Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Archaeology / Heritage Sites / All Films

The Earth is Our Home

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

The Earth is Our Home
Buy Now: $295.00

This documentary about the early Natives of the Great Basin emphasizes the traditional culture of the last 5,000 years. The story unfolds through the words and skills of the older Paiute women of southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada. They tell us how they make cakes from berries, baskets from tulles, cord for nets...necessary daily tasks linked with an ancient heritage.

The earth is ever present in the film, wildlife, rivers and marshes, sagebrush desert, all part of the story. The lifeways of the Northern Paiutes are followed through a seasonal cycle, from root-gathering in spring to building shelter in winter. The Earth is Our Home is an important historical film about Native North Americans.

This film is excellent for classroom use from 6th grade to adult.

DER thanks Oregon Public Broadcasting for the opportunity to rescue fine archival films from obscurity.

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Incidents of Travel In Chichen Itza

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:45:00 GMT

Incidents of Travel In Chichen Itza
Buy Now: $320.00

This original ethnographic video depicts how New Agers, the Mexican state, tourists, and 1920s archaeologists all contend to “clear” the site of the antique Maya city of Chichen Itza in order to produce their own idealized and unobstructed visions of “Maya” while the local Maya themselves struggle to occupy the site as vendors and artisans.

The setting is the spring Equinox, when a shadow said to represent the Maya serpent-god Kukulkan appears on one temple pyramid. As more than 40,000 New Age spiritualists and secular tourists from the United States and Mexico converge to witness this solar phenomenon, the video depicts the surrounding social event as a complicated entanglement of expected dualisms concerning tourism. Going beyond previous films that reduce tourism to neo-colonial and exoticizing social relations, this video portrays a Maya cultural site where US New Agers — rather than local Mayas — appear as exotic ritualists who are on display for other secular tourists and for local Mayas.

While the video does examine representations of Mayas by visiting New Agers as part of globalizing discourses on the exotic and evolution, it also shows how during the ongoing economic crisis, resident Mayas struggle against the Mexican state — rather than against tourists — that regularly “sweeps” them from the tourist zone in order to anchor the nation in an image of pure antiquity.

This video also asks what kind of fieldwork is possible as part of such a spectacle. It questions the status of ethnographic authority as people from the various groups converging on the event, ironically including the anthropologist-videomakers, trade positions and compete to speak about the Maya.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Award 1997

Margaret Mead Festival, 1997

Royal Anthropological Institute, Material Culture and Archaeology Prize, 1998

Latin American Studies Association Film Festival, Washington DC, 2001

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Life and Death at Preah Vihear

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

Life and Death at Preah Vihear
Buy Now: $320.00

Life and Death at Preah Vihear explores why two Buddhist countries are fighting in the 21st Century over a Hindu temple from the 11th Century because of a bad French map from the early 20th Century.

Filmed over a five year period in both Thailand and Cambodia, the film uses the conflict over the ancient temple of Preah Vihear (Khmer) / Khao Phra Viharn (Thai) to illuminate current political and cultural tensions between the two countries. In addition, it shows the ways in which the colonial encounter with the West impacted the concept of borders and boundaries of the Southeast Asian state. Finally, it shows the stark political divisions that have split Thailand into "Red Shirts" and "Yellow Shirts", and exposes how the dispute has influenced -- and been influenced by -- Thai internal politics.

The documentary shows the magnificence and mystical symbolism of the temple itself. Using rare archival footage, it places the present dispute in its historical context in both Cambodia and Thailand. It contains interviews with policy makers, scholars and ordinary people on both sides of the border; some of whom see the conflict as senseless, while others are willing to fight to the death. In Cambodia, it shows 'spirit warriors' of an ancient general being mobilized through trance to defend the country. In Thailand, both Red Shirts and Yellow Shirts are filmed, as are the street demonstrations and fierce fighting that has periodically erupted.

The film includes the most recent Thai military coup, and concludes by examining the impact of this seizure of power on issues along the border.

“David Feingold's Life and Death at Preah Vihear is a valuable work of art, culture, and history. The evenhanded and yet straightforward approach to a contentious border dispute is quite rare. It delves sympathetically but carefully into the rich cultural and political histories of both Cambodia and Thailand, and their differential experiences with French colonialist frontier-making. This is another very professional Feingold film, and a fine teaching resource.”
— Ben Kiernan, Chair, Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, author of How Pol Pot Came to Power, and The Pol Pot Regime.

