There are 55 million weblogs in the world as of today, according to Technorati, and 157 of them use the word 'archaeology' as an index keyword. That's just today, tomorrow it'll be more. One of the great things about the information age is you can find out just about anything on the Internet; one of the bad things is, it's really difficult to sort through all that mess to find the tasty tidbits that everybody seeks. If people with real lives read blogs at all, the most we can keep up with is just a handful, and most of us have a wide range of things we keep track of, not just archaeology. It's just too much.
Fortunately, the latest thing to come down the pike are called blog carnivals. The people who write blogs on a particular topic are friends or acquaintances or associates or whatever---whatever it is we are, we who write archaeology blogs stay in touch via a blog roll if nothing else. We link to one another when somebody's written something particularly interesting or insightful, and share comments and commentary when it's appropriate. A blog carnival is that idea taken to its logical maximum. In a blog carnival, a group of related bloggers provide a round up of other people's blogs, selecting what's interesting from those blogs to introduce the reader to other comments and commenters. The carnival takes place once a week or once a month; people participating in a blog carnival take turns hosting the carnival and making the selections.
To be honest, these are early days for the concept, so there are none too many blog carnivals yet, in fact, the only other one to cover just archaeology that I'm aware of is by Alun Salt, who runs his own blog carnival called Vidi (Alun is one of the pioneers of archaeology blogging). But there are some long-standing blog carnivals on science and technology, on ancient history, and on biblical studies, that I've collected here in Archaeology-Related Blog Carnivals.
I apologize for this long-winded introduction; but now you should go visit Four Stone Hearth, which is an anthropology blog carnival, compiled by people who run blogs in the four fields of anthropology (archaeology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology and linguistics). This week 4SH is hosted by Kambiz Kamrani of Anthropology.net; on November 8th look for one from Afarensis, and on the 22nd, it'll be my turn.
Fortunately, the latest thing to come down the pike are called blog carnivals. The people who write blogs on a particular topic are friends or acquaintances or associates or whatever---whatever it is we are, we who write archaeology blogs stay in touch via a blog roll if nothing else. We link to one another when somebody's written something particularly interesting or insightful, and share comments and commentary when it's appropriate. A blog carnival is that idea taken to its logical maximum. In a blog carnival, a group of related bloggers provide a round up of other people's blogs, selecting what's interesting from those blogs to introduce the reader to other comments and commenters. The carnival takes place once a week or once a month; people participating in a blog carnival take turns hosting the carnival and making the selections.
To be honest, these are early days for the concept, so there are none too many blog carnivals yet, in fact, the only other one to cover just archaeology that I'm aware of is by Alun Salt, who runs his own blog carnival called Vidi (Alun is one of the pioneers of archaeology blogging). But there are some long-standing blog carnivals on science and technology, on ancient history, and on biblical studies, that I've collected here in Archaeology-Related Blog Carnivals.
I apologize for this long-winded introduction; but now you should go visit Four Stone Hearth, which is an anthropology blog carnival, compiled by people who run blogs in the four fields of anthropology (archaeology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology and linguistics). This week 4SH is hosted by Kambiz Kamrani of Anthropology.net; on November 8th look for one from Afarensis, and on the 22nd, it'll be my turn.
- Four Stone Hearth #1: Kambiz Kamrani on Anthropology.net
- Four Stone Hearth Homepage
- More Anthropology and Ancient History-Related Blog Carnivals
- Alun Salt's Vidi Blog Carnival
- Archaeology Weblogs
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