[also published in Facebook's note]

To begin the personal notes, I have to admit to you that this is my first ever international conference as an osteoarchaeologist-wannabe. I came by the opportunity to join by chance and I was already surprised on how intriguing and interesting the issues raised during the conference. I didn’t even realised it was a whole-day seminars with more than ten papers presented. I came alone as a delegation from the Southeast Asian Archipelago. The aim of participating in this conference is to test the water after a year of absence on contacts with skeletal remains.

The first papers presented were concise and had given me general outline about what is going on in the world of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia. I must admit that I have not been updating myself with news related to the subject, especially in Southeast Asia. General papers like updates on bioarchaeological researches in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, were something that I personally have never heard about. I have known several sites only when I came across their individual history of research when I was doing my undergraduate thesis and was using these sites as general comparison to prehistoric burials found in Pondok Selabe-1 Cave, Padang Bindu, South Sumatera. It is partly embarrassing to realise that I have not been updating myself, but I think that it is about time that I will pay all the loss of information along the way.

The most intriguing issue raised within the forum discussion was when I was sitting face-to-face with today’s community of Ban Non Wat who actually play a huge role on researches, conservation, and preservation of the large Neolithic-Bronze Age site in the mainland Southeast Asia. I have tried to find more about Ban Non Wat on the internet and found very few information that could give me a broad overview or general perspective about the site and its speciality. What was more intriguing was when I realised that the problem presented to my conscious was something that I have been talking about with a dear colleague of mine nearly a year ago.

Public archaeology is the issue.

What is public archaeology? Logically I would think that public archaeology is when archaeology is about the people and for the people. Who are the people? This may include the excavators, scientists, and local community. Especially the local community. But sorry, I do not have enough time to do lit-research on this subject; it's late at night and my brain is just itchy bitchy until I get this thought out... :P

As archaeologists, when we came to one particular site bearing the will of excavating, we mean to destroy the land to gain information under the soil and use them as archaeological data. This is the perfect timing to say that the data will be used to reconstruct the past life of some community. Most of excavations use local people to help us dig and not very rare that the team would pay some amount of money for the ‘service’ that the locals have given. One experience with an excavation somewhere in Java made me wonder and said quietly, do we even treat them as hosts whose place we visited? Do we actually respect local customs and beliefs during the excavation? Have we been nice, polite, and proper to our hosts? Like it or not, the fact that we’re the one who came into their territory made us the guests. But what happened afterward was I realised that in the end is all about transaction of money and service that they give us, without even actually acknowledging; let alone involving them into the excavation that is being held within their land.

Dr. Nigel Chang and Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej pinpointed the importance of local community’s involvement before, during, and after the research is done. Dr. Chang especially invited a group of people to the stage and introduced them as the possible living descendants of the Ban Non Wat prehistoric village. By the time they went up the stage, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately remembered the essay written by that colleague of mine on our archaeological mailing list (which by that time received less replies than he would imagined; as he imagined the topic would be very intriguing and interesting to be discussed about) and the intense conversation I had with him discussing about the same manner of treatment in an infamous paleoanthropological-archaeological site in Java. A year ago, he addressed to me of his concerns on how we treated the locals not only as helpers of our researches, but also as friends, family, and the people who actually live there and would helped to maintain, preserve, and conserve the essence of importance of the site. He was ranting about giving trainings or local educational packages to get the local people to understand the importance of the site, therefore would encourage them to participate on preserving the site.

This time, Dr. Nigel Chang spoke of the same concern, only different site to represent it. He brought the local people of Ban Non Wat in respect to let them know what the scientists have done in progress about researches being held at their residence. He also explained that these people helped a lot on the research projects and how it is important to give local people understandings of the importance of a site like Ban Non Wat. I couldn’t help but got my eyes quite watery. Compared to my country, what Dr. Chang did was indeed thoughtful and meaningful in purpose. Inviting them to the conference and letting them answer the questions from the forum were the best idea ever.

One of the conference participants asked the Ban Non Wat locals about how do they feel of being possible to be the direct descendants of the skeletal remains that they have been helping to excavate. This question sent jolts of electricity to my spine. One simple question but has deeper meaning than it was said. I looked at the local people in anticipation of the answer. They speak only Thai, and I spoke none of Thai. After the interpreter got hold of the main idea of the answer, he said, “Yes, we are indeed proud to have been participating in such important events of excavations. Those people might or might not be our ancestors, but they are the part of our local history.” Listening to this answer, I feel done. I am done for the day, I wanted to run to the toilet and cry my heart out. I was so touched. These people might not have higher education like most of us who are lucky. But that genius answer made me feel embarrassed and somewhat sad. Sad because in my honest opinion, in my own country, the appreciation of the help of the locals is way too minimum. It’s not only the matter of paying them for the day after the excavation is over. It’s not about how much we have to spend on their strength and time wasted helping us digging on a trench, while they could go somewhere to actually make a lot of money. But it’s the appreciation of having them as a part of the excavation’s team member, which is certainly more than just an acknowledgment in the preface of a final report (!!!!). In Bahasa Jawa, this is called “nge-uwongke”. Not many people know how to do this properly, not even me. I may or may not have done something (directly or indirectly) insulting to the locals, too.

