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For most of us, there is a soundtrack to our lives. Songs from our childhoods, our weddings, or the background for the big and small events, parties, and road trips that shape us. Music is inherently ephemeral, and often only made available to archaeologists via ancient instruments or illustrations, but archaeological investigations from a former commune in Northern California have provided an exciting opportunity to explore the “sonic debris” from the mid-20th century.
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The true history of April Fools' has been a mystery for ages. The theories around its origin story have involved everything from Roman gods and fake popes to the Gregorian calendar and gullible fish.
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The Northwest Forest Plan lays out how to manage millions of acres across Washington, Oregon and Northern California. But the scientists behind the plan say it hasn’t been very successful. It cost thousands of timber industry jobs and failed to protect vulnerable species. Now that the government is reconsidering it, the scientists reflect on what was considered the best option 31 years ago.
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March is Women's History Month and Jacksonville has a month-long celebration, including a spotlight on the woman who once owned the historic U.S. Hotel.
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A big change in thinking: 'The Klansman's Son'
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Frank S. Matsura focused his lens and his life on Native Americans. Now a book is being published about him by Washington State professor Michael Hollomon.
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Underground History digs deep into the colonial past of the Pacific Northwest.
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Corky Lee's Asian America: Fifty Years of Photographic Justice. Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai, is one of the book's editors.
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The Alta Heritage Foundation sends trained dogs and archaeologists to homes burnt by wildfires to recover cremains left inside. There is never a cost to the families.
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Since the 1970s, billions of dollars in federal contracts have gone to forestry work like replanting trees or fuels reduction. Oregon has long been a center for businesses getting those contracts. But that industry looked a lot different 50 years ago.
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America's favorite tuber has a long history in our region, including the 1950s invention of the tater tot in Oregon.
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Underground History recently participated in an international effort to promote “RealArchaeology.” This coordinated media blitz was done in response to the rise of pseudoarchaeology and scientific conspiracy theories, as well as to amplify resources where real archaeological content was being produced and shared, and to both pre- and de-bunk false stories and theories that are circulating. Archaeologists certainly aren’t the only ones on the firing lines in what is becoming an increasingly post-truth era, but there are real concerns, and consequences, when false historical narratives gain traction.
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Science journalist John Farrell provides a list of tech gifts from medieval times in his book, The Clock and the Camshaft: And Other Medieval Inventions We Still Can't Live Without.
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Anthropologists are reconsidering possessing artifacts that belong to surviving cultures.