fake archeology?!

[Arugela]

Just to be funny does anyone think when he moves the red stuff off the fine tool that it looks like it may have a logo on it! >< Like it's just something he bought at a local shop and stuck in the mud.

https://youtu.be/49tm5FPZFn0?t=412

I wonder if there is any possibility that is also actually just red paint. It looks a lot like modern paint just thrown lightly into mud.

Ironic if that is a modern paint scraper or something. If so it would lead to me to believe that people who were faking archeology back then had an odd tendecy to do it with a particular sense of humor. His clothing alone and that pompous entrance in the video(/w convenient purposely dumb looking side stooge.)makes me think he's likely to be full of excrements and a fraud.

BTW, that polished stone looks like it's just a piece of broken off metal fencing. Is this a reenactment?! NVM, I'm assuming this is just representative as it was in the late 1800 - early 1900's... The framed entranced shot off the boat and color film are probably a giveaway. Unless this was happening until later in his life and this is actual footage somehow.(or someones else's later dig.) He is rather old.

This is either a reinactment with modern items or it's fake. You can see the holes of modern tooled bolts along the top of the handle or something in this pick:

Edited September 14, 2018 by Arugela

[Green Baron]

Errr, i'd very much like to help out but i won't go through an hour video.

If you can tell who "the lost red people" are and what kind of color (mineral like hematite or biological like henna or others) is used there. What he holds is clearly an industrial thing, if it's just for demonstration or really a fake i can't judge right away.

In principle, the pigments used in (the better) modern colors aren't much different from those used in prehistoric times. A binder is added to make the pigments adhere and last, maybe other stuff, pigments are mixed, and of course modern techniques allow for the production of much cheaper artificial color pigments. But pigments used for example in cave drawings or to color mussels or bones still shine brightly today, after 40.000yrs. But pigment use very much older than that !

Doing a quick search shows that the use of pigments like hematite and ochre for ritual or art purposes was not uncommon in north American prehistoric peoples.

So, not necessarily a fake, but maybe a shortcut to pigment use with modern day technology ...

... valid until correction :-)

Edited September 14, 2018 by Green Baron

[Arugela]

Yea, the video mentions something about it using actual footage. I was assuming watching teh first few minutes that it was all legitimate and from a dig. they even have a point where they show an actual dig in color seeming to match the opening. I'll assume since a guy got in a bush to watch the landing it's a reenactment thing for the video. I don't know any of the specifics. I just skimmed through it after the first few minutes where he pulls the stuff out of the mud. I thought it was too funny looking with the bright yellow rain coats and his hat...

I was hoping someone would recognize the tool used and possibly the, "writing," on it. 8p Craftsman and seers lasted along time if it's them.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Arugela

[Green Baron]

You are probably right. A brief look at the first 2 minutes and a search revealed that the excavation was done in the late 19th century. But there is a museum, i am sure they'll be happy if somebody writes them and gives their lives a meaning ;-)

Video teams are rare at a real excavation while it is taking place. Journalist's visits of course, photographs are being taken and so ... But the overall tone of the first 2 minutes did sound a little over important to me :-) Given that this apparently about an indigenous people from 7000 years ago, one of many.

Pigment use by humans dates into the earliest African Middle Stone Age >300ky ago.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Green Baron
Not that apodictic ...

[KG3]

Very cool stuff!  I have read about the Red Paint People.  I just watched about 25 minutes of the film.  I looks like there is reenacted stuff but some of the footage is of actual excavations from the 60s or 70s.  It's interesting to see them removing bones from the ground with bare hands.  I guess they weren't worried about contaminating the bones with modern DNA back then.  I think it's also more difficult today to get permission to excavate sites like this because there are people who prefer the sites be undisturbed.    

It's also interesting that some of the stone the tools were made from material that came from 1000 or so miles away.  It's amazing how people got around!      

[YNM]

I think there's more reason to think that it's a reenactment and not actual archeological footage.

 

And red painting isn't new. Ochre is red, but so is blood.

Spoiler

 

 

[tater]

I thought this was gonna be about the art of Patrick Nagatani...

(I knew Patrick, funky stuff)

[Green Baron]

*lol*

Well, it apparently does have a real archaeological background, just not as original, mysterious or occult as it might seem :-)

And my knowledge about the prehistorical Americas is very limited.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Green Baron

[K^2]

5 hours ago, YNM said:

And red painting isn't new. Ochre is red, but so is blood.

I was recently looking into making some reasonably historically accurate sealing wax (don't ask) and vermillion came up as a historical red die used for that purpose. Vermillion powder is made by crushing naturally occurring cinnabar crystals, so while I don't know how far back it's been used, grinding a crystal into powder doesn't seem terribly high tech. And the color is quite striking red, which won't fade over time, except due to accumulation of dirt over it.

Access to particular types of mineral dies are likely to be very regional, though. I don't know nearly enough about geology to even guess which types might be wide-spread, and which are going to be very rare.

[Green Baron]

Yeah, historical red colors are as you say vermillion (mineral) and cochineal(*) (carmine, biologic), in prehistorical contexts hematite and ochre is used. Pieces with traces of use were found near sites with art as well as elsewhere. Other biologic reds than carmine can't be ruled out, are even probable (am thinking of henna for example, where available).

Just, in principle, mineral pigments are in use since 100 thousands of years, not only by so called modern humans. Both hematite (iron oxide) and ochre (iron hydroxide) aren't rare at all. Ochre, when heated and dried, can be converted to hematite, which gives a bright red streak when used. You can try it yourself :-)

Funnily, where i live (La Palma), carmine was an economic factor. The cactus (Opuntia) that was imported to breed the lice (probably not the correct denomination here ?) is still a terrible pest plant here.

 

Edit btw.: red colored sealing wax could have a special meaning, depending on time and area, like the king's or his official's privilege or so. Just saying, not that the bailiff knocks at the door :-) As a citizen of a free city in high medieval times, a white resinated wax would be harmless to use, i assume. :-)

Edited September 14, 2018 by Green Baron

[KG3]

18 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Funnily, where i live (La Palma), carmine was an economic factor. The cactus (Opuntia) that was imported to breed the lice (probably not the correct denomination here ?) is still a terrible pest plant here.

It's an insect called the Cochineal that is used to produce crimson dye.  It is a type of insect referred to as a scale.  They are parasites of plants mostly.  Lice are parasites of warm blooded animals.  

I can't imagine how you get enough of these scale insects to produce a dye!

[SuperFastJellyfish]

https://www.livescience.com/36292-red-food-dye-bugs-cochineal-carmine.html

Quote

About 70,000 insects are needed to produce a pound of dye.

 

Edit: 

Quote

Cochineal may be made from bugs, but other synthetic red dyes such as Red No. 2 and Red No. 40, which carry far greater health risks, are derived from either coal or petroleum byproducts. Compared with these sources, bugs might sound positively appetizing. 

I just checked a few ingredient lists in my fridge, and my yogurt has bugs in it.  Take this knowledge back!  lol

Edited September 15, 2018 by SuperFastJellyfish

[Green Baron]

Yep, i wasn't sure if it is a louse or a mite in English.

They live on the Opuntiae. A field of them can grow ... a lot. It worked out well and it wasn't cheap.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Green Baron