Vidi
It’s second edition of the definitely non-carnival Vidi.
The big news story this week is the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. I didn’t put anything up as simply saying “A lot of people died who shouldn’t” seems a bit trite. I have Opinions on the aftermath but I don’t use post on them anyway so doing on the anniversary seemed disrespectful. Another reason is that I’ve a huge distaste for the packaging of the attacks an anniversary as spectacle. I don’t think you need some family connection, as Kevin Levin had, to reflect upon the event, but like perhaps some people might want to think about the difference between commemoration and celebration.
Some attempts to examine the historical context of the attacks include Carl Pyrdum’s History on Top, Crazy on the Bottom at Got Medieval which examines the idea that this was the attack of a medieval ideology. Classics in Contemporary Culture goes further back in 9-11 Antecedent? which looks back at the fall of Rome. Via History Carnival 39 comes another article To what extent is the medieval Western preconception about Islam still prevalent today? at The difference is the difference you make!. Finally the Airminded Brett Holman talks about The Shadow of the Airliner from 1920s and 1930s.
Neanderthals
Other news this week includes the story from Nature that Neanderthals may have survived a lot longer than previously thought, which has been picked up by many newspapers.
Blogwise the must-read reaction is predictably from John Hawks, who points out that there may yet be revisions to that date. Gibraltar News thinks it could lead to increased tourism for Gibraltar. I’m not convinced. The fact that the first ever discovery of a Neanderthal came from Gibraltar hasn’t made it Home of the Cavemen in the popular imagination. Dedido Shodo who is Slouching towards Lumbini may have spotted the biggest impact though. What will this mean for the Clan of the Cave Bear?
In the same era, Lizzy Lyn has contributed information on her DNA to help illuminate ancient population movements and recent news suggests I’m normal. Exactly what killed the Neanderthals remains a mystery.
Writing
Eurekalert has two press releases on the discovery of the earliest writing in the New World. This has also been picked up by the mainstream media as it’s another oldest ever…
It is exciting stuff. In Europe literacy was the catalyst for many innovations. In Greece it allowed philosophers of different locations or even different generations to argue with each other. It made explicit the rights and duties of peoples in publicly displayed law codes. It created authority which transcended the current moment an authority which was often written in stone. The invention of the printing press was possibly even more revolutionary than the wheel, at least metaphorically. This makes the discovery of earlier writing from the New World interesting, because it shows that these advances do not lead to inevitable consequences despite the claims of the Meierist school of history.
Boz, the Hooded Hawk, notes that Oldest Writing in the New World was offered to an antiquities dealer first which suggest that none of the words on the slab were Olmec for ‘context’. Carl Schaad, the Blog Hero! has the first decryption of the slab’s contents. Pinyin News notes that the carvings said to be in oldest script ever discovered in Western Hemisphere are not necessarily pictographs and that may have implications for how they could be interpreted.
Other News
The International Herald Tribune suggests that pre-Islamic archaeology is under threat in Iraq following the rise of Moqtada al-Sadr who has created a Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities which now commands the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, which before was under the Ministry of Culture.
Elsewhere on the subject of trouble with antiquities there’s news that a UK anthropologist helps right a wrong in Kenya, a headline which confused me for a short while. Also a Peruvian headdress which had been stolen by an antquities dealer, has been returned to Peru with the as yet mysterious aid of poacher turned gamekeeper Michel van Rijn.
The Bucks Free Press has news of Neolithic Partying, which seems remarkably similar to the news coming from the Durrington Walls site last year.
The Korea Times puts the Korea / China ancient history spat in better context than I did.
Wetherby News and the 24 Hour Museum have stories on the Battle of Towton, one of the most vicious battles in Britain’s history. A site I’ve found for The Towton Battlefield Archaeological Survey is dormant, but nevertheless has helpful background information on the topic.
The government is failing to protect Scotland’s ancient monuments in a story in the Sunday Herald this week. Meanwhile the news from Lahore is 500 monuments not being ‘protected’. Via Archaeology in Europe is news that some sites in Cornwall are being protected. Stone crosses are being chipped.
Martin Rundkvist has been busy digging and blogging on the excavation of a barrow. Part One, Two, Three and Four. It shows what can be achieved with limited resources. I’m guessing the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park had slightly more resources for their recent barrow.
Wessex Archaeology have also been blogging their Archaeology course. Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine. You can also pick up a Podcast from the event which appears to have been a deserved success.
For other digs, there’s always Çatalhöyük, from whence the cover image comes. Ioannis Georganas also put together a list of Cool excavation websites recently at Mediterranean Archaeology.
Via New Scientist and Cliopatria is news that the Royal Society has opened up its archives till December 2006. After that ou’ll need to be a subscriber to one of their packages (minimum price £2556 or $4725 US) or pay “a small fee per download”. My guess is between £8 and £25 per download.
