Walls between Cultures

Walls demarcate frontiers, deter predators, and protect people and their families and possessions. Stone walls punctuated by towers and gates have surrounded cities in the Middle East and North Africa since biblical times, when fortifications were often built in concentric rings and outlined by a ditch or a moat for added protection. Walls were a prominent feature of many medieval and early modern cities; from Baku to Delhi to York to San Juan, visitors still relive a past when constant vigilance and strong defenses were a feature of daily life by walking these walls.

In their empire-building days, the Romans erected walls to keep out barbarians. Much of one of their best-known efforts, Hadrian’s Wall, is still standing. Built across northern England at its narrowest point, the wall was intended to serve as a barrier to large, swift enemy troops and to block small parties of raiders. Protection was afforded by ditches on both sides of the wall and by troops garrisoned in forts at intervals along its length. It was briefly superceded as a boundary marker of Roman imperialism by the Antonine Wall 100 miles (160 km) to the north, across southern Scotland; this subsequent effort was abandoned, however, after a revolt by lowland tribes forced a withdrawal of Roman forces back to Hadrian’s Wall.

The longest and most famous defensive wall ever constructed, the Great Wall of China, was built in the 3d century B.C. along China’s northern boundary. Rubble, tamped earth, and masonry sections were intended to thwart Mongol and Tatar raiders. In the succeeding century, China confirmed its supremacy in central Asia by extending the wall westward across the Gobi desert. The establishment of safe caravan routes, known as the Silk Road, soon followed, bringing Western traders to the market towns that grew up around the gates of the Great Wall and facilitating the exchange of cultural practices, knowledge, and ideas as well as material goods. Some historians contend that the Great Wall of China was also an indirect cause of the fall of Rome: the Mongol hordes repulsed by the Great Wall crowded the Visigoths, leading the latter to invade Roman-occupied lands.

Walls are still built to bolster security and effect segregation during times of political upheaval. Morocco, which has occupied Western Sahara since 1976, emphasized its intent to annex the former Spanish colony by constructing a 1,550-mile (2,500-km) wall of sand, barbed wire, and land mines along the length of the border with Algeria. Besides enclosing approximately 80% of Western Sahara, including most of its towns, mineral resources, and coastal fisheries, the wall isolated guerrillas pursuing self-determination for Western Sahara from their alleged constituency, the Saharan tribes now living inside the wall under de-facto Moroccan rule.

The summer of 2002 saw the beginning of yet another wall. Israel, a nation already set apart from its neighbors by religious and cultural differences, began construction on a proposed 215-mile-long (345-km-long) fence along its border with the Palestinian West Bank, the goal of which is to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel. This unilaterally determined border, if completed, may reduce the number of terrorist incidents, but its impact on long-term peace in the Middle East remains to be seen.

Modern-day warfare has made fortifications such as walls considerably less effective at keeping out intruders; however, the issues of peace and security remain pressing. Attempting to achieve protection by building a wall may now be compared to living in the eye of a hurricane—that is, living under a transient and dangerous illusion of calm and tranquility. Perhaps today, a more effective strategy might involve tearing down barriers to understanding rather than building walls.

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Facts About United Service Organization

A touch of home for the U.S. military--that was the aim of Congress in creating the United Service Organizations (USO) in 1941 at the request of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who believed that private groups should handle the recreational needs of the country's fast-growing military. A touch of home and support for the military remain the USO's goals today.

Since its inception, the USO has served as a bridge between the American people and the nation's armed forces. A private nonprofit organization, the USO relies on donations and volunteers. Although it is not part of the U.S. government, it is endorsed by the Defense Department and the president, who has always served as the USO's honorary chair.

The USO began with a coalition of six civilian agencies--the National Catholic Community Services, National Jewish Welfare Board, National Travelers Aid Association, Salvation Army, Young Men's Christian Association, and Young Women's Christian Association. Their efforts solidified during World War II as the need for soldiers grew.

From 1940 to 1944, U.S. troop strength increased from 50,000 to 12 million, and the need for services increased proportionately. To meet the needs, USO centers were set up in more than 3,000 communities worldwide to provide soldiers a "home away from home," and sprang up in venues that included barns, castles, churches, log cabins, museums, and yacht clubs. Soldiers visited these locales to dance, see movies, seek counsel, and just relax.

