Who were the Etruscans?
Wednesday February 28, 2007
N.S. Gill at the Ancient History sites gives us a great introduction to the history of the ancient Etruscans:
Who Were the Etruscans?
Etruscan Archaeology
Definition and Timeline
Quote of the Week: Bettinger on the Cost of Doing Business
Tuesday February 27, 2007
For some reason this crotchety quote from archaeologist Robert Bettinger pops to the surface Quote of the Week:
Science, and especially archaeology, is always going to be plagued by crackpots ... Read More
Qorikancha, Cuzco, Peru
Monday February 26, 2007
While browsing around in Flickr, I found this great photograph of the Qorikancha in the city of Cuzco, Peru and felt compelled to write a bit about the city and ... Read More
Walker Site: Pre-Clovis or Not?
Sunday February 25, 2007
Although I haven't seen a site report yet, there is some blog commentary on the news reports about the Walker site in Minnesota, widely reported to be pre-clovis and dated ... Read More
TAC: Ghosts of Green Bottom
Sunday February 25, 2007
Latest video from The Archaeology Channel is Ghosts of Green Bottom, from Daniel Boyd and the Council for West Virginia Archaeology, on archaeological excavations at a Southern-style plantation house.
Ghosts ... Read More
Word Play: Processual Archaeology
Saturday February 24, 2007
Processual archaeology is a term archaeologists use to describe an important theoretical advance for archaeological studies that arose during the 1960s and is still extremely influential today. So, which of ... Read More
Amalgamated Friday
Friday February 23, 2007
Seriously. The huge number and quality of news stories and blog commentaries available today is so astonishing, but it's almost impossible to keep up with it. But maybe I can ... Read More
Clovis No Longer First
Thursday February 22, 2007
The PreClovis Debate Moves On
A very persnickety analysis of AMS radiocarbon dates from eleven Clovis sites in North America has resulted in narrowing both the length of time for the ... Read More
In the Field... The Ancient Americas
Wednesday February 21, 2007
On March 9, 2007, Chicago's Field Museum will open up a major permanent exhibition of art objects and artifacts of the American continents.
Hopewell Mica Claw Photo Credit: John Weinstein, © ... Read More
Quote of the Week: Thoreau Shows His Age
Tuesday February 20, 2007
Henry David Thoreau was a transcendentalist--basically a philosopher of the 19th century with strong ties to nature and the environment (and, of course, one of my personal heroes). Still, I ... Read More
The Kingdom of Aksum
Monday February 19, 2007
The Iron Age Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum holds a special fascination for many of us: among other things, it is supposed to be the last resting place of the Ark ... Read More
Archeological Notes (a poem by David Wagoner)
Sunday February 18, 2007
This poem was written by David Wagoner and first appeared in the volume 52/53 of Light Quarterly.
Wherever they put their feet, the herdsmen beyond bleak Astrakhan
Scuffle in flint chips ... Read More
Word Play: Schlep Effect
Friday February 16, 2007
Archaeologists use the term 'schlep effect' for which of the following phenomena? (Hint: schlep is a Yiddish word meaning "to carry clumsily or with difficulty").
The knot of calcium deposits ... Read More
Chimp Stoned Tools
Thursday February 15, 2007
Culture vs. Nature in Broken Rocks
This week, a paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Early Edition by a research team led by Julio Mercader ... Read More
Video of the Week: Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us
Wednesday February 14, 2007
This video by Kansas State University anthropology professor Michael Wesch is a great introduction to the Web 2.0 initiative and what that means. Although this video is not about archaeology, ... Read More
Quote of the Week: Lord & Turekian on Diplomacy of Science
Tuesday February 13, 2007
This week's quotation comes from a February 9, 2007 editorial in Science magazine:
Earth as seen from Apollo 17 (1972) Photo Credit: NASA, in the public domain
It is time for ... Read More
Archaeology Dig 2007: Robert Given House, Pemaquid Falls, Maine
Monday February 12, 2007
Field School in Focus
The 2007 field school for the Department of Social Sciences, Southern Main Community College will be held between July 30 and August 10, 2007, at the 18th ... Read More
Digging for the Truth: An Interview with Josh Bernstein
Sunday February 11, 2007
A few weeks ago, I received some PR materials from a group working for JWM Productions, the company that produces Digging for the Truth, a massively popular series broadcast by ... Read More
Excavating the Frederick Douglass Home
Saturday February 10, 2007
A slide show from the New York Times narrated and written by venerated science writer John Noble Wilford is worth a look. Put together in conjunction with an article ... Read More
The Mystery of the Human Hobbit
Friday February 9, 2007
Tim Jones at Remote Central sent along this link to a video of the 2005 BBC production on Flores Man.
Flores man (LB1) Photo Credit: Peter Brown
The film has footage ... Read More
Easter Island Photographs
Friday February 9, 2007
Via Boing Boing, an absolutely ravishing collection of photographs of the monuments of Easter Island, aka Rapa Nui:
Photos of Easter Island, by Wouter Velthuis
Mark Frauenfelder on Boing Boing
Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia - Archaeology of Flores Man
Thursday February 8, 2007
Return to the Island of Flores
Flores Island, Indonesia. Photo Credit: Seth Lieberman
It's been over two years since the October 2004 report of the discovery of the skeletal remains of a ... Read More
Video of the Week: Ancestors in the Snow
Wednesday February 7, 2007
This week's archaeovideo is a witty examination of our illustrious paleoanthropological heritage in under three minutes and assisted with a sophisticated set of graphics carved into a snowy driveway:
Urgent ... Read More
TAC: Catacombs of Rome
Wednesday February 7, 2007
A newly uploaded video from The Archaeology Channel this week is The Witnesses of Silence: Discovering Rome's Catacombs, a half-hour exploration of the history and the history of investigations of ... Read More
Quote of the Week: Howard Carter on the Good Old Days
Tuesday February 6, 2007
Is there a more famous archaeologist than Howard Carter? Probably not. His discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb with his benefactor Lord Carnarvon is the stuff of dreams. But his kind of ... Read More
Ten Years On: Advances in Archaeology
Monday February 5, 2007
Faithful Reader Grace writes
I have a BA and an MA in Anthropology, and I worked from 1980 through 1996 in the field as a technician, supervisor, and field director for ... Read More
Klasies River Caves, South Africa
Sunday February 4, 2007
Early Human Life in South Africa
Beginning about 125,000 years ago, a handful of our human ancestors lived in a handful of caves on the beautiful Tsitsikamma coast of South Africa, ... Read More
Tula and the Toltec Empire
Friday February 2, 2007
The Toltec Civilization was one of three great empires of the Basin of Mexico, after the fall of Teotihuacan and before the rise of the Aztecs. The capital was at ... Read More
Stonehenge Village
Thursday February 1, 2007
An article in the online version of National Geographic this week reports from the excavations by University of Sheffield archaeologist Mike Parker-Pearson at the Stonehenge Riverside Project.
Stonehenge in sepia. ... Read More