Keep Growing

That's a joke, but I am genuinely fascinated by the idea of uncovering a meusem. Artifacts that are much, much older than what one expects in a specific region. History that was deeply historical even to the people who saw it before you. How confusing would it be? How fascinating? Surely, it would say something about the culture, to realize that these people of the past coveted their own past as much as you do. What a concept

It might be a joke, but for me honestly yes! And I know it’s a thing for other people I have studied/worked with.

We have to very carefully weigh up whether our excavations and research is worth doing, since archaeology is inherently destructive. And there are various forms of guilt that go with that in my experience. Sometimes you can’t help but wonder if future technology and archaeology wouldn’t do this research better, and whether future archaeologists will have wished the excavation had occurred later with this technology. Sometimes there is a simple guilt about the fact that better or different technology or research methods can’t be afforded for a certain project, particularly within consulting projects where you are undertaking salvage of a site - in which case it may be this level of assessment or nothing.

When you understand the weight of responsibility of single-chance information gaining, there will always be an inherent possibility for guilt. It is part of the cost of this awareness I think.

You’re so right though, the awareness of historic-ness in both how you perform archaeology in day to day life, as well as in thinking about the past, is fascinating!

you have a follower who is consistently behaving toward you in an unpleasant way

you may not feel motivated to block them on your own behalf for a variety of reasons (it's not that bad, I can handle it, I don't want to hurt their feelings, they probably don't mean any harm, etc.)

ask yourself: would I be comfortable with this person behaving this way toward my close friends and mutuals?

I'm going to be honest with you. When I search Manchurian spitz (which I had not heard of prior to this ask) the only thing I get are AI generated articles about Argentine polar dogs or photos of American Chinese food and no concrete sources, which if there is one I'd be happy to look at, but I cannot find anything reputable indicating this was a dog, even from Spanish language resources. I have searched my dog sledding history facebook groups, which can be hit or miss and again (seriously though old dog people are just spewing dog history that is going to easily be lost on private fb groups and i feel like we need to archive things asap), nothing. I would welcome anybody to provide me sources prior to 2020, especially physical books (be it in Spanish or English, I can read either).

Additionally I am also having similar troubles finding concrete sources about Argentine Polar Dogs as a distinct dog separate from the other Antarctic dogs on bases/stations at the time (the amount of time i spent searching through Argentine dog facebook groups dedicated to dogs of this era that had discussions with people that actually worked at the Argentine research stations with the dogs is shameful lmao). The people I read comments from online that worked with dogs at antarctic bases did mention trading dogs with other bases for genetic diversity so I would personally classify them all a distinct genetic strain of Greenland Dog.

Pretty much all sled dogs in Antarctica, especially from the period of 1950s-1990s were mixed dogs with a majority Greenland Dog ancestry along with Canadian Inuit Dog, Alaskan Malamute (which is a mix of Canadian Inuit Dog/Greenland Dog ancestry anyways) and small amounts of smaller sled breeds such as Siberians or Samoyeds (neither of these two were hearty enough on their own to pull heavy freight in Antarctic conditions so had small genetic contribution to the most modern dogs. THIS article, which is the longest and most concrete article I can find on the Argentine dogs (in spanish) suggests that the Argentine dogs were a mix of Malamute, Canadian Inuit Dog (written as Esquimal in the article), and Greenland Dog. There is no mention of a Manchurian spitz nor is the admixture distinct from the dog teams at the other bases at the time and there is also documented exchange of dogs from UK bases to the Argentine bases and vice versa.

Searching both with DuckDuckGo (AI off) and with Google only a few photos I am unfamiliar with show up and they are mostly of one dog, this one:

If you look at the white marking on the muzzle and the way the darkness of the mask falls this is, imo the same dog. Likely one of the dogs featured in this historical Argentine footage HERE (i believe the dog in the photos is the dog show at 2:05 jumping on a handler to be pet). These dogs look distinctly Inuit sled dog (Greenland Dogs and Canadian Inuit Dog both being such) to me.

Modern Greenland Dogs with similar markings and facial structure below:

Deep research shows some additional photos of different dogs, but none that are identifiably anything other than Greenland Dogs imo:

The other photo I see associated with Argentine Polar Dogs is this one:

However, this photo above is (I believe) wrongly attributed to the Argentine dogs and think is a photo of the dog team at New Zealand's Scott Base. Dogs were used by Scott Base from 1957-1986 and were heavily documented. I've had a copy of this photo in my own records since 2021 and didn't properly record where it came from at the time and I have been kicking myself about it ever since (would be happy to gain actual record of who took the photo and when/where. I do think this is probably 1970s or 1980s based on my other photos of Antarctic dog use at this time).

Bought some whitetail deer antlers/skulls from a 90yearold man who was cleaning out his old collection and he liked that I was googley-eyed in love with them, that he tossed this in for free!

All of our candles are unscented soy candles, the novelty labels are me amusing myself. You gotta add your own pencil bits and ranch dressing.