Gems waiting to be uncovered include papers likeOn the Results of an Examination of the Orientations of a Number of Greek Temples with a View to Connect these Angles with the Amplitudes of Certain Stars at the Time the Temples were Founded, and an Endeavour to Derive therefrom the Dates of their Foundation by Consideration of the Changes Produced upon the Right Ascension and Declination of the Stars by the Precession of the Equinoxes by F.C. Penrose. You can search for more papers. If you’re looking for archaeoastronomy I’d suggest starting Penrose or Lockyer. No direct links because the site doesn’t appear to allow them.
Other ancient science things spotted include a paper Counter Culture: Towards a History of Greek Numeracy [PDF] by Reviel Netz.
This is a programmatic article. The field offered for research is extremely multi-disciplinary, and no author can hope to be truly an expert in all of the issues touched. It is the author’s hope that the inherent value of seeing this multidisciplinary field as a field outweighs the pitfalls that accompany such programs.
The article makes four claims:
• There is a need for a history of numeracy, alongside and complementing the field of the history of literacy.
• This history of numeracy should be seen as part of cognitive history: the study of culturally specific practices, in which universal human cognitive abilities are assembled together and implemented with the aid of specific tools and technologies.
• A certain assemblage of numerical practices, which I call counter culture, permeates Greek culture: here is a case where cognitive history plays an important role in cultural, political and economic history.
• The numerical practices mentioned above were typical not of numerical record, but of numerical manipulation. Thus Greek culture is characterized by a divide between numerical record and numerical manipulation. This divide, in turn, may have significant historical consequences.
I assume I found that while browsing the site of History of Science. Science History Publications is a small scale publisher so that’s hugely innovative if they’re making earlier issues available on open-access.
Another useful site appears to be Thomas Hockey’s homepage which includes links to a paper on the identification of constellations from rock art, which is similar to a problem I’ve been working on.
From Update comes terrific news about Worcestershire Archaeological Society. You can access their Transactions between Volume I 1965 to Volume 19 in 2004. To aid searching they’ve made the contents pages of all volumes available as a single PDF file. The journal covers palaeolithic to modern eras and all points in between.
The Society for American Archaeology launches Archaeology for the Public Web Pages notes Archaeology Online.
Via the Stoa comes an article on the Open Access News Blog about Stockholm Syndrome.
The modern era may be inventing modern curses for archaeologists as I mention in ygoloeahcrA while Alex Mack, the new i-Science blogger, follows that to pay Homage to Goiâna.
From Medical News Today, is an interesting article: How Did Our Ancestors’ Minds Really Work? Can neurology and archaeology combine to answer questions about ancient cognition? This goes nicely with the Neurophilosopher’s post ‘Neuroarthistory’ to probe the palaeolithic mind & cognitive evolution.
Duane Smith has an astonishing pot this Friday at Abnormal Interests.
The Japan Times Online has an article up this week Confucius and his ‘golden age’ which examines the past of the most famous Chinese philosopher.
Nathan Bauman at Seoul Hero has completed his journey through the Iliad. I was going to call it an odyssey through the Iliad but my brain cut in at the last minute.
I was going to link to this post on Upending the World at Bibliodyssey but instead Peacay celebrates one year of Bibliodyssey in style with a post on Trades.
Steve Muhlberger’s Early History has a post on A funerary brass — Sir Nicholas Dagworth. He raises the point that it’s not just what you find, but also how you find it that can shape your thoughts on a subject.
Alan the academic groupie has got to Monserrat at Last. It is every bit as beautiful as he describes and the photos are great too.
Also included because it’s living history and my blog is Aydin Örstan’s New Boat in the lock.
History Unfolding, which has been going continuously a lot longer than I have. Very much modern history, which is presumably why I haven’t seen it till mentioned at Cliopatria.
Sociolingo’s Mali Blog started this month. It looks like history and archaeology will be regular topics and the photos are terrific as this one of Dogon Cave Paintings shows.
The fonts are Adventure.ttf and Adventure Subtitles.ttf.
The next Vidi will probably be Google-ish. There’s also plenty of interesting stuff at History Carnival 39.
Holy cow, what reportage! Alun, this was really fun, the comics referenced, and your extensive surfing. I’ve just read way more than I could have imagined waking on a Saturday morning could offer…on recent neandrathals…thanks a lot, this sure beats out my reading on neandrathals last weekend! Although I saw a lot of them at local bars…
Thanks for the link. I had the same reservations about posting on the actual date, so I waited a day. Not being an American probably had something to do with it too …
Wow! Great stuff here. I’m going to spend more time looking over this than I do some of the blog carnivals I read!
Which brings to mind: could this be the beginning of an archaeology blog carnival?
No it’s emphatically not a blog carnival.
It’s simply a way of compiling links, which often deal with similar stories, into one weekly (or possibly every two weeks) post rather than posting three or more posts in one week all with the title “Seen Elsewhere”.
The plan is, if I’m not too lazy, to put the history links here and the science links up at i-Science.