Posts

January 06, 2013

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12:57 AM | Presenting Anthropology - Syllabus

The spring semester starts at UWF on Monday. Most of my syllabi are done, but the reading list for Presenting Anthropology, my graduate proseminar, is still evolving. A lot of the "reading" for the course, though, is going to be mandatory web-surfing, listening to podcasts, watching videos, and playing interactive games. Those links are currently within a private course wiki, but I'll think of a way to make that public by the end of the semester. And hopefully I'll […]

January 05, 2013

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1:20 PM | Bread and Microbes

I found some slightly mouldy bread in the cupboard, cut off the mould and made toast. And I thought about bread and microbes. For flavour, not as a raising agent, I make sour dough. My method is simple: I mix rye flour with water in a glass, cover it with cling film and put it…

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9:58 AM | BOOK REVIEW: A Man of Misconceptions

From: The New York Times "A 17th-Century Genius, a Quack, or Perhaps Both" By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER Published: December 30, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/books/a-man-of-misconceptions-by-john-glassie.html?_r=1& Book Review of: "A Man of Misconceptions. The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change" by John Glassie Illustrated. 333 pages. Riverhead Books. $26.95

January 04, 2013

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1:20 PM | Opportunity Mars Rover Still Working After Nine Years

The wonderful Curiosity rover on Mars has been much in the news lately, but let’s not forget about the previous rover generation! Opportunity landed on Mars nine Earth calendar years ago today, and it still works fine. Its mate Spirit was mobile on the Red Planet for over five years and then functioned as a…

January 03, 2013

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7:31 AM | 2012 Enlightener & Deceiver Awards

The Swedish Skeptics have announced their annual awards for 2012. Both the Enlightener award and the Deceiver award are given to the editorial staff of programmes on Swedish national radio. Medierna is a weekly media criticism show. They roast journalists in an excellently skeptical fashion and have during the year touched upon mistreatment of subjects…

January 02, 2013

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6:45 PM | Lucy and a Neanderthal in My Room: Augmented Reality and Archaeology

Although this appears to have been a feature on the Natural History Museum‘s website for quite some time now, I only recently came across it and I was so impressed by the technology I had to blog about it! In…Read more ›

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1:20 PM | Most-played Boardgames of 2012

Here are the ten boardgames I played the most over a year with about one gaming session a week. Innovation (2010) 7 Wonders (2010) For Sale (1997) Glory to Rome (2005) * Lost Cities (1999) Verräter (1998) * Pergamon (2011, reviewed here) * Telestrations (2009) * Last Night on Earth (2007) * Wok Star (2010)…

January 01, 2013

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1:20 PM | Best Reads of 2012

Here are my best reads in English during 2012. I read 50 books this year, six of which were e-books. I flirted with LibraryThing for a while, but lately I’ve found that Goodreads is more the kind of leisure reading database/community that I enjoy. Find me there. Packing for Mars. Mary Roach 2011. Delving into…

December 31, 2012

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2:00 PM | Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival XXIV

Pretty sleepy in the world of Roman bioarch this December. Let's see what we have (some of which was from the end of November, oops!)... Finds and Excavations 26 November. The Museum of London's excavation is now complete at the 8-10 Moorgate site. Portions of the Roman-era (1st-3rd c AD) town were uncovered, along with at least one human burial. No pictures, sadly. 30 November. Workmen installing a spa in a house in Teesdale (England) found […]

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1:19 PM | Urban Decay and Renewal in Marrakech

I saw something odd in Marrakech recently. Along the main avenues there was a considerable amount of construction going on. But also properties right next door that had clearly been vacated years ago without receiving new buildings. And newish buildings and shop space that were boarded up. Freshly painted fronts of closed restaurants that looked…

December 30, 2012

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9:09 PM | Best of Powered by Osteons - 2012

Last year was definitely better for blogging than this one, as I had more time on my hands then as an unemployed scholar. I've only been able to post half as often in 2012 as in 2011, due in part to my new academic job, and many of those posts are my Bones reviews. There are some half-finished (or not even started) posts hanging out in my drafts folder that I'd hoped to get to write by the end of the year. But I will be looking forward to writing those in 2013. The good news […]

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8:55 AM | Aard Turns Six

Yesterday the 29th was Aard’s sixth birthday, but I was busy making Småland elk meatball lasagna and playing boardgames so I forgot to post. The State of the Blog is good and I have lots of year-end entries to write, as well as a stack of archaeomags to comment on, and hopefully I will get…

December 29, 2012

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5:57 PM | The Ancient Adriatic Plain: An LGM Human Refugium?

