[our history or theirs?]

Who owns the rights to a culture's past? It's a simple question yet it causes so much debate around the world. For an English paper last year I tried to address the question and the best I could come up with is that when a culture, especially a First Nations community, asks for the repatriation of artifacts and items taken from them, it is unjust and unfair to hold on to these items simply in the name of science or for the recording of history. In a perfect world an agreement would be reached between the community involved and the museum where both sides would have their voices heard and their rights respected, the rights of the scientific community would not overrule the rights of the community involved, but the artifacts or in some cases the human remains would not be lost to the scientific community forever.

[the importance of data]

The data presented in a paper provides the backing and supporting evidence for the author’s argument. It helps the reader to understand what the author is trying to present and can help persuade the reader to agree with the argument of the author. It is important to look closely at the data presented because an author would be more likely to include the data which supports them rather than the data which could poke holes in their theories. Another reason would be by looking closely one could observe the methods behind the data, how the data was collected and how this could affect the reliability of the data. Howell and Kintigh would want to be clear about how the data was collected in order to show that the data they present in their paper is reliable and was collected in a manner which demonstrates what is actually present rather than simply what they wanted to support their argument.

[hierakonpolis: city of the hawk]

Map of Hierakonpolis from the website reviewed

For our group project my group is focusing on cemeteries in Hierakonpolis or the City of the Hawk in what is now southern Egypt. Using our rubric I took a look at a website on the same site (here's the link http://www.egyptorigins.org/hierakonpolis.htm).  The website has a lot of information but it's not organized in a manner that would encourage the viewer to continue reading, it's very drawn out and not broken up in a way that would draw attention to any specific section or interesting information. There is no citations at all but it does mention the Nekhen website which my group was planning to use for the more up to date information on the excavations at Hierakonpolis. The website has a two images, a map of the site and a detail of the Narmer palette, neither are really explained or used in the best manner and the website could have definitely used more images. Overall, the information on the site, the grammar and the spelling are all good just the mechanics and appearance of the page could have been done a lot better.