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Among those commenting (favorably and otherwise) on this website since I launched it in January 2003, several have asked for information about the author. I'm sure some are just wondering "Who is this presumptuous #&@%! displaying his wretched pile of rocks and mud, pontificating as if he knew anything about this?". Information about me is certainly the least interesting topic on this website, but a little of it, plus some general background information, might help bring the archaeological material into perspective. Day's Knob is a hill rising above a high ridge in sparsely populated Guernsey County, Ohio, immodestly named by me after myself when I bought the property a long time ago as an ideal part-time location for my amateur ("ham") radio station K8AL. (Had I known the place was to become much more than my personal radio playground, I almost certainly would have chosen another name for it.)
My name is Alan Day, and I live in the town of Cambridge, Ohio, in the Appalachian southeastern part of the state that was not flattened by glaciers. By profession I am an electronics and software engineer, having worked for most of my career as a consult- ant (pretentious word for hired gun) in research and development for defense and commercial industry. After my last contract job (eleven years duration), I have taken time off at home and come to fully realize what I long suspected: While working on the road pays well for what I do as a hobby anyway, spending most of one's time away from one's actual life is a stupid way to live. My intention at this point is to stay home and live cheaply, and further investigate the artifacts that I first identified as such on my hilltop property in 1987, continuing my attempt to get them appropriate profes- sional consideration.
Although I took archaeology, anthropology, and geology courses at university (in the USA, Israel, and Germany), and did some field work in the Middle East, I do not pretend to be even a very good amateur archaeologist. I am, however, occasionally capable of recognizing the obvious when it appears in front of my face. It has become clear to me that I have found something important, even if in the manner of a blind pig stum- bling upon an acorn. By both disposition and professional training, in the physical realm I am inclined to "believe" only what I can see and repeatedly verify. While I am almost certainly mistaken in some of the details and continually modifying my hypotheses, on the whole I am as certain of what I see here as I am of anything I have ever encountered. Returning to archaeology from a profession in which the scientific method is the guiding principle, I have experienced considerable "culture shock" in finding that the standard procedure among many (most?) archaeologists is to evaluate an unexpected find only in terms of its similarity to something already recognized in published literature. Essentially, if it is not already accepted, throw it out and avoid controversy. (Well-paying positions in archaeology are scarce, and thinking outside the box often means thinking oneself out of a job.) From a scientific perspective, my own approach is to recognize that an unexpected phenomenon is in fact present, then gather the evidence and form hypotheses to be honestly disproved as best one can. If such a hypothesis can not be disproved, then one moves on to determine the extent to which the phenomenon is repeatable (or "replicable" in archaeological parlance). In an archaeological context, if one sees and verifies something again and again in widely distributed venues, one must give it serious consideration, "received wisdom" notwithstanding. With considerable misgivings, I cobbled this website together in January 2003, in a state of exasperation after half a year of e-mailing photos and descriptions to numerous archaeologists, trying unsuccessfully to get some professional involve- ment. A website is simply a more efficient medium for presenting things from a distance. (And yes, I am quite aware that it is wretchedly disjointed and in need of restructuring, having quickly expanded from something much simpler. Most important, it needs a more concise and cogent statement of hypotheses with arguments pro and con.) Whether or not this successfully serves the immediate purpose, I am hoping it might somehow put the material on lasting record for future American archaeologists, who may be able to look beyond the popularly recognized "arrowheads" and spear points their predecessors have been taught must characterize any "real" aboriginal American habitation site. Other locations with lithic artifact material like that here are now starting to come to light, and I am cautiously optimistic that this ancient habitation site and the others will, in the not too distant future, receive the attention they deserve. One way or another, I am quite persistent, and this project is not going away before I do. "Know what you see - don't just see what you know." |