When we think of the Ice Ages images of frozen landscapes and mammoths tend to come to mind. And whereas this was indeed the case in many parts of the world during the Pleistocene, not all regions were affected to the…Read more ›

December 28, 2012

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8:38 PM | Oldest Known Depiction of Pharaoh Found

Dating back more than 5,000 years, the rock drawings represent the earliest depictions of royal power in Egypt.

December 25, 2012

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2:25 PM | Archaeology Should Resist Newswire Relevance

In recent years there’s been increasing numbers of archaeological research projects that reference climate change as part of what they want to study. This is at the same time wise and a little silly. It’s wise because science should serve the concerns of society, and because if you want research funding it’s a good idea…

December 19, 2012

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5:31 PM | Ancient Cranial Deformations Fuel Alien Theories?

Strangely-shaped skulls found in Mexico suggest to some that aliens have visited -- and mated with -- humans. Others aren't so sure.

December 16, 2012

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8:40 PM | Seven Years Of Blogging

Remember blogging? It was really big back in 2005. My wife and her journalist friends all took it up. And eventually I did too — a bit more than a week before Christmas that year. A year later I got onto Scienceblogs. And look at me now, seven years down the blogging line. Still enjoying…

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3:20 PM | Complete ASTENE Bulletin Now On-Line

The Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East Bulletin is published four times a year and is currently edited by Sheila and Russell McGuirk. The Association recently uploaded all issues starting from 1995, when the bulletin was called "Travellers in Egypt: Notes and Queries". Here the link to this important resource: http://astene.org.uk/publications-2/bulletins/

December 14, 2012

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3:05 PM | Historic Camp Site Discovered on Antarctica

Robert Scott and his men stopped on the slopes of Mount Erebus and now modern-day explorers have found remnants of the doomed team's camp.

December 13, 2012

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1:20 PM | Nice Try, Science Publishing Group

Science Publishing Group is another scam Open Access journal publisher or academic vanity press. Yesterday they sent me a form-letter invitation to submit papers or become member of an unspecified editorial board or become a peer reviewer. “Join us!” But they don’t even publish an archaeology journal. The closest they get to one is a…

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3:00 AM | Neanderthals May Have Sailed to Crete

Neanderthals May Have Sailed to Crete

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3:00 AM | Understanding Stonehenge: Two Explanations

Understanding Stonehenge: Two Explanations

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3:00 AM | Mayans Cooked Food With Clay Balls

Mayans Cooked Food With Clay Balls

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3:00 AM | Possible Richard III Body Almost Destroyed in 1800s

Possible Richard III Body Almost Destroyed in 1800s

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3:00 AM | Iceman Mummy Finds His Closest Relatives

Iceman Mummy Finds His Closest Relatives

December 12, 2012

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2:02 PM | Ridiculous School Funding Drives

A perennial annoyance for me as a parent is the many odd ways in which schools force parents to organise the funding for trips and stays at camp collectively. The general idea is sound: it would not be fair to make the parents pay up front, because then the poorer families might not be able…

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3:00 AM | Ancient Building Comes with Assembly Instructions

No summary available for this post.

December 11, 2012

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8:59 PM | Book Review: Erotic Refugees

I’ll tell you two things up front: this book is my friend’s first published novel; and I would have read it with great enjoyment even if I had no idea who the guy was. Paddy Kelly classifies it astutely as “Dick lit / Romantic comedy”: it’s Bridget Jones or Sex and the City, only from…

December 09, 2012

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9:56 PM | Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Online Catalogue

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8:39 AM | Inexplicable Millas Mirakel Lyrics

I’m bothered by odd redundancy in an 80s song lyric. Millas mirakel advises us that “It is better to light the fire of life than to never be allowed to be yourself”. Yes, and? That turn of phrase should compare two undesirable things, like “It is better to lose one toe than to lose both…