The Cultural Heritage of the Great Sage Plain - The Achaeology Channel - Video

This latest video from TAC takes us to the American South West, and in particular, the Great Sage Plain, described thus...

Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, a vast plateau streaked with numerous canyons stretches from Cortez, Colorado, northwestward into Utah. A productive agricultural region today, the Great Sage Plain displays numerous ruins of an ancient civilization that puzzled the earliest European explorers but echoes today in its living Native American descendants.

For the past hundred years, archaeologists and Native people have collaborated to paint the picture and tell the story of the vibrant culture that once thrived here. The Anasazi Heritage Center of the Bureau of Land Management produced this film to share that story.

Apart from showing us some spectacular scenery and fascinating archaeological sites dotted across the arid landscape, this video widens its horizons by relating the history of archaeology in the region, which includes a narrative on how it first came to the attention of explorers over a century ago, which archaeological practices came into being, and how in the modern day, researchers are helped by insights gleaned from living descendants and the oral history that still survives. Indeed, it is noted that the oral traditions are as much in need of preservation as the ancient sites and artefacts themselves.

If you want to keep up to date with archaeology in this part of the world, the Center For Desert Archaeology not only have a great website, but also send out a very useful newsletter every few days, archives of which can be found here.

image by bob the hiker Flickr photostream

Praileaitz Cave Hit By Archaeology Funding Crisis

Que tristeza y que bajeza moral nos da la “Cultura” foral.@ AMIGOS DE PRAILEAITZ

First, here's a 5-minute video clip, namely 'Inside Praileaitz' (no sound)...



Last year I ran a story on the recent research at Praileaitz Cave, located in the western Basque Country of northern Iberia, where archaeologists uncovered evidence suggesting that during the Magdalenian era, the cave had been used by an individual, thought to be a shaman, for ritualistic purposes. This was based on the recovered artefacts therein, and the apparent lack of any signs that the cave had been used as a living space at any time during the Palaeolithic. We now learn that funding for further exploration within the cave has been withheld; here is a roughly paraphrased version of the recent article in GARA...

The Cave of Praileaitz will no longer to be researched by specialists, at least not on anything like the scale that has been the case in recent years. For the past two seasons, the group of researchers, led by Archaeologist of Prehistory, Xabier Peñalver of Aranzadi, recieved two annual grants of 250,000 euros to conduct research and study within the cave. However, the Diputación of Gipuzkoa has now decided to suspend this funding, a situation that means further intensive archaeological research there can not now proceed.

The director of the Heritage Council of Gipuzkoa, Pilar Azurmendi told this newspaper that according to data provided by the publicly funded Department of Archaeology, recent research results from the cave have not been as successful as those from the initial stages of the investigations, saying...

"The 2006 results were very interesting but, recent discoveries from the rooms in the cave have revealed ochres and faunal remains not linked to human activity, which are quite common in these circumstances."

In her opinion, archaeologists who have worked on the site and analyzed the cave, have dug at a "very specific rather than a more generalized location, and have not found anything in a Magdalenian context - however, that's not our fault." Apparently Xabier Peñalver "knew this was just " and thus Azurmendi rejected a renewed grant on the grounds that several of the current research proposals were the same as those suggested in 2008.

Pilar Azurmendi also cited a tight budget, which allowed for 180,000 euros to be divided anually amongst archaeology projects of this nature, and that Praileaitz couldn't be given extra money, and should be treated as a site where research only takes place on an infrequent basis.

Speaking on behalf of Aranzadi, general secretary Juantxo Agirre sought to avoid controversy, and gave a somewhat guarded response, in which he declined to enter into a war of words regarding what the Council chose to fund. He added that Aranzadi had discovered a great deal about the cave, thanks to the support of Cultural Department of the Diputación of Gipuzkoa. He did however note that the work at the quarry made the situation more complex, and that furthemore there are many other caves that have not yet been investigated, and about which nothing is known.

There is apparently no detailed report available of the latest findings in the cave, although it is believed that important discoveries were made in the course of 2008.

This, as far as I can tell, is broadly the current state of play regarding Praileaitz, but without more detailed information of exactly what has been found most recently, it's difficult to give an entirely accurate description of the events unfolding there. (The linked articles provide a little more background.) Nevertheless, it will be hoped by many within the archaeological establishment and elsewhere, that further funding does become available, not only for further excavations to take place, but also to ensure that the cave is secured for the future. Bearing in mind the proximity of the vast quarry, both to Praileaitz I and Praileaitz II, it's clear that both caves are in a very delicate situation, and that any damage would have a detrimental effect which will not be able to be remedied.


For more images of the cave and its surroundings, please click this link at Aranzadi.

see also :: Terrae Antiquae : Gipuzkoa. Hallan En Una Cueva De Deba Vestigios Únicos En Europa De Rituales Del Paleolítico

Secrets of the Druids :: National Geographic Channel

Secrets of the Druids | National Geographic Channel

Secrets of the Druids next airs Sunday, March 29th, at 3 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Details >>





As we see from the clip, this programme looks at the times and circumstances that are believed to have been the reason why Lindow Man was apparently sacrificed in the first century A.D., in what is believed to have been an attempt to stop the Roman invasion of Iron Age Britain in its tracks.

As far as I can tell, this airs only in the US, but I imagine this will be aired this side of the Atlantic in due course.

Early Chinese May Have Eaten Millet Before Rice -- Balter 2009 (325): 1 -- ScienceNOW

Early Chinese May Have Eaten Millet Before Rice -- Balter 2009 (325): 1 -- ScienceNOW

This post follows on directly from the previous post about early maize domestication in the New World, and the focus of this report is early crop domestication in China, and once again, I'll include the majority of the linked post as I think it will only be accessible for a few weeks hence. Once again we're on the trail of early crop domestication, and in this case it's to Neolithic China that we travel...

The bones of dogs, pigs, and humans are shedding light on the rise of civilization in China. These remains contain a signature of the plants that all three species ate at the time and suggest that the ancient Chinese may have farmed millet before rice, new research shows.

The millet group of plants, like rice and wheat, are grasses that produce small, edible seeds. Archaeologists have long known that they were domesticated very early in China and India; the earliest known noodles, which are 4000 years old and were reported by a Chinese team in 2005, were made of millet. Although rice was domesticated in China's warm and humid south, millet was domesticated in the north of the country, where conditions were much colder and drier. Yet archaeologists have debated whether these developments were independent or whether rice farmers from the south migrated north and began to cultivate wild millet--which grows much better than rice does in cold and dry conditions--thus transforming it into domesticated varieties.

The research comes from a farming village in north-western China, and follows on from previous research which recovered fossilised millet, but not enough of it to suggest that it had been domesticated. As a result it was decided to analyse the bones