Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
I once produced a small shell midden in my kitchen. Just now I made a small clearance cairn in the garden. My wife has ordered a peony bush from Gansu in China via a plant dealer in Turku, Finland, and I picked it up at a trucking firm the other day. Now it fell upon me to dig the hole and plant the thing. While digging I set aside all the stones I came upon, as lo-tech farmers have done for millennia, only at a smaller scale. And thus my little cairn.
[More about archaeology, gardening; arkeologi, trädgård.]
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Can't you buy peonies in Sweden, or was this some special variety?
Posted by: eleanora. | October 2, 2010 5:39 AM
You know, you owe it to some far-future archeology student flailing around for a PhD project to plant a 17th century erotic figure and an 11th century coin together with something contemporary under the rocks.
Posted by: Janne | October 2, 2010 5:51 AM
El, this is apparently something quite special. There were peonies in the garden where I grew up.
Janne, what I really want to do is bury all the stuff you suggest along with something collected on a trip to the far future.
Posted by: Martin R | October 2, 2010 5:56 AM
Failing an ability to travel to the future, you may have to settle for stuff from as far flung places as possible, eg, Janne's erotic statue - maybe from Italy, some Viking silver work, a Chinese lion, perhaps a stainless steel statue of a fairy or emperor penguin, a carved emu egg (how would you preserve it?) and something that typifies South America - maybe a stone llama or something from a dig that's already several centuries old.
This could become a fun game.
Posted by: eleanora. | October 2, 2010 6:15 AM
Maybe I could get one of my elderly neighbours to kill and dismember another elderly neighbour and then bury the body along with my cache of exotic objects.
Posted by: Martin R | October 2, 2010 6:45 AM
Be sure to include a clay tablet (fired) inscribed with mirror-writing Klingon which translates as "Ha ha! Wrong cache."
Posted by: blf | October 2, 2010 6:54 AM
Who cares about the rocks in the way! It's just soil with some larger than average particles. What kind of peony was it? A tree peony? Come on, give with the good stuff.
Posted by: The Phytophactor | October 2, 2010 9:49 AM
A rockii tree peony of a breed named Long yuan zhuang shi, "Dragon hero". There were actually two plants in the box, slightly intertwined but not joined.
Posted by: Martin R | October 2, 2010 10:22 AM
Very pretty, but I can't believe the prices quoted on the wbsite I looked them up on!
Posted by: eleanora. | October 2, 2010 6:02 PM
You should also dig some post holes at random spots in the garden, interspersed with fire pits, and let the posts rot in the holes. Those poor future archaeologists could get bored excavating 21st century suburbs and landfills and yearn for simpler periods.
Posted by: SM | October 2, 2010 9:18 PM
My toil at Åshusby in Norrsunda '92 and Sättuna in Kaga '08 convinced me that it should be considered a crime against humanity to dig a pit or posthole without putting anything interesting in it.
Posted by: Martin R | October 3, 2010 2:15 AM
So, I guess you should have buried some statury or coins or something under the peony.
Posted by: eleanora. | October 4, 2010 12:50 AM
Dildos seem to be huge hits with future researchers: http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2010/07/stone_age_dildo_found_in_swede.php
Posted by: kevin | October 4, 2010 5:58 PM
A buddy of mine actually found a modern dildo at a site he dug a few years ago. It was at a highway crossing in Småland.
Posted by: Martin R | October 5, 2010 2:57 AM