Funny that I should mention the concept of basic Javanese lifestyle has become a huge concern among the bioarchaeologists in Southeast Asia (yes, I am exaggerating and overvaluing this....). It’s more than the bonding between us during the excavation, but how they are going to treat the site when we’re done with the research. Again, my colleague was correct, and it took me a year to have finally seen it with my own watery eyes.

The questions now:

1. Are we going to start to treat them as equally important as us who have the higher education?

2. How low would you go in terms of explaining complicated jargons of archaeology and other subjects to make them understand the importance of preservation and conservation of a site?

3. Are we going to start it on the next excavation available?

4. Are we going to start to value them more than the amount of money that we pay them daily?

5. Are we going to be honest to ourselves that we actually need these people to carry on and maintain the availability of data for future researches?

6. And to you, my successors, who actually get public archaeology as a subject in the class, are you ready to put your mind and stimulate your brain to be able to participate and applying your knowledge to the community? You should have known better than my arbitrary ramblings, because you obviously get the concept of public archaeology explained in the class. All you have to do is to apply it on the field.

I might not be as poetic or metaphoric as my colleague, but I tried my best to put this thought that has been bothering me during dinner party as it is. That’s it for tonight’s rambling. I’m a bit tired and I still have a workshop to do tomorrow. My brain is exhausted from today’s brain boost since 9am to 5pm. It’s a good thing though. Let’s just hope that tomorrow I won’t be mistaken tibia from femur. I have been away for quite some time.

Goodnight!

among the mist of cold wintry Central Thailand (it's fecking COLD heeeeree!!!!)

27th January 2012.

p.s.: I KNOW i recognised this guy when he was introduced as a delegation from Vietnam!! He’s the guy who said, “Although the job is difficult, we don’t receive much money while travelling in remote mountainous areas. So if we did not love the job we could not pursue it.” -- Dr Nguyen Lan Cuong - Vietnamese palaeoanthropologist. A very passionate, active, resourceful man ever! I wrote about him on my previous notes, if you even bother. *smirk....*

p.p.s.: I apologise for the insensible manner of how this 'essay' was written. The aim was to rant, to ponder, not to cause ignition nor troubles among us. ;) I'm tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.... ciao!

[also published in Facebook's note]

To begin the personal notes, I have to admit to you that this is my first ever international conference as an osteoarchaeologist-wannabe. I came by the opportunity to join by chance and I was already surprised on how intriguing and interesting the issues raised during the conference. I didn’t even realised it was a whole-day seminars with more than ten papers presented. I came alone as a delegation from the Southeast Asian Archipelago. The aim of participating in this conference is to test the water after a year of absence on contacts with skeletal remains.

The first papers presented were concise and had given me general outline about what is going on in the world of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia. I must admit that I have not been updating myself with news related to the subject, especially in Southeast Asia. General papers like updates on bioarchaeological researches in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, were something that I personally have never heard about. I have known several sites only when I came across their individual history of research when I was doing my undergraduate thesis and was using these sites as general comparison to prehistoric burials found in Pondok Selabe-1 Cave, Padang Bindu, South Sumatera. It is partly embarrassing to realise that I have not been updating myself, but I think that it is about time that I will pay all the loss of information along the way.

The most intriguing issue raised within the forum discussion was when I was sitting face-to-face with today’s community of Ban Non Wat who actually play a huge role on researches, conservation, and preservation of the large Neolithic-Bronze Age site in the mainland Southeast Asia. I have tried to find more about Ban Non Wat on the internet and found very few information that could give me a broad overview or general perspective about the site and its speciality. What was more intriguing was when I realised that the problem presented to my conscious was something that I have been talking about with a dear colleague of mine nearly a year ago.

Public archaeology is the issue.

What is public archaeology? Logically I would think that public archaeology is when archaeology is about the people and for the people. Who are the people? This may include the excavators, scientists, and local community. Especially the local community. But sorry, I do not have enough time to do lit-research on this subject; it's late at night and my brain is just itchy bitchy until I get this thought out... :P

As archaeologists, when we came to one particular site bearing the will of excavating, we mean to destroy the land to gain information under the soil and use them as archaeological data. This is the perfect timing to say that the data will be used to reconstruct the past life of some community. Most of excavations use local people to help us dig and not very rare that the team would pay some amount of money for the ‘service’ that the locals have given. One experience with an excavation somewhere in Java made me wonder and said quietly, do we even treat them as hosts whose place we visited? Do we actually respect local customs and beliefs during the excavation? Have we been nice, polite, and proper to our hosts? Like it or not, the fact that we’re the one who came into their territory made us the guests. But what happened afterward was I realised that in the end is all about transaction of money and service that they give us, without even actually acknowledging; let alone involving them into the excavation that is being held within their land.

