, Goodby may have recovered a part of history that was on the verge of vanishing forever: the site of a fort built by Abenaki Indians in the last, doomed phase of their struggle to preserve their way of life here.

Goodby still needs permission from landowners to begin excavating the site to prove his theory. If his hypothesis turns out to be correct, it will show how easily history slips into oblivion and how small-town oral traditions can prevent local knowledge from disappearing.

Goodby learned the fort's possible location from a former Swanzey resident, Fred Rawlings.

Last Christmas, Rawlings, 81, received a copy of a new local history anthology as a gift. The book included an essay by Goodby about the Abenaki. When Rawlings read the essay, which mentioned the fort, he remembered stories he had heard from an older neighbor 50 years ago, and artifacts he had found when he lived near the river. Rawlings contacted Goodby and described where he believed the fort once stood.

Before he got the call from Rawlings, Goodby had believed the fort's location was lost for good. "It really has faded from memory," he said in an interview.

Native Americans had a long, rich history in the southwestern corner of New Hampshire. As far back as 11,000 years ago, native people cooked, camped, and worked with tools on the sandy shores of the Ashuelot River near Mount Monadnock, according to radiocarbon dating of burnt wood in the area. But the history of these people, called Paleoindians by archeologists, has been obscured by more recent civilizations.

By the time the fort was built, probably in the 1700s, the natives' way of life was ending, Goodby said. The Indians had been ravaged by disease and warfare, and conflict between natives and white settlers was escalating. Soon the natives would be conquered by the Europeans.

To uncover the Indians' history, Goodby has depended on the knowledge of longtime residents such as Swanzey native Art Whipple, 73, a retired machine tool worker who is credited with discovering more than a dozen important Indian sites in the area.

Whipple began looking for native artifacts in the 1970s, as he hiked and fished in the countryside around Swanzey. After he told researchers from the University of Massachusetts what he had found in one location, their resulting excavation established the spot as one of the oldest Paleoindian sites in New England, dating back 11,000 years.

Goodby became interested in the area after he joined the faculty at Franklin Pierce, in nearby Rindge, seven years ago. He proceeded to excavate other sites Whipple had located. Five years ago, Goodby concluded that a V-shaped fish dam built of boulders in the river, long attributed to white settlers, had instead been constructed by native people.

"Unfortunately, most communities don't have someone like Art who looks out for these places," Goodby said.

The development of towns such as Swanzey makes it harder to find ancient settlements. Swanzey's population has grown by more than 1,000 people since 1990, to 7,300, according to the US Census Bureau. New houses have been built on land that was once woods and fields, and there are fewer lifelong residents. As a result, fewer people know local history.

"The older people who have been here know about it, but the new people don't," said Lori Belletete, deputy town clerk.

Rawlings, who moved to Swanzey in the 1950s, said he heard the story of the Indian fort from Ernest Dunham, who described the fort that once stood near his property.

"He pointed to an area across the street and said there were the remains of an Indian fort, a palisade, that he had seen when he was a boy," Rawlings recalled.

Last week, Goodby and Rawlings met for the first time at the location. They stood in the middle of the quiet street as Rawlings pointed out the spot where he was told the fort had stood. (At Goodby's request, the Globe is not publishing the exact location, to decrease the risk that looters will disturb it.)

The land was undeveloped and covered with yellow lady's slippers and pine trees when Rawlings lived in the neighborhood, he said. Now, a house sits on it.

A woman who lives in the house said she was unaware that her house may stand atop a former Indian settlement. She said she had never found any artifacts.

A member of the Dunham family who still lives in Swanzey, Lee Dunham, said Ernest Dunham was his grandfather's brother, who lived from 1898 to 1961. Dunham said he does not recall family talk of the fort.

Goodby said Rawlings's recollections of what his neighbor told him match the account of the fort in a local history book from the early 1900s. At that time, according to the book, the outlines of the fort were still visible.

Goodby acknowledges that he could be wrong. Nonetheless, he plans to seek permission from the property owners to dig there.

"There could be nothing left there, or there could be some little piece that turns out to be significant," he said.

Rawlings has given Goodby a stone gouge, a shaping tool that might have been used to hollow out wooden canoes, and other artifacts he found in the neighborhood decades ago.

Rawlings said it was rewarding to help guide the archeologist. "To pick up something nobody's touched for 11,000 years is pretty exciting," Rawlings said. "He's doing what I should have done instead of going into business."

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.  

More Than 68,000 Youth Displace Themselves to End the Longest-Running War in Africa

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – On April 28th, 2007, thousands of youth across the United States fought for freedom and justice for the millions currently displaced in Northern Uganda. Organized by Invisible Children, Inc., more than 68,000 people attended “Displace Me” and displaced themselves in 15 cities across the U.S. By uniting together, participants sent a message to policymakers to help bring the current peace talks to a close.

Ten years ago, thousands of Ugandans were forcibly evicted from their homes and transported to overcrowded camps due to the horrific war in the North against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Initially created as a temporary solution, the overcrowded camps now have thousands dying weekly due to the inhumane conditions. “Displace Me” is a symbol of hope for Northern Uganda’s generation that has never known peace.

“You [participants of “Displace Me”] have heard the cry of our people and responded,” said Norbert Mao (Mayor of Gulu, Uganda) at Washington, DC’s “Displace Me” location. “I have come all the way to share your faith that every war has an end.”

Many high-level officials from Uganda came out for the event to speak to the masses about what the U.S. can do to finally end the war. Each speaker was overwhelmed by the response of America’s youth for the people of Uganda, hopeful that the event will lead to historic steps towards peace. “Displace Me” also caught the attention of the White House: First Lady Laura Bush addressed the crowd via video and praised the thousands of participants in their efforts to help bring peace.

An awareness event that used simulation and storytelling, “Displace Me” educated participants about the effects of displacement to personalize a tragedy largely unknown to the international community. Videos of displaced and war-affected Ugandans guided the night with specific actions, including 21 minutes of silence for the 21 years of war.  Participants also built homes out of cardboard boxes, voluntarily rationed food and water, and wrote letters to their Senators.

“Never before have I seen thousands of people who are so sincerely involved with a cause that they would voluntarily displace themselves to end a war in Africa,” said Pete Wentz, from rock band Fall Out Boy. Wentz was one of 7,000 participants at the largest “Displace Me” location in Los Angeles.

Invisible Children will continue follow-up meetings with members of Congress, along with ENOUGH Project and Resolve Uganda, to send a senior diplomat to the peace talks in Uganda. Invisible Children is also providing follow-up opportunities online for participants to continue their involvement, including ways to become politically active, donate to Charity:Water for wells, and provide school fees by purchasing Invisible Children’s upcoming Black Bracelet.