“This compelling documentary conveys how maps, senses of place and time, sovereignty, and religion are drawn into on-going struggles about the contested location of Preah Vihear Temple - Cambodia or Thailand. Using historical and contemporary sources, experts and ordinary citizens, the film offers multiple perspectives and insights into how borders and sentiments about them are implicated in domestic and international politics in surprising, and devastating ways, that continue into the present. Highly relevant to area studies, the films would add to courses on memory, politics, place, and religion. The film raises important questions for anthropology and cultural studies.”
— Bambi B. Schieffelin, Collegiate Professor, Professor, Anthropology, New York University

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Mount Nemrud

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:50:00 GMT

Mount Nemrud
Buy Now: $320.00

Located in one of the most remote areas of Eastern Turkey and considered the eighth wonder of the ancient world, Mount Nemrud has been shrouded in mystery for more than 2000 years. At 7,700 feet above sea level and containing a 150-foot high tumulus flanked by colossal statues, the Mount Nemrud sanctuary has become synonymous with absolute grandeur.

Widely believed to house the undisturbed tomb of its builder, Mount Nemrud has puzzled researchers for more than a century. Antiochus, a self proclaimed King and God, ruled over Kommagene, a small buffer kingdom situated between the Roman and Parthian Empires during 162 BC and 72 AD. Ambitious and determined to protect his kingdom against his powerful neighbors, he initiated a cultural and religious reform that culminated in the building of Mount Nemrud, his greatest achievement.

Theresa Goell was the first American female archaeologist to lead a dig in Eastern Turkey. Despite her rapidly deteriorating hearing, she became the head of the most extensive and long-term excavation of Mount Nemrud. She spent more than 30 years working to elevate the sanctuary to its rightful place among the great monuments of the ancient world.

Many of the unearthed artifacts and historical information are a result of her tenacious work; for example, The Lion Horoscope is one of archaeology's great finds. Initially excavated by the Germans in 1882, it was re-excavated and studied by Goell in the 1950's. It is the oldest known Greek calendrical horoscope in the world and believed to represent either the date of Antiochus' ascension to the throne or the foundation date of the sanctuary.

Through the use of on-site interviews with world renowned scholars, 3-D computer animations, and battle reinactments, the film makers journey back in time to recreate history. Incorporating rare archival footage of excavations, and memoirs of dedicated archaeologists such as Otto Puchstein and Theresa Goell, Mount Nemrud: The Throne of the Gods is a valuable tool for educators to inform and excite students from young to old who are eager to learn more about the history and achievements of the ancient world.

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The Tree of Iron

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

The Tree of Iron
Buy Now: $320.00

Tree of Iron is one of the few films to document archaeological work on ancient civilizations in Africa. The film details the history and processes of African iron smelting and presents convincing evidence for early, complex indigenous technologies.

Tree of Iron is set in Tanzania, East Africa, on the western shores of Lake Victoria, where Haya people have lived for centuries. The film follows the work of Peter Schmidt, an archaeologist and historian who studies the ancient, 2000-year-old iron industrial sites of the region, as well as extensive oral traditions that illustrate the role of iron in agriculture, political power, and mythology.

The tree in the film's title refers to an enormous tree of great antiquity that is the symbolic center of Haya iron production. Linked to rich iron symbolism, a vibrant mythology, and to ancient iron forges and furnaces, the site of this iron tree produced the first evidence for ancient, sophisticated metalworking technology.

Schmidt works with African iron smelters who build and operate reconstructed versions of traditional furnaces to demonstrate the technological principles that ancient workers used to produce high carbon steel. It also illustrates the degradation of the environment caused by this ancient industry. The film's experimental and comparative approach takes the viewer through each of the technical steps involved in smelting, from charcoal production to furnace construction.

The 80 to 90-year-old Haya smelters are the primary actors in this remarkable process. Tree of Iron combines foci on archaeology, ethnography, and metallurgy to overturn faulty ideas about the history of technology in Africa and replace them with an emphasis on wonder and achievement.

"This important film deserves a wide audience...it is one of the very few films to document archaeological work in sub-Saharan Africa and the only one to examine ethnoarchaeological research and experimentation there.

Peter Schmidt has combined the talents of archaeologist, ethnologist and metallurgist in his quest to understand early African iron smelting. This entire project is an exemplary model of interdisciplinary archaeology, and we are fortunate not just to have a record of it on film, but to have a record of such high quality."
— Peter Allen, ARCHAEOLOGY

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Tikal

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Tikal
Buy Now: $295.00

Tikal, the Mayan ceremonial center in the Peten lowlands of Guatemala, is famous for its monumental pyramids and stelae. Hidden in the jungle nearby are thousands of house mounds where, a millennium ago, worshippers and workers lived. This film focuses on the archaeology of one house mound excavated in 1960.

Tikal explores what we can learn from these domestic remains, particularly about the people who created and maintained this great intellectual and religious Mayan culture. This Special Edition DVD also features commentary by Karl Heider (26 min) and a narrated pictorial history (9 min) of Heider's career in archaeology and anthropology.

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