Tour de France 2009 | Le Tour de France Route - Yahoo! Eurosport UK

Tour de France 2009 | Le Tour de France Route - Yahoo! Eurosport UK

This year's Tour de France gets under way later today, with the first stage, known as the prologue, comprising a 15.5 km time trial departing from Monaco, and one that will be a lot more technical than the normal flat road to which riders are more accustomed, as we see from this clip:



Of course the big news ahead of this year's race is the return after a four-year absence of Lance Armstrong, who now rides for the Astana team - having won the Tour no less than 7 times, it remains to be seen whether he can win an 8th title - he'll be up against riders like team-mate Alberto Contador, winner in 2007 but banned in 2008 for doping offences, as well as Denis Menchov riding for Rabobank, who recently won the Giro d'Italia, competing for the first time in this year's Tour. Armstrong took a bad tumble back in March whilst competing in the Vuelta Castille y Lyon, but came back to put in a strong performance in the Giro d'Italia in May. I for one will be hoping the Tour doesn't become a parade by the end of the first week, with everyone else riding for runners-up places as Armstrong powers his way into an unassailable lead,

The Tour has become noted this past few years for the amount of riders caught cheating, with teams like Discovery and T-Mobile disbanding their teams and withdrawing their considerable financial clout - and funding - from the event. Although it would be great to think that there will be no riders topping up on the EPO this time round, past experience almost dictates that one or two riders, and possibly their teams, will face disqualification. Indeed, the Silence team announced Wednesday, that one of their riders, Dutchman Thomas Dekker, has been withdrawn after testing positive for EPO.

The team I'll be rooting for is Euskaltel, the Basque team, and the station I'll be watching is online via Eurosport, who for many years have provided outstanding coverage of the world's premier cycling event. If you live outside the UK for example, a monthly or annual subscription to Eurosport is pretty cheap, and allows a number of language options.

Four Stone Hearth Volume 70 : Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution, and Science

Four Stone Hearth Volume 70 @ Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution, and Science

The latest edition of the anthropology blog carnival, Four Stone Hearth has been published by Afarensis, who has compiled a number of outstanding and very informative posts, covering everything from anti-depressants to orangutans, and ancient spear-points in the garden to archaeology tweeting, plus a great deal more besides.

The next edition of Four Stone Hearth will be hosted at Neuroanthropology on July 15th, which conveniently allows me to point readers in the direction of the excellent video describing Daniel Lende's community oriented work, also included in the current edition of 4SH.

Domain Name Registration With Marcaria.com

Marcaria.com is a domain and trademark hosting site, with whom you can register international domain names, regardless of the country you're in at the time - this is important to bear in mind as not all such sites are able to offer this service. However, you will need to avail yourself of the related facilities that Marcaria have on offer in order for you to expedite registering your company abroad.

For example if you have a business in England which you wish to transfer to France, you'll need to have your new company registered in France, after which you'll want a local website to match, so the first thing you need to do is check out the domains france link at Marcaria.com, and enter the name of the site name you want to register, to check for availability.

Alternatively, you've set up a business in Germany, running a successful online bakery service trading under the name of Attila The Bun, which is doing so well that you one day decide you want to expand your bread-based empire in a westerly direction by appealing as well to the patisserie-occupied territories of France, in which case you'll very probably need to register a new website which caters more to Gallic sensibilities, with a domains .fr name to suit.

Before heading across the cyberborder, and registering your new website, you'll also want to to know which domain registration .fr services Marcaria.com can provide, where a quick glance at the page reveals that once registered you'll get free email and url forwarding and free DNS records management. The other support services on offer include live help, as well as telephone and round the clock email assistance - check their FAQs for more details of exactly what is on offer, and the ways in which you can make electronic payment for your registered domain names. Moreover, the About Us page details the global extent of this company's experience across the world, whilst their News contains related information and comment in an overall context.

Marcaria.com has been commented upon elsewhere as being reliable and straightforward, and if for some reason your domain registration doesn't work out, they do give you a refund – furthermore, they are registered with ICANN.

Human Evolution on Trial by Terry Toohill - The Blog

Human Evolution on Trial

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, guest blogger Terry Toohill has over the past year or so contributed no less than 30 posts, originally conceived as a book, which comprise his take on the story of human evolution.

It was written in part to counter the arguments of intelligent design proponents who contend we are all here thanks to the benign interventions of a single god-like entity, and partly to form a frame of reference for those interested in considering the vast body of evidence that points to the fact that everything alive today can trace its ancestral roots back through many millions of years.

Moreover, we can also discern evolutionary patterns in our own technologies and cultures, and many would argue that it is these factors, rather than natural selection, which are set to play a much greater role in our evolving selves, both in the present and probably far into the future.

Now, for the first time ever, this entire collection of essays, is brought to you - free of charge - in a single blog-like entity, with each chapter now in sequential order, complete with integrated and out-bound links, all designed to allow the reader easy and cross-referenced access to the entire corpus that comprises 'Human Evolution on Trial' by Terry Toohill.

