Placer Mining and Heritage Sites

I am a placer gold miner’s daughter. This means I grew up surrounded by heavy machinery and a lot of dirt. In the Yukon, just like in many other places, there are a lot of historic and/or heritage sites. As I grew up I heard a lot of talk about miners unearthing sites that contained human or animal remains and sometimes the remnants of old buildings or mine sites from the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899). The human and animal remains are often quite a lot older. My Dad has found a lot of animal remains in his placer mining career. Usually they are just broken pieces of mammoth tusk or other bones, although he has actually found some truly amazing pieces of tusk and a tooth. He has also encountered many different sites from the Klondike Gold Rush. Dad sometimes takes me exploring to see these sites and explains all the mechanics of a Gold Rush era mine. It really is truly fascinating and I am really proud that I have had these great experiences growing up in the Yukon. Thinking about all those people who would love to learn about these things, and I simply took them for granted because I grew up surrounded by all that amazing history. That is until recently when I found out just how many people are actually really interested in hearing about it. Now I understand how lucky I am.

Although Dad has never found a site that has been deemed a heritage site, others have. There have been sites of multiple burials, possible cemeteries, found by other miners who were none too happy to have to halt all mining and wait for government officials to come and figure out what to do with the site. If you find any historic or archaeological site you have to cordon off the area to a distance of 30m, halt all work in the area, and follow the guidelines given to you in your land use permit. The following link to a handbook gives a general idea of the instructions to follow in Section 9: http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/pdf/Placer_Mining_BMP.pdf. Section 10 has links to other resources for more information on historic site conservation and management.

As a gold miner’s daughter I can see why miners would be so frustrated with having to halt work, especially for an undetermined amount of time. Their paychecks are in that dirt! What is even worse is if you have done drilling to test the ground in that area and you know that that those remains are sitting on paydirt. Paydirt refers to ground that contains precious minerals, in this case gold. If the officials decide that the site is to become a heritage site that means that the miners won’t be allowed to mine that site at all. If it is just going to be excavated and not labelled a heritage site then the miners are usually allowed to mine that ground after the excavation is complete. Like I said, and undetermined amount of time. Meanwhile, the miners are allowed to continue mining the ground outside of the 30m perimeter. Most miners are not very interested or really care about the sites they just want to get on with their mining.

As an aspiring anthropologist I see things from a slightly different view. I understand that these sites could be really very important finds, or they could be First Nations sites in which case great care must be taken in deciding whether or not to excavate or mark the site as a heritage site. There are so many different things to take into account before making any decisions, and meanwhile the miners are harassing them trying to get them to speed up their decision so they can get on with their work. Another decision that must be made is whether or not the historical site may be larger than anticipated and should the miners stop working all together until that can be determined.

As a gold miner’s daughter and aspiring anthropologist I am slightly torn. On the one hand I would like the miners to be able to continue work so they can get paid, but on the other hand I realize the possible importance of the site and the need to take great care in the making of decisions, especially when it comes to First Nations finds. I think that if I had had a different dad then I would feel more strongly about miners being able to continue work, but as it is my Dad loves history and old mine sites and he believes that whatever is found at those sites should remain at those sites. Other miners take old machinery and such and set it on their property as a type of decoration. Dad disagrees with this completely, and I think it is his influence that has made me really value things in their place. If he comes across an old mine site or piece of old machinery or sometimes even an “old-timers’ trail” or “test pit” he will leave it be. This sometimes means working around it or finding a way to avoid mining that part. Where our camp site is situated there are a couple “old-timers’ trails” and “test pits” and I think he chose that place for the camp so he wouldn’t destroy them. It is for those reasons that I feel that my dad values the land and history a lot more than some of the other miners in the area do. He even won the Robert E. Leckie Award for placer mining restoration in 2002 (http://www.emr.gov.yk.ca/mining/leckie_2002.html). 

