Amalgamated Friday #31

Anthropology and War

An article in the NYT on October 5 described the embedding of anthropologists in the war in Iraq. This situation has created a firestorm amongst anthropologists, because, frankly, this is the heart of the ethics struggle in science today. What is the role of anthropology today?

• Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones, the NYT story (you might need a free login ID to read it)
• Anthropology and War, comments from Afarensis
• Anthropology and the Military, Jonah Lehrer at the Frontal Cortex
• Anthropology Goes to War, Part 1, Eric Michael Johnson on Primate Diaries
• Marshall Sahlins on anthropologists in Iraq, reprinted from the NYT on Savage Minds
• My Thoughts on Anthropologists in the Military, Kerim on Savage Minds
• Roger Lancaster responds to “Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones”, letter to the NYT posted on Savage Minds
• War, Politics and Archaeology, Cornelius Holtorf on European Journal of Archaeology lists some upcoming articles appropos to the subject

Carnivals

• Four Stone Hearth XXV - 1st Anniversary Edition, from Tim Jones on Remote Central
• Tangled Bank #90, on The Other 95%
• Good Blog Carnivals, comments from Alun on ClioAudio on what makes a good Blog Carnival, coming off a commentary by Duane Smith on Abnormal Interests

Kennewick Man

Science writer Kate Riley has been featuring several intelligent, balanced reports on the Kennewick Man, in the Seattle Times. Here's her latest:

• Anthropology: the great divide
• Two words go too far in ancestral-remains law, on the repercussions of the supposedly minor changes to the wording of NAGPRA
• On the Seattle Times’ “Anthropology: The Great Divide”, Kambiz comments that he doesn't think the split at Stanford was not the result of KM, although a commenter disagrees

Neanderthals

• Go East, Young Neanderthal, Greg Laden
• Fossil DNA Expands Neanderthal Range, Nicholas Wade in the NYT

New at Archaeology magazine

• Dynasty of Nomads, on the Liao empire
• Letters to the Crocodile God, excavations at Tebtunis
• Lucy up close, on the exhibition of Lucy the Hominid
• Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine, on the causes of the Black Death

Around About.com

• San Andreas Fault home page, everything you always wanted to know, from Andrew Alden at Geology
• Hammurabi, from N.S. Gill in Ancient History
• Conquest, Part I: Oft-Invaded England, Melissa Snell, Medieval History
• In Monet's Garden, Shelley Esaak, Art History
• What's cooking in Europe?, James Martin on Europe for Visitors
• Pre-Colonial Cultures in South Africa: San and KhoiKhoi, Alistair Boddy-Evans and African History

Miscellaneous Anthropology

• Tools of the hobbit, Hawks on a paper about the stone tool assemblage at Liang Bua
• On the evolution of language, Kambiz on Anthropology.net

Miscellaneous Archaeology

• Topper Site Provides Evidence For Ancient Comet Explosion, Tim on Remote Central
• Archaeologists in Serbia Discover Earliest Known Metal-Working Evidence in Europe, news about the Prokuplje site from Tim on Remote Central
• Unsworded by Find-Conservators, you know that sword discovered at Djurhamn (Sweden) last week? it's the hands of the conservators at Gothenberg and interesting stuff is being learned, from Martin in Aardvarchaeology
• The Archaeology of Spanish Fascism, Alun Salt on ClioAudio, writes on an Al Jazeera documentary on archaeology of the Spanish civil war

Images

• The answer depends on the question, Alun on ClioAudio muses on a photo from the Flickr collection of John Atherton
• Southeast Asia, c. 100,000 B.P., NoelbyNature reports that Monash University has developed an interactive map of the Sahul, showing the effects of sea level changes on Australia and Indonesia over the past 100,000 years; very cool indeed
• Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts, and a similarly interactive map doles out the bad news about Antarctica extreme amount of melting this summer. Not so cool.
• World's Oldest ABSTRACT Art, Maybe has been found on the 11th century BC Neolithic Djade al-Mughara site in Syria, from Reuters, and okay, maybe I changed the title a little
• Deir el-Medina 2007, photos of the site by Lenka P on Flickr
• Rapanui, four minute slide show on Easter Island, with a local soundtrack

Humoresque-ish

• Archaeology: The Uncyclopedia, finally a Wikipedia to love

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