(Not available in stores)

Four Stone Hearth #69 @ Wanna be an Anthropologist

Wanna be an Anthropologist 4SH #69

Paul Wren has posted the latest edition of Four Stone Hearth, which on this occasion is split into five sections, namely Sociocultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Biological Anthropology/Human Evolution, Linguistics and a bonus feature, Anthropology on the Internet.

Many of the articles are penned by the usual suspects, but as is often the case with 4SH, a few sites and authors that may not be as widely known also make an appearance, and three entries in particular caught my eye, namely Geoff Carter's 'Theoretical Structural Archaeology', Archaeology Dude and the ongoing blog that will report his findings from the Father Angel Site, as well as Mark Dawson's 'The Ordinary People Project'.

Just click through to check these posts and the rest, in what comprises a somewhat more compact and coherent edition than I put together last time round, all of which just about leaves me time to mention that the next Four Stone Hearth is due to be held on 1st July at Afarensis.

image: Pasaje desde Maspujols - Mir, 1907-13

Evidence For Palaeoindian Hunters Beneath Lake Huron

Evidence For Early Hunters Beneath The Great Lakes — PNAS

10,000 years ago, in what is now the Great Lakes region of continental North America, Palaeoindian communities eked out the chilly lives of sub-arctic foragers, which amongst numerous other activities, involved hunting large and small game, including caribou, a regional variety of reindeer.

In the course of their hunting expeditions, it appears the humans recognised that caribou showed a marked preference for walking along straight lines, and it is believed that piles and avenues of stones observed on the lake floor may have been placed there by prehistoric hunters intent on luring their prey into a killing zone.

Although it had long been suspected that traces of Palaeoindian life might lie below Lake Huron, there was no clear idea of what signs to look for, until John O'Shea and Guy Meadows theorised that around 10,000 years ago the region would have been sub-arctic in nature, and from that deduced that caribou would have been a key food resource, adapted to the contemporary environment. A structure almost 1150 long and similar to a caribou drive located on Victoria Island, Canada prompted researchers from the University of Michigan to surmise they had found a prehistoric version of the same hunting method.

As we'll see later, in addition to Lake Huron, the wider landscape which today comprises the Great Lakes region was not only the backdrop against which Palaeoindians existed, but one that would also have been dramatic to behold. Although images for this story are hard to find, I've added a link at the end of this post to a Google Earth tour of the Great Lakes, courtesy of NOAA/GLERL.

A newly published paper at PNAS, 'Evidence For Early Hunters Beneath the Great Lakes' details ongoing research undertaken by John O’Shea, in collaboration with Guy Meadows and other colleagues, and describes the investigations to date, for which this is the abstract...

Scholars have hypothesized that the poorly understood and rarely encountered archaeological sites from the terminal Paleoindian and Archaic periods associated with the Lake Stanley low water stage (10,000–7,500 BP) are lost beneath the modern Great Lakes.

Acoustic and video survey on the Alpena-Amberley ridge, a feature that would have been a dry land corridor crossing the Lake Huron basin during this time period, reveals the presence of a series of stone features that match, in form and location, structures used for caribou hunting in both prehistoric and ethnographic times. These results present evidence for early hunters on the Alpena-Amberley corridor, and raise the possibility that intact settlements and ancient landscapes are preserved beneath Lake Huron.

The paper is behind a paywall, but the story is taken up by various online sources, including Science Daily, who quote O'Shea thus...

"This is the first time we've identified structures like these on the lake bottom," said John O'Shea, curator of Great Lakes Archaeology in the Museum of Anthropology

"Scientifically, it's important because the entire ancient landscape has been preserved and has not been modified by farming, or modern development. That has implications for ecology, archaeology and environmental modeling...

...Without the archeological sites from this intermediate time period, you can't tell how they got from point A to point B, or Paleo-Indian to Archaic," O'Shea said. "This is why the discovery of sites preserved beneath the lakes is so significant." and professor in the Department of Anthropology.

For a quick glance at how the this region of North America formed and would once have appeared to our prehistoric forebears, the State of the Great Lakes Annual Report 2004 (pdf) has a good section from about page 30-32 which considers the Great Lakes in a broader context, as can be read in this article, The Hidden Landscapes Beneath The Great Lakes by Charles F. Barker...

The State of Michigan and the surrounding landscapes of the Great Lakes basin are ultimately defined by the under-lying geology. The rock formations that are more resistant to erosion than others protrude as landforms such as the Door Peninsula, the Georgian Islands, and the cliffs forming Niagara Falls. In fact, these are all part of the same resistant bowl-shaped formation.

Given that, it is not so surprising to find that this same principle defines some rather prominent if not spectacular landforms under the Lakes. For instance, in the middle of Lake Huron, long tall ridges of rock run from Alpena, Michigan to Amberley, Ontario - appropriately named the Alpena-Amberley Ridge. Again, this is the submerged version of the expression of the edge of a bowl-shaped resistant rock formation.