During the 1940s more than 428,000 USO performances were presented at outposts and more than 7,000 entertainers traveled overseas. But by 1947, with the war having ended, support for the USO waned. In December of that year Pres. Harry Truman thanked the USO for fulfilling its mission with "signal distinction" and granted the USO "an honorable discharge" from active service. But a civilian advisory committee recommended that the USO either be reactivated or another civilian agency be created for the same function.

When the United States entered the Korean War in 1950, the USO regrouped and opened 24 clubs worldwide, its entertainers performing daily for troops in Korea. After the war, more than 1 million service members remained abroad, and the need for USO services continued. The necessity prompted the U.S. Defense Department to direct the USO to expand globally.

It was amid the turbulent 1960s that the USO first set up centers in combat zones. Bob Hope took his USO Christmas show to Vietnam for the first time in 1964, and the shows continued through the next decade. When the draft ended in the early 1970s, the need for the USO was reassessed. Prompted by a United Way report, the Defense Department conducted a review of the USO's global operations in 1974. The study concluded, "If there were no USO, another organization would have to be created ... Isolation of the military from civilian influences is not, we believe in the interest of this nation."

In peacetime the USO has helped service members become involved in their communities. For example, "The USO Virtues Project of USO Seoul and USO Camp Casey in Korea train service members who then volunteer to teach English in Korean elementary schools," said Donna St. John, the vice president for communications for USO World Headquarters. The USO has also helped troops make the transition to civilian life. In 1975 the organization made its own transition and moved its international headquarters from New York City to Washington, D.C.

In the early 1980s, the USO broadened its entertainment program and renewed its original mission to act as a liaison between the American people and the country's armed forces worldwide. With the Middle East wars of the early 1990s and millennium, U.S. troops were deployed in new areas, with little diversion or contact with home. The USO subsequently opened three centers in the Middle East and set up a Mobile Canteen program, whose volunteers drive refreshments, books, magazines, and videos to wherever troops are deployed.

Today the USO operates 123 centers, including 6 mobile canteens, with 73 located in the continental United States and 50 overseas. The organization relies on more than 33,500 volunteers, from its World Board of Governors who work at headquarters in Arlington, Va., to those who serve holiday dinners. These volunteers provide some 371,000 hours of service annually at a total contribution of more than $3 million. Globally, service members and their families visit USO centers more than 5 million times a year.

To help service personnel and their families acclimate to new environments, the USO offers services including counseling, housing assistance, and cultural seminars. The group also involves itself with community groups and businesses. Ms. St. John cited some recent examples, including a holiday gift drive--a partnership between the USO of northern Ohio and the local media--that benefited more than 3,000 military children, and USO centers at the Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta airports, which, according to the USO, are "the only two destination points in the United States for rest and recuperation flights from Iraq and Afghanistan," that partner with local businesses to host meals for soldiers who must travel during the holidays.

In a tribute to U.S. troops, the USO held a Patriotic Festival 2005: A Salute and Celebration of Our Military. The "welcome home" celebration, which was sponsored by Virginia-based groups and the USO of Hampton Roads, Va., was another example of how the USO continues to serve as a bridge between the American people and the nation's armed forces, "until everyone comes home."

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Interesting Facts About Trick-or-Treat

When costumed children mark the evening of October 31 by going door to door begging for sweets, they are participating in rituals similar to those that have been practiced for centuries. Halloween, now so much a part of American tradition, has both pagan and Christian roots.

The Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the beginning of the new year, was traditionally celebrated on November 1, when summer was over and the harvest gathered. In a time when gods and spirits were very much a part of everyday life, the Celts believed that on New Year's Eve the worlds of the living and the dead came together. The spirits of those who had died during the previous year wandered the earth making mischief and playing tricks on the living. In an effort to avoid persecution by evil spirits, villagers took to the streets dressed as supernatural beings themselves, in masks and frightening costumes.

In the 9th century, as part of an effort to shift people from pagan to Christian worship, November 1 was fixed as All Hallows or All Saints' Day. October 31 became All Hallows Eve, a name that was later corrupted to Halloween. In about 1000 A.D., November 2 became All Souls' Day. The church also encouraged the substitution of Christian practices for pagan traditions.

