NOTE: This is an online event (see Zoom registration form below); we will not be meeting at the Resource Center for Nonviolence .
Join SCAS for a presentation by Breck Parkman on: “Sacred Litter.”
DATE: Thursday, June 12, 2025
TIME: 7:30 – 8:30 PM (Pacific)
ZOOM REGISTRATION FORM: Meeting Registration – Zoom ***RSVP for Zoom by 6:30 PM on Thursday, June 12, 2025***
In my recent essay entitled “Finding Sacrifice Atop an Island in the Sky,” which was included in The Intersection of Sacredness and Archaeology (Springer, 2024), I defined three categories of objects that have been cast off from atop Mount Diablo in recent years. The categories are (1) Litter (Discarded items perceived to have no value), (2) Loss (Items that may still have value but are lost), and (3) Sacrifice (Items of perceived value that were intentionally discarded at a place considered sacred). In this presentation, I discuss “sacrificed” items as being Sacred Litter. In addition to the discarded items found atop Mount Diablo, I examine a range of impromptu offerings found at places like the Mayan’s Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, celebrity gravesites including those of Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, and John Belushi, roadside memorials where tragedies have occurred, and monuments such as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also examined are offerings made at traveler shrines (Ovos) in North Asia, coin trees in the U.K., Torii Gates in Japan, and wishing wells and fountains such as the Trevi Fountain in Rome. By means of Contemporary Archaeology, we can delineate the complexity of litter and identify meaning where there appears to be none.
Breck Parkman has worked as an archaeologist for over fifty years, including forty years as a Senior State Archaeologist with California State Parks. His work has taken him to all corners of the state, including Santa Cruz, and to other places all around the world. Breck’s a longtime Research Associate in the Archaeological Research Facility at U.C. Berkeley and a Past President of the Society for California Archaeology. Currently, he sits on the Board of Directors of the Native California Research Institute. His research interests range from Ice Age megafauna to the archaeology of the Grateful Dead. Breck’s work has been featured in hundreds of newspaper, radio, and TV interviews and he’s appeared in a variety of films and documentaries as well. He recently appeared in The History Channel’s Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo. Now retired from State service, Breck keeps active with his research and public speaking. He and his teenage son live on a hillside near Sonoma, overlooking the Valley of the Moon.