In some places along its approximately one hundred-mile length, the ridge has an elevation drop of 400 feet or so from crest to deepest point. During lower Lake levels in the past, and likely again at some point in the distant future, this ridge would form a chain of Islands – much like the Florida Keys in appearance, yet in the middle of Lake Huron (sans palm trees). Beneath Lake Michigan the underlying rocks again create a bizarre landscape. In the north, the deepest part of the lake, the soluble limestone dissolved away in places leaving elongate pock-marked submerged caverns, as overlying rocks were scrapped away by the erosive power of the glaciers.

To the south, a high point in the middle of the Lake was likely an island during periods when lake levels were much lower. Add to these features the possibility of something quite literally out of this world – some suspect a possible impact crater at the eastern edge of Lake Ontario. With these new maps, we can begin to appreciate the Great Lakes not only for the water we see, but the fascinating Lake floors that lie beneath.

Further exploration of Lake Huron is set to take place during the coming summer months, and it is hoped that ancient settlements may be found, and possibly organic artefacts that may have been preserved in anerobic conditions beneath the lake bed.

NOAA/Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL): Great Lakes Google Earth Tour

See also: First Neanderthal Fossil Dredged Up From North Sea - Anthropology.net


Reference: Evidence For Early Hunters Beneath The Great Lakes by John M. O'Shea and Guy A. Meadows, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 8, 2009

Published online before print June 8, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0902785106

Banksy Opens Secret Exhibition In Bristol

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts & Culture | Banksy in secret exhibition stunt



Having made previous mention of Banksy with regard to last year's BBC Radio 4 presentation, The Drawings On The Wall, I thought I'd post this link to a free exhibition that has just opened in his hometown of Bristol.

The entire event was prepared beneath a thick cloak of deep secrecy, and apart from 2 people collaborating with the artist, the rest of the Council was completely unaware of the show until its opening was announced - it transpires that even the exhibition organisers didn't knowingly meet the reclusive artist, as part of the deal was that his anonymity remained intact.

Check the link at BBC News for more info, and here's the Bristol Museum link.

El Pais also has a nice feature, Banksy Ya Es Profeta En Su Tierra, looking at the artist's vision of the future.

The Archaeology Channel - Pledge Drive Alert

The Archaeology Channel - Welcome

(cross-posted from Anthropology.net)

As many readers of this blog will be aware, The Archaeology Channel is a fantastic resource, which since 2000 has provided a superb and fascinating collection of online archaeology videos from around the world, all of which are free to access, which in this day and age, makes it a rare resource indeed.

However, as we are all aware, this day and age marks an era of unprecedented financial uncertainty, which means that initiatives such as TAC, which rely heavily on membership and pledge drives to raise funds to be able to continue their work, are particularly vulnerable to sudden downturns in the economy, as would-be donors draw in the purse strings, tighten their belts and hope for better times.

On that sombre note, I have just been made aware that the latest pledge drive by The Archaeology Channel has dramatically failed to live up to expectations, which has prompted this note from Rick Pettigrew...

This request for help is going out to existing and former supporting members of The Archaeology Channel (www.archaeologychannel.org). We began our Spring Pledge Drive on June 2 with the goal to raise $5000 in pledges by June 15. So far, our hopes have been dashed, as we have only $50 in pledges.

I realize this may be a poor time of year for this type of fund-raiser, but for a variety of reasons we were not able to conduct the drive in April as we had intended. Because we have lost so much in underwriting income since last October, our financial condition has become quite weak, so we have to rely more and more on our Membership Program for support.

The failure of our Spring Pledge Drive would make our situation even more precarious. To take part in the Pledge Drive, just go to www.archaeologychannel.org and take a look at the featured video in the center of the Home Page. There we are updating our Pledge Drive message every day with a link to an archive of our daily videos.

If you have not renewed your TAC Membership, please take this opportunity to do so. If you are up-to-date but able to expand on your existing support, please do so now. If you know others who would be receptive to our plea for support, please tell them without delay.

We launched TAC back in 2000 and have made great progress in bringing the human story to people everywhere through media on the Internet. Please help us get past this bump in the road and continue making progress in our efforts to create better understanding of our shared human cultural heritage. Thank you very much.

Richard M. (Rick) Pettigrew, Ph.D.,
RPA President and Executive Director Archaeological Legacy Institute
4147 E. Amazon Dr. Eugene, OR 97405 USA

Although to many of us, the sum of 5 grand seems like riches beyond our wildest dreams, in the context of the online community and the millions of people out there with even only a few bucks to spare, this amount seems a very small price to pay for ensuring that projects like The Archaeology Channel not only survive for now but continue far into the future, to providing something of benefit to us all, and with enough people chipping in, this target of $5,000 would seem to be eminently attainable.

The survival of TAC, whilst obviously being important in the short term, will also have a beneficial effect on similar enterprises set up in the future, as the precedent will have been established, meaning that potential investors will have a solid guideline with which to persuade them that there is sufficient interest and support already in place. If TAC goes down, potential investors in the future may well be discouraged by what they perceive to have been a lack of support that led to its cessation, making it that much harder for archaeologists to fund their own film-making, whilst at the same time depriving them of an audience, and blocking our access to their invaluable work.