To discourage the pagan Celtic custom of leaving food and wine on the doorstep for wandering spirits, the church promoted the practice of "souling"—believed to be the precursor of modern trick-or-treating. On the day set to honor dead souls, Christian beggars wandered from village to village pleading for Soul Cakes, made from square pieces of bread and currants. For each cake collected, the beggar promised to say prayers for the giver's dead relatives. Thus, the more cakes given, the more prayers said. These prayers were more than tribute. It was believed that the souls of the dead remained in limbo for a time after death and that prayer could speed their way to heaven.

Over the years, British children began to go "a-souling" in their neighborhoods, asking for food, money, and even ale. In England, this tradition was eventually assimilated into the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day (November 5). In Scotland and Ireland, however, the Halloween custom of going door to door costumed as supernatural beings, to be placated with hospitality, continued.

The tradition came to America with settlers from the British Isles, especially with the massive influx of Irish immigrants during the 1840s potato famine. The American festival of Halloween commemorates both Celtic and early Christian heritage, and celebrates the integration of diverse religious and cultural traditions into a popular secular holiday.

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The Secrets of Cival: How One Ancient City Is Rewriting Maya History

The ancient Maya city of Cival may represent that most tantalizing of archaeological prospects: a find that forces a sweeping reanalysis of all conventional thinking about an ancient culture. Although the Maya left behind many fabled and enduring monuments, there are relatively few written records of their 2,000-year hold over modern day Mexico and Central America. Consequently, archaeologists are required to decipher Maya history in blurry hindsight, with finds such as those made at Cival potentially forcing vast revisions of our image of the Maya.

Located in east-central Guatemala, Cival was not considered to be of any extraordinary scholarly or historical significance until a team of archaeologists, led by the Vanderbilt University researcher Francisco Estrada-Belli, uncovered a massive 15-by-9-foot (5-by-3-meter) stone mask abandoned by looters and hidden in a tunnel. The mask depicted a fanged deity likely associated with maize, the Maya's principal crop. This deity, in turn, is a symbol of Maya royalty, who typically claimed to be descended from the maize god.

The significance of the Cival mask--and its twin counterpart, found later in the same tunnel--was that Estrada-Belli dated the mask to 150 B.C., well before the Maya were thought to have developed a pronounced class system that included royalty. If Estrada-Belli's initial conclusions were correct, the Maya likely anointed theocratic kings centuries earlier than previously thought, making the Cival mask a discovery that could radically alter our understanding of the pace of Maya cultural development.

Historians have divided Maya history into three periods: the Preclassic (also called Formative), from 2500 B.C. to 300 A.D.; the Classic, from 300 to 1000 A.D.; and the Postclassic, which ran from 1000 A.D. until the Spanish conquistadors subjugated most of Latin America in the early 1500s. The Preclassic Period saw the Maya evolve from tribes of hunter-gatherers to village-centered farmers, with rudimentary forms of Maya pottery, sculpture, and architecture appearing in parallel with this transformation.

As villages grew in size, conventional thinking suggested that the Maya developed a complex class structure, with religious rulers establishing authority in response to the social pressures of a burgeoning population. Thus was born the Classic Period, when the ruling class began erecting the vast pyramid complexes and sacred monuments for which the Maya are best known, all while undertaking advanced astronomic and mathematic studies. The Postclassic Period saw Maya society inexplicably dissolve, with cities neglected or abandoned and royal authority discarded for a reversion to a rural, agrarian society.

According to the aforementioned chronology, the Cival masks, which are a symbol of a royal institution, should not have appeared for roughly another 400 years. Spurred on by this discrepancy, Estrada-Belli began to take a fresh look at the entire Cival site and found further evidence that a complex religious ruling class may have held power during the Preclassic Period.

Estrada-Belli's team eventually found a collection of buried offering jars filled with ornate jade axes and smaller carvings, which were indicative of more advanced dynastic rituals than should have been present during the Preclassic Period. Moreover, excavations of the surrounding area found that at its peak Cival was a city with a population of 10,000 and an urban layout meticulously planned to give inhabitants an unobstructed view of the autumnal equinox. These features indicate an advanced society with knowledge of astronomy, architecture, and collective government, all of which was tied to religious ritual. None of these accomplishments should have been present before the Classic Period, yet the foundations for many of Cival's earliest buildings were likely laid around 300 B.C., 600 years earlier than anyone thought possible.