Dr. Nigel Chang and Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej pinpointed the importance of local community’s involvement before, during, and after the research is done. Dr. Chang especially invited a group of people to the stage and introduced them as the possible living descendants of the Ban Non Wat prehistoric village. By the time they went up the stage, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately remembered the essay written by that colleague of mine on our archaeological mailing list (which by that time received less replies than he would imagined; as he imagined the topic would be very intriguing and interesting to be discussed about) and the intense conversation I had with him discussing about the same manner of treatment in an infamous paleoanthropological-archaeological site in Java. A year ago, he addressed to me of his concerns on how we treated the locals not only as helpers of our researches, but also as friends, family, and the people who actually live there and would helped to maintain, preserve, and conserve the essence of importance of the site. He was ranting about giving trainings or local educational packages to get the local people to understand the importance of the site, therefore would encourage them to participate on preserving the site.

This time, Dr. Nigel Chang spoke of the same concern, only different site to represent it. He brought the local people of Ban Non Wat in respect to let them know what the scientists have done in progress about researches being held at their residence. He also explained that these people helped a lot on the research projects and how it is important to give local people understandings of the importance of a site like Ban Non Wat. I couldn’t help but got my eyes quite watery. Compared to my country, what Dr. Chang did was indeed thoughtful and meaningful in purpose. Inviting them to the conference and letting them answer the questions from the forum were the best idea ever.

One of the conference participants asked the Ban Non Wat locals about how do they feel of being possible to be the direct descendants of the skeletal remains that they have been helping to excavate. This question sent jolts of electricity to my spine. One simple question but has deeper meaning than it was said. I looked at the local people in anticipation of the answer. They speak only Thai, and I spoke none of Thai. After the interpreter got hold of the main idea of the answer, he said, “Yes, we are indeed proud to have been participating in such important events of excavations. Those people might or might not be our ancestors, but they are the part of our local history.” Listening to this answer, I feel done. I am done for the day, I wanted to run to the toilet and cry my heart out. I was so touched. These people might not have higher education like most of us who are lucky. But that genius answer made me feel embarrassed and somewhat sad. Sad because in my honest opinion, in my own country, the appreciation of the help of the locals is way too minimum. It’s not only the matter of paying them for the day after the excavation is over. It’s not about how much we have to spend on their strength and time wasted helping us digging on a trench, while they could go somewhere to actually make a lot of money. But it’s the appreciation of having them as a part of the excavation’s team member, which is certainly more than just an acknowledgment in the preface of a final report (!!!!). In Bahasa Jawa, this is called “nge-uwongke”. Not many people know how to do this properly, not even me. I may or may not have done something (directly or indirectly) insulting to the locals, too.

Funny that I should mention the concept of basic Javanese lifestyle has become a huge concern among the bioarchaeologists in Southeast Asia (yes, I am exaggerating and overvaluing this....). It’s more than the bonding between us during the excavation, but how they are going to treat the site when we’re done with the research. Again, my colleague was correct, and it took me a year to have finally seen it with my own watery eyes.

The questions now:

1. Are we going to start to treat them as equally important as us who have the higher education?

2. How low would you go in terms of explaining complicated jargons of archaeology and other subjects to make them understand the importance of preservation and conservation of a site?

3. Are we going to start it on the next excavation available?

4. Are we going to start to value them more than the amount of money that we pay them daily?

5. Are we going to be honest to ourselves that we actually need these people to carry on and maintain the availability of data for future researches?

6. And to you, my successors, who actually get public archaeology as a subject in the class, are you ready to put your mind and stimulate your brain to be able to participate and applying your knowledge to the community? You should have known better than my arbitrary ramblings, because you obviously get the concept of public archaeology explained in the class. All you have to do is to apply it on the field.

I might not be as poetic or metaphoric as my colleague, but I tried my best to put this thought that has been bothering me during dinner party as it is. That’s it for tonight’s rambling. I’m a bit tired and I still have a workshop to do tomorrow. My brain is exhausted from today’s brain boost since 9am to 5pm. It’s a good thing though. Let’s just hope that tomorrow I won’t be mistaken tibia from femur. I have been away for quite some time.

Goodnight!

among the mist of cold wintry Central Thailand (it's fecking COLD heeeeree!!!!)

27th January 2012.

p.s.: I KNOW i recognised this guy when he was introduced as a delegation from Vietnam!! He’s the guy who said, “Although the job is difficult, we don’t receive much money while travelling in remote mountainous areas. So if we did not love the job we could not pursue it.” -- Dr Nguyen Lan Cuong - Vietnamese palaeoanthropologist. A very passionate, active, resourceful man ever! I wrote about him on my previous notes, if you even bother. *smirk....*

p.p.s.: I apologise for the insensible manner of how this 'essay' was written. The aim was to rant, to ponder, not to cause ignition nor troubles among us. ;) I'm tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.... ciao!