Films with: Wescott, Don

Other people's garbage

Archeological excavations of the recent past expand our understanding of the texture of everyday life. Historical archeologists have unique resources not often available to prehistoric archeologists--records, legal, civil and historic documents and oral histories. Looks at the mining town at Mount Diablo, east of San Francisco; the slave quarters on the plantations of Saint Simon's Island, Georgia; and archeological projects made necessary by the expansion of Boston's mass transit system.

DVD 7967

Tree of iron

"This is one of the few films to document archaeological work on ancient civilizations in Africa. It also deals with an important subject, African iron smelting, and presents convincing evidence for early indigenous technologies far more complex than previously expected. The 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 whose two decades of study in the region have revealed ancient 2000+ year old iron industrial sites, as well as oral traditions that illustrate the role of iron in agriculture, political power, and mythology."--Case.

DVD 6268