Four Stone Hearth 18

Hearth image (cc) Beej Jorgensen

Welcome to the 18th edition of the Four Stone Hearth, a collection of blog entries from Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Social Anthropology from the past two weeks or so. I’ve tried to include some weblogs which haven’t been seen before in the carnival.

Contents[ Death and Decay ][ Technology ][ Writing Tongues ][ Ethics ][ Flora and Fauna ][ Art ][ Tripping ]

Medieval Brick Kilns are the topic of this post from Aardvarchaeology. It’s a demonstration of what you might find in your backyard. In this case a lot of Ceramic Building Material.

But excavation is not just a matter of whacking open the lawn with a mattock. Sometimes as Back Garden Archaeology writes, you need to Pause for Thought.

News from newly-moved Neurophilosophy about an unwanted claim to fame found in a graveyard in Lima. Archaeologists discover New World’s first gunshot victim.

From Egypt is the news Hatshepsut is Back! How was the find overlooked? Read this at Zenobia: Empress of the East to find out.

One of the bigger stories this fortnight was the discovery of 1.2 Million Year-old Tooth Found At Atapuerca, Spain, which is examined archaeologically at Anthropology.net.

Dentaphiles will also want to read The serious dental examination of the 1.2 Million Year old premolar from Atapuerca! at Hominin Dental Anthropology where you can find out if the tooth has any evidence of decay.

While browsing blip.tv I found this animation of prehistoric life. I think it’s impressive and so do E-On software. I’m featured on a 3D software company website is the news from .tom. Tom Goskar talks about some of the problems of Vue 6 Infinite.

The next three entries are all short, but part of a series. The first two are a bit old, but I’m including them because the latest entry is in the period, and it’s a talking about a challenge which will become more common in the future. From FieldNotes: for the Anthropology of British Columbia are Googling During Lectures, More Thoughts on Laptops in the Classroom and Profs, Students and the ‘Smarty Pants’ Problem. It’s also been blogged about at Bits and Bytes.

Synthesis of Thought notes that The SfAA has added some cool features this year, commenting on the the arrival of podcasts and social networking at the Society for Applied Anthropology.

From KSU’s Digital Ethnography comes an interesting experiment in experimental anthropology. How would fourteen cultures interact over the course of six centuries? Find out in their World Simulation Video.

Electric Archaeology moves from real life into Second Life with a presentation given at Immersive Worlds conference at Brock and provides a serious defence of VR when talking Of Chapels, Clutter, and Archaeological VR. Worth reading, especially if like me, or Troels, you’re sceptical of VR.

There are Maps of lost worlds: Caddoland to be found in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub. Up till now I hadn’t even heard of the Caddo tribe, but it appears to have been quite extensive.

The shortest entry in this edition must be Google Earth Sightseeing at Iconclasm. Coming in at just thirty-two words, the post slightly is shorter than this description of it, but the three words linked to a .kmz file of Graeco-Roman sites make it a must-see.

Are shared data standards and shared repositories the future? is the Question at Open Objects. After reading this I hope so.

Archaetech is another weblog which makes me realise how out of touch I am with archaeoblogging in the UK. It’s been running almost a year now. It’s my loss as Open Archaeology demonstrates.

The Anthropology of Technology is the issue at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. Online relationships raise the question What’s the new Dunbar number? this is the maximum number of individuals with whom any of us can maintain a social relationship. I don’t know if you can include yourself in that figure.

In the Brightmeadow, Cas argues that registration could be a good idea for wikis and communities in Wikis, Screen Names and Authority.

Finally, there are Site Upgrades at the Portable Antiquities Scheme‘s website, and your opinion is wanted.

What is “Arabic” and how do you go about teaching it? asks The Cranky Professor. It’s a question that will become more relevant in studies of English in the future I think.

NoelbyNature at SEAArch presents comments with some great photos of the exhibition Aksara: The Passage of Malay Scripts at the National Library in Singapore in The ancient script of Southeast Asia (Part One – Part Two).

Duane Smith is Abnormally Interested in the proposed Lydian Origins of the Etruscans? connecting the language to the archaeological study.

…and there’s more Etruscaness. Palaeoglot Glen Gordon has been looking at The f to h sound change in Etruscan. I have to admit I simply don’t have the knowledge to say if he’s right, but I find him persuasive as he also argues that we know a lot less about the influence of Etruscan on Latin than we might think in Latin ‘pulcher’: Is it really an Etruscan loan?. Obviously when I say we know a lot less… I mean the word we in the sense of other people who still know a lot more than I do.

Henry T. Lewis on Omer Stewart Mike Dubrasich at SOSForests writes with plenty of quotations about Anthropogenic Fire Theory. This is the study of ancient fire patterns in the landscape. Mike concludes that forest burning can be a thought out strategy used by people to manage their environment, rather than simply being careless with the matches.

