What Ive Learned Writing Internationally

What Ive Learned Writing Internationally I’m based in South Africa, but many of my clients aren’t. Writing internationally opens you up to a whole new reader-base, and it means access to more paying gigs! Getting in Break in Language and style switches    Read the publications you aim to pitch. Keep language and style differences in mind: UK, US and South African English differ, and it pays to know why. While saying â€Å"robot† to mean â€Å"traffic light† is fine in SA English, it’ll confuse readers anywhere else! Books like The UK to USA Dictionary are a big help. Keep an eye on exchange rates Exchange rates affect your budget when writing internationally. In my case, the South African rand weakened drastically against the U.S. dollar (approximately R15.39 per one US dollar) last year, and it meant a minor bump in pay for a while. But of course, that fluctuates. Charge clients the same rates, but convert your per hour or page rate into the applicable currency (and yes, it’s okay to round off). Sites like XE (xe.com) help you convert currencies (xe.com/currencyconverter) and keep an eye on applicable exchange rates. Payment Different countries use different payment systems. While a direct bank transfer is fine for local clients, my international clients pay via PayPal. Do your research on which payment system is the most popular in the country you’ll be writing for, so you don’t get any nasty delayed payment surprises. Cashing money paid via PayPal to my bank account takes an additional five to eight business days, so I’ve learned to account for that. Taxes internationally Know the tax rules in your country and theirs. In addition to my own tax forms, I’ve had to fill out a W-8BEN (Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner) form for international vendors. I’ll also have to consider PayPal income from international clients part of my tax returns, and so will you. investopedia.com/terms/w/w8form.asp It’s about time Always mind time zones, especially for meetings, off days and holidays. Ensure you know what the time (and sometimes occasion) is elsewhere. This helps when pitching seasonal content, too, but also makes sure you’re on the same calendar page with your client. The process is constant Don’t ever think you’re â€Å"done† breaking into the market. I’m always coming up with new ideas and getting to know new markets. That way, you don’t stay too reliant on one source for an income. That’s dangerous ground for a freelancer! Having a pitching cycle (say,   sitting down to pitch every Monday and Thursday) helps you keep a continuous rhythm to it. More markets Many markets came from just picking a publication, finding the editor and asking. Allindiewriters.com, Writersweekly.com , and WritersJobBoard.com are more market sources.   Search engine tricks like these are also useful:   Ã‚     Specific sites: site:sitename keyword   Ã‚     Exact phrases: ‘search term’ (searches an exact phrase, like ‘writers market’ or ‘$50’)   Ã‚     Adding results: +searchterm   Ã‚     Decluttering results: -searchterm

The Study of Shell Middens in Archaeology

The Study of Shell Middens in Archaeology One type of site that some archaeologists love to investigate is the shell midden or kitchen midden. A shell midden is a heap of clam, oyster, whelk, or mussel shells, obviously, but unlike other types of sites, it is the result of a clearly recognizable single-activity event. Other kinds of sites, such as campsites, villages, farmsteads, and rock shelters, have their attractions, but a shell midden was created by and large for one purpose: dinner. Diets and Shell Middens Shell middens are found throughout the world, on coastlines, near lagoons, and tidewater flats, along major rivers, in small streams, wherever some variety of shellfish is found. Although shell middens also date from pretty much all of prehistory, many shell middens date to the Late Archaic or (in the old world) Late Mesolithic periods. The Late Archaic and European Mesolithic periods (around 4,000-10000 years ago, depending on where youre at in the world) were interesting times. People were still essentially hunter-gatherers, but by then were settling down, reducing their territories, focusing on a broader range of food and living resources. One often used way to diversify the diet was to depend on shellfish as a reasonably easy to obtain food source. Of course, as Johnny Hart once said, â€Å"the bravest man I ever saw was the first to devour an oyster, raw†. Studying Shell Middens According to Glyn Daniel in his great history 150 Years of Archaeology, shell middens were first explicitly identified as archaeological in context (i.e., built by humans, not other animals) during the mid-nineteenth century in Denmark. In 1843, the Royal Academy of Copenhagen led by archaeologist J.J. Worsaee, geologist Johann Georg Forchhammer, and zoologist Japetus Steenstrup proved that the shell heaps (called Kjoekken moedding in Danish) were, in fact, cultural deposits. Archaeologists have studied shell middens for all kinds of reasons. Studies have included Calculating how much dietary meat there is in a clam (only a few grams in comparison to the weight of the shell),Food processing methods (steamed, baked, dried),Archaeological processing methods (sampling strategies vs. counting the entire middenwhich nobody in their right mind would do),Seasonality (what time of year and how often were clambakes held),Other purposes for the shell mounds (living areas, burial sites). Not all shell middens are cultural; not all cultural shell middens are solely the remnants of a clambake. One of my favorite shell midden articles is Lynn Ceci’s 1984 paper in World Archaeology. Ceci described a series of weird donut-shaped shell middens, consisting of prehistoric pottery and artifacts and shell located on hillsides in New England. She figured out that they were, in fact, evidence of early Euro-American settlers reusing prehistoric shell deposits as fertilizer for apple orchards. The hole in the middle was where the apple tree stood! Shell Middens Through Time The oldest shell middens in the world are about 140,000 years old, from the Middle Stone Age of South Africa, at sites like Blombos Cave. There are fairly recent shell middens in Australia, within the last couple hundred years anyway, and the most recent shell middens in the United States that I’m aware of date to the late 19th century and early 20th century AD when the shell button industry was in progress along the Mississippi River. You can still find heaps of freshwater mussel shells with several holes punched out of them lying along the bigger rivers of the American midwest. The industry nearly obliterated the freshwater mussel population until plastics and international trade put it out of business. Sources Ainis AF, Vellanoweth RL, Lapeà ±a QG, and Thornber CS. 2014. Using non-dietary gastropods in coastal shell middens to infer kelp and seagrass harvesting and paleoenvironmental conditions. Journal of Archaeological Science 49:343-360. Biagi P. 2013. The shell middens of Las Bela coast and the Indus delta (Arabian Sea, Pakistan). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 24(1):9-14. Boivin N, and Fuller D. 2009. Shell Middens,. Journal of World Prehistory 22(2):113-180.and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian PeninsulaShips Choy K, and Richards M. 2010. Isotopic evidence for diet in the Middle Chulmun period: a case study from the Tongsamdong shell midden, Korea. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 2(1):1-10. Foster M, Mitchell D, Huckleberry G, Dettman D, and Adams K. 2012. Archaic Period Shell Middens, Sea-Level Fluctuation, and Seasonality: Archaeology along the Northern Gulf of California Littoral, Sonora, Mexico. American Antiquity 77(4):756-772. Habu J, Matsui A, Yamamoto N, and Kanno T. 2011. Shell midden archaeology in Japan: Aquatic food acquisition and long-term change in the Jomon culture. Quaternary International 239(1-2):19-27. Jerardino A. 2010. Large shell middens in Lamberts Bay, South Africa: a case of hunter-gatherer resource intensification. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(9):2291-2302. Jerardino A, and Navarro R. 2002. Cape Rock Lobster (Jasus lalandii) Remains from South African West Coast Shell Middens: Preservational Factors and Possible Bias. Journal of Archaeological Science 29(9):993-999. Saunders R, and Russo M. 2011. Coastal shell middens in Florida: A view from the Archaic period. Quaternary International 239(1–2):38-50. Virgin K. 2011. The SB-4-6 shell midden assemblage: a shell midden analysis from a late prehistoric village site at Pamua on Makira, southeast Solomon Islands [Honors]. Sydney, Australia: University of Sydney.