Serial Killers and Photography

Why do some serial killers take photos before and after they kill their victims? There are a few reasons I suppose; to taunt police or to just keep record of their work, or even for self-pleasure at a later time. What I find interesting is how they take the pictures after they are dead. The pictures while they are alive are usually not too disturbing. In fact the serial killers often used photography as a ruse to get their victims. I am pretty sure that there is no right way to take pictures of the dead but I think it would be interesting to compare how crime scene photographers take photos as opposed to the serial killers own photography. Are there differences? As the victim has a different value to both the crime scene people and the serial killer I imagine that there would be differences. I’m not really sure how I came up with this idea but I thought I would check it out.

I found a website (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/article/chilling-final-photos-of-murder-victims-taken-by-their-killers/index.html) that has photos that serial killers took of their victims before they were murdered. Here a couple of examples:

(Shari Miller, murdered by William Richard Bradford who posed as a photographer)

(Todd Stoops, who died from injuries inflicted by Bob Berdella)

Both of these images are quite different and probably had different meanings to the serial killers who took them. It would be interesting, in a rather disturbing way, to see the pictures that they took after their victims died to see if the pictures were similar to the ones taken beforehand. Did Bradford pose his victims in a similar fashion as if he were taking photos of a model? Or are they quite different so he could better see the differences his “handiwork” had made? I imagine that he would have taken the pictures in a more emotionally attached fashion than a crime scene photographer would, but how he would have done that I don’t actually know.

I am assuming that photos taken after the victims had died and also the crime scene photos are hidden away in files in police or FBI records somewhere and so are unavailable to the general public. This makes sense of course given the nature of the photos. Without those sources I am unable to look at any differences or similarities in the way the photos were taken. I imagine that serial killer profilers would look at the similarities and differences in the before and after photos that might help them with their profile. I used to want to be a profiler and I find it really interesting all the little things that they look at to help build their profile. I always thought you could tell a lot from a person from the photos they took. 

London's Newest Discoveries

London, England is in the process of building a new railway line. In the process of digging the holes necessary for the new railway workers have made a great many interesting discoveries. One of the most recent discoveries is what archaeologists believe to have been a burial ground for victims of the Black Death (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/15/britain-black-death.html).  The discovery of thirteen skeletons that they believe to have been victims of the Black Death is only one of the many interesting finds that have been discovered by the workers. Other interesting finds include 55 million years old amber, 68,000 years old bison and mammoth bones, remains of a large manor house with moat from the 1500s and remains from Roman times. It just seems to be a continuous succession of finds, which are most likely delaying the building of the railway. With a history as vast and interesting as London’s it really is no wonder that they are discovering all these extremely interesting finds as they dig holes all over the place! Although everyone seems to think these discoveries are unusual for some reason.

Scientists are studying the bones of these thirteen skeletons to determine cause of death, and with DNA testing determine if it was indeed the Black Death. Everyone has heard of the Black Death, and if they haven’t then the most certainly should! The Black Death killed around 75 million people within a four year period (the length of the pandemic), and thousands of those people were in London. Archaeologists believe that the skeletons found were victims of the Black Death due to the way they were laid out and the depth at which they were buried, which are very similar to another Black Death burial ground.

These are not the only skeletons that they have unearthed either. Over 300 skeletons have been discovered at the New Cemetery near the Bedlam Hospital at Liverpool Street. What is really interesting to me is that they did not actually have to dig very deep to find all of these things; and that they have found so many things! It makes me wonder what else they might find as they continue their railway project. I have always loved the history of England and I find all these discoveries so truly fascinating. I really wish that I could be there to see all of them, and to work with the archaeologists on these projects. Maybe I’ll find a fieldwork program there someday…

Dying in Winter?

Something I hadn’t really thought of before is dying in winter. I kind of always assumed I would die in the summer. But what happens when people die in the winter? Maybe in places such as Victoria this is not as big of an issue, but further north it must be. Having lived in the Yukon for a lot of my life, and for many winters, I know how frozen the ground can get. I can only imagine how hard it must be to dig a grave in that ground. Even in the summer there is permafrost everywhere which keeps the ground frozen hard.

I found an article from a newspaper “Burials Are a Rite of Spring in Alaska” (http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/09/news/adna-dead9) that briefly talks about winter burials in Alaska. It has become more common for Alaskans to preserve the bodies until they can be buried in the spring. It is still common to bury them in the winter outside of the bigger communities though most often they are Native Alaskans. Of course storing the bodies over the winter above ground does not really pose a problem as the temperatures are so cold that they remain frozen until they can be buried in the spring. Having to wait up to six months after the death and funeral of a relative to bury them could be especially hard on some people as they may have only just started to move on from the experience.