As Estrada-Belli has begun to present his findings from Cival, all evidence suggests that this was a city ahead of its time and that the grandeur of Maya history began centuries earlier than conventional wisdom allows. If these findings are confirmed by the discovery of other artifacts, especially at other archaeological sites, the chronology of the Maya may have to be rewritten.

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The Secret of Range Creek: Waldo Wilcox and the Fremont Indians

For more than 50 years, a man named Waldo Wilcox guarded a secret treasure on his ranch in eastern Utah: possibly the greatest single collection of artifacts that belonged to the Fremont Indian tribe, a people who mysteriously disappeared 700 years ago. Today, the former Wilcox ranch represents one of the most significant archaeological treasure troves in North America, but one that now is imperiled by two simple facts: Waldo Wilcox is no longer standing guard, and the rest of world knows what is there.

In 1951 Waldo Wilcox purchased 4,200 acres (1,700 ha) of hardscrabble land 130 miles (210 km) southeast of Salt Lake City---an area that includes Range Creek Canyon---for the purpose of raising cattle. Shortly thereafter, he and his family discovered dozens of perfectly preserved Indian encampments and hundreds of pristine artifacts---precisely the sort of treasures that archaeologists would seek to investigate and looters would try to steal. Waldo Wilcox decided to prevent the exploitation and destruction of these artifacts (a form of cultural property), as best he could, by actively defending his land against intruders and publicity seekers for more than five decades.

Fewer than 25 years before Wilcox purchased his ranch, an expedition from Harvard University had traveled through the same region, uncovering evidence of a theretofore unidentified Native American tribe. The expedition's leader, Noel Morss, dubbed these people the Fremont after the Fremont River that supplied water to the area. In the years between Morss's original identification and Wilcox's land purchase, precious little evidence was uncovered to further illuminate how the Fremont lived or why this centuries-old culture inexplicably vanished some time around the year 1300.

Indeed, there was very little evidence that the Fremont were a people distinct from their better-known contemporaries, the Anasazi tribe, who also mysteriously disappeared before European settlers ventured into the American Southwest. Even today, only four types of artifacts can uniquely be qualified as belonging to the Fremont: a rod-and-bundle type of basketry that no other Native American tribe employed; an unusual type of moccasin fashioned from deer hock; trapezoidal depictions of human beings in personal artifacts, pictographs, and petroglyphs; and a thin, gray-clay type of pottery. Of these artifacts, only the pottery is consistently sturdy enough to survive the harsh southwestern climate. Thus, concentrations of Fremont artifacts such as those found at Range Creek are of incalculable value.

What makes the Fremont so intriguing---besides their mysterious disappearance---are their attempts at agriculture in the arid Utah climate. While primarily a hunter-gatherer people, the Fremont in general and the Range Creek Fremont in particular sometimes cultivated a unique breed of "dented" corn that could withstand the rigors of the climate. Moreover, the Fremont often stored their hard-won corn harvests in heavily defended granaries atop sheer cliffs and mesas. Range Creek boasts several well-preserved Fremont granaries, some in nearly inaccessible nooks within the rocks, offering a glimpse into the Fremont's precarious life as embattled farmers, desperately working to protect their winter stores against rivals by hiding their harvests within natural geographic defenses.

Ignorance of the Range Creek Fremont encampments protected the artifacts for years, and for much of their known existence Waldo Wilcox stood guard, keeping the vast majority of the Range Creek archaeological cornucopia intact until his recent sale of the land to a charitable trust. In summer 2004, the state of Utah (which now holds the title to the Wilcox ranch) finally opened select portions of Range Creek to the press, displaying the quiet and fragile secrets that survive thanks to Waldo Wilcox's lifelong vigil. While the subsequent publicity has drawn increased attention from looters, scientists now at least have a fighting chance to preserve and record the Range Creek finds before, as happened with the Fremont tribe itself, they succumb to the forces of history.

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