history pragmatic historian

Doug Birk – A Pragmatic Historian of the Highest Order

This past Friday I had the opportunity to attend the Council for Minnesota Archaeology’s annual conference at St. Cloud State University. A large portion of the conference was dedicated to celebrating the life of famed Minnesota archaeologist Doug Birk. I say “famed” not because Doug would have liked that term … he would have hated it … but because of the awe and regard in which so many of his colleagues, friends, and acquaintances held…

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history pragmatic historian

Unarticulated History

Let’s face it. Even in this age of individuals digitally capturing and sharing the minutiae of daily life, we simply can’t capture and hold all of history in order to replay it later. Even a video camera only records what’s within range of its lens. If you are facing the lens, it’s not picking up your back. Sure, you could put multiple video cameras in a room in hopes of recording everything happening in that…

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