There’s a review of Farming in the First Millennium AD: British Agriculture between Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror by Peter Fowler at Philobiblon, which also seeks to shatter primitive ideas about agriculture.

The news that cats were domesticated broke last week, which probably came as a surprise to the cats. Have cats domesticated us asks Archaeoblog in the post: Why Do Cats Hang Around Us? (Hint: They Can’t Open Cans).

Afarensis covers everyone from Kenyapithecus to Kylie in Know Your Primate Special Edition: Primate Locomotion.

How do you think indigenous populations should be compensated for their participation in genetic studies? asks Hsien-Hsien Lei in Amerindian DNA Sells for 55 Dollars who’s keeping her Eye on DNA.

John Hawks picks up the idea and blogs about the problems when blood isn’t just an economic commodity, but also something important in a group’s identity in The blood that would not rest. He makes a compelling argument that control over biological samples is going to get more difficult.

From antropologi.info is the entry Military – social science roundtable: Anthropologists help mold counterinsurgency policy. Anthropologist Bart Dean is expecting to be “viciously criticised”. You can follow the links and make up your own mind.

The next entries concern a story from Australia. The BBC reports: A high-profile inquiry into child sex abuse in remote northern Australia says it found cases in every Aborigine community researchers visited. After years of abuse the Australian government has decided that there is now an emergency.

Barista is a good place to start with and the entry cries and dreams on the desert wind puts the discussion into its historical context as does A new paternalism for Aboriginal Australia at Culture Matters. The Maleny Times fantastically illustrates one strand of cynicism over the action in Howard in shock move over climate change, the Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony also has doubts over the strategy “Stabilise, Normalise and Exit”. Who needs “constitutional niceties” when you have paternalism? asks Kimberly Christen at Long Road

What aren’t being addressed are the issues of the lost generation and race. While race may not meaningfully exist according to some anthropologists, Nicolette at at Blogworld argues in On the images of Savages (part one, part two, part three). that it’s inescapable in the modern world.

Is one part of the solution engaging indigenous peoples rather than laying out the rules? The Indigenous Transformation of Archaeological Practice is not about throwing away what works in modern archaeology, but about adding more to practice argues Claire Smith at The Central Archaeology Group.

The scientific report for the 2006 Bosnian Pyramid excavations is available and you can read about it at Le site d’Irna in English. Irna explains what sort of things you’d expect to see in an archaeological report.

Sherd Nerd discovers that there’s a reason why those who study and record sherds are Ink Ninjas after having a going at drawing Now with Real Sherds.

Lund in the News News of an Iron Age figurine found at Uppåkra. What makes this entry interesting is that Cornelius Holtorf is asking why it has become international news, and if that tells us something about archaeology.

News from Iraq is of the printing of playing cards with the message ‘Drive around, not over, archaeological sites’ in Maev Kennedy’s blog. Playing cards helped the Coalition of the Willing get the targets on the previous set of cards, so it could be a step forward.

Magnus Reuterdahl has been travelling From Drev to here, which you can read about at Testimony of the Spade. The target was bronze age rock art, but as you can see from the photos he found a lot more.

Chris O’Brien at Northstate Science is having Field School Fun.

There are holiday photos and video at Bad Archaeology. In this entry Days 13 & 14: Burgos and Clunia, there’s a Roman town and some interesting mosaics.

On the travel theme, Roman History Books and More has a review of the book ancient rome on five denarii a day

William Klinger has recorded some of his Nomadic Thoughts he had as he worked around Central America recently by putting his Photos Online. Flip back through the blog for other entries on his tour.

You don’t always have to travel to see impressive sights. Strong at Savage Minds reports that whenever Estonians get nostaglic for the old days they can go and visit Lenin in the Basement. It raises the question of how the Soviet past is being used, and where this may leave the Russian speakers in Estonia.

If you have a yeanring for forgotten, then grab A Hot Cup of Joe and journey to Dilmun and Punt: Two Mythical Origins for Two Early Civilizations (Part I, Part II, Part III).

At About.com K Kris Hirst has compiled the top five megalithic sites to visit. There’s also extensive annotations about other websites about these sites.

For fans of Baroque architecture now is the time to visit Noto.

The ends this edition of the carnival. The next edition of Four Stone Hearth will be published at Sherd Nerd on the 18th of July. Submit your own entries or those of anyone else who’s written something relevant. If you’ve enjoyed this then please link to it from your own weblog, or vote it up on Netscape and Reddit. I’ll do my own bit to boost visitors by mentioning the rumour that there’s a secret Beatles track on the new iPhones.

Other carnivals to watch out for are Your Nearest Archaeological Site, Martin Rundkvist’s gathering of entries on the closest archaeological sites to you. If you live in the UK you can find this by searching the ADS.

The Carnival of Space will be at Why Homeschool? and submissions are welcome up to 6pm PST on the 4th of July.

History Carnival 54 went live a couple of days ago at Historianess.

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