Ileret Skulls
Two skulls, one Homo habilis, one Homo erectus, have been found in the same general place, at the same general time and are shaking up the latest notions of human evolution. Basically, paleoanthropologists were headed down a fairly new path, by thinking that perhaps all Homo are basically the same species, and the 'species' we've discovered over the last couple hundred years might be just accidents of chance. That is, that actually we're just seeing slow change over time, with a false punctuation created by erratic discoveries. Kind of an attractive notion, to be honest. But, the discoveries at Ileret, Kenya, are throwing the scholars for a loop.
- Twin fossil find adds twist to human evolution, Nature article about it, via David Beard at Archaeology in Europe
- Fossils in Kenya Challenge Linear Evolution, JN Wilford in the NYT
- Fossils paint new picture of human evolution, Julie Steenhuysen for Reuters
- The Ileret Skulls: My Two Cents, Afarensis
- Man bites dog, John Hawks
- Two new Homo fossils, PZ Myers on Pharyngula
Blog Carnivals
- Boneyard #2, new paleontology blog, at Laelaps this time
Lucy Exhibition
- Scientists warn that hominid 'Lucy' is too fragile for six-year US tour, Independent via David Beard, Archaeology in Europe
- When fossils traveled, John Hawks
Rotherwas Ribbon
- Rotherwas Ribbon followup, Alun on Clioaudio
- Two-week project to safeguard Rotherwas Ribbon, Megalithic Portal News
Ancient History
- Cyrus and the Achaemenids, N.S. Gill, Ancient History at About
- Did ancient Greek women sunbathe?, Alun Salt on Clioaudio
- EEF news, from Anthony on BlogSpot
Science Studies
- Science Blogger Caucus at the Yearly Kos, Tara C. Smith on Aetiology
- And A Good Example Of Catholic Science, Christopher O'Brien on NorthState Science
Archaeology
- Comet theory collides with Clovis research, may explain disappearance of ancient people in South Carolina, Tim on Remote Central
- Villestofte: Danish Bog Booty, Martin Rundqvist, Aardvarchaeology
- Harbour of the Sheaf Kings, Martin at Aardvarchaeology talks about metal detecting at Djurö, Sweden
- The bleeding handaxe, on the Pestera Cicolovina story, John Hawks
- Adventures in Angkor, noelbynature, Southeast Asian Archaeology
- Petra Pictures, Indiana Jane
- Cicilian Plains survey, Realtime Archaeology
- The Liang Bua report, John Hawks discussing sciwriter Elizabeth Culotta's report of the 2007 meeting
- French Connection to China Syndrome, dentally, Eurasian continuity in the Middle Pleistocene from John Hawks
Anthropology
- Why studying sports matters, Fuji on Savage Minds
Book Reviews
- Book Review: Barlow, Sharp Teeth, 300 pages of free verse narrative, reviewed by Martin Rundkvist at Aardvarchaeology
Media
- Photos, Flickr, RSS and Cataloging, from Alun Salt, that smart guy, on how to develop a useful rss feed from Flickr.
- Video Update: Black Sea project, Archaeology magazine on line
- What is Archaeology, 6 minute video from Faith Haney on The Archaeology Channel.
- public.resource.org, a Flickr collection of +6000 high resolution images from the Smithsonian, with a cc license that lets anybody use them (even us crass commercial types), and how cool is that? via Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing
- Jasmina Tešanovic's "Nefertiti" novella, free, a Serbian scifi novella about the ancient New Kingdom queen Nefertiti, hosted on BoingBoing. I don't recommend downloading it as a pdf, that slowed my machine down to a crawl
- The Science of, and Behind, TV's Dirty Jobs, it won't last, but I think the Discovery Channel's TV show Dirty Jobs is doing a terrific job at public science; this is an interview with host Mike Rowe on Wired
- Historians and Wikipedia, an article on how professionals are stepping up to the plate to fix Wikipedia, which I of course am deeply conflicted about but nonetheless was brought to my attention by Peter Suber
- Backpacking in Chiclayo, Peru, Flickrite Jeremy Epstein has a collection of photos from Sipan this summer worth taking a peek at
- Final diary entry from Catalhoyuk, blogger Mia Ridge is working on a database for the Museum of London, and in this entry she muses on the problems with archaeological data, and just who will the users be?
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