Winter burials in Alaska, or lack thereof, is interesting because in the Yukon cemeteries must be open year round for burials. Most likely they would have to wait a little bit longer to bury the deceased as it would take longer to dig the grave in the winter than it would in the summer. Section 55 in the Cemeteries Bylaw for Whitehorse, Yukon (http://www.whitehorse.ca/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=297) mentions this by saying that two working days’ notice is required for a plot to be prepared in the summer and three working days’ notice in the winter. As far as I know there is no policy in Canada to store the bodies of the deceased over the winter due to freezing and snow. Maybe Canada is more aware of the trauma one might experience in having to wait months for the burial of their deceased relative?

I haven’t been to many funerals and burials in my life thankfully, but they ones that I have been to have been in the summer. There was one that I went to when I was quite a bit younger that I know there was still snow on the ground for but it was in spring and I wasn’t at the burial. As much as I hope that I don’t die in winter, I am glad that I live in Canada and not the U.S.A. because I would definitely not like to be stored in a freezer for the rest of the winter!

A Cannibal and a Vampire = The World's Most Evil Couple = A Match Made in Hell

I am really not very good at keeping up with this blog. As much as I hate to admit it I am a lot better at keeping up with things if I actually have to handwrite them. Anyways, on to the actual blog post!

My group project is on endocannibalism. We are doing a comparison between the Australian Aborigines and the Brazilian Amazons. Under “endocannibalism” in the Encyclopedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186851/endocannibalism) you can find the following; “In some cases, the body of a dead person was ritually eaten by his relatives, a form called endocannibalism. Some Aboriginal Australians performed such practices as acts of respect. In other cases, ritual cannibalism occurred as a part of the drama of secret societies.”

While I was looking at the endocannibalism among the Australian Aborigines I found a ceremony in which they drank another’s blood. This made me think about the definition of cannibalism. Cannibalism, by definition, is the eating of another of the same species’ flesh. But what about the blood? This made me think about vampirism. Vampirism, I suppose, can be associated with cannibalism, or it can be quite separate.

While I was looking at various articles and websites I came upon this article about a couple in a psychiatric hospital in Sweden (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094724/Cannibal-ate-girlfriend-finds-love-vampire-bars-psychiatric-unit.html). Another article same story but entertaining narrative (http://gawker.com/5881668/). The man, Isakin, decapitated and ate his girlfriend, and the woman Michelle, stabbed and drank her boyfriend’s blood. Both Isakin and Michelle posted online about what they had done, which imminently led to their arrests. They also both opted for indefinite psychiatric treatment rather than a life sentence. They had internet and cellphone access and that is how they started “dating” and later got engaged.

Experts say that there is no chance that they will be released, even in a country as liberal as Sweden is. They both have posted online about their relationship and say that they just want to live a happy normal crime-free life. (I cannot for the life of me find anything else online about them apart from newspaper articles about the initial engagement; probably because anything else has either been removed or is not in English.) The article says that the court had not yet decided whether to allow them to marry or not, and I cannot find anywhere whether they did end up getting married or not. Perhaps no decision has been made yet.

So…what do I have to say about this? I think that they are lucky to be in such a liberal country as Sweden, that much is for sure! They are allowed cellphones and internet, not to mention they escaped a life sentence in jail for what seems like a cushy psychiatric hospital! The popular view from the comments that I read under the newspaper article is that Isakin and Michelle are probably safer in the psychiatric hospital than they would be if they were let out. I wish I could have found something more on them other than the one main article.

I know this blog post doesn’t have much to do with the Archaeology of Death, but I couldn’t help it, I just found it fascinating! They are as quoted “the world’s most evil couple”, and it’s been over a year since they got engaged and I haven’t seen or heard anything else about them. A vampire and a cannibal getting together? What could be more interesting?! I wonder what their life would actually be like if they were let out (and no one else murdered them!). I really doubt that they would lead a “normal” life though. But I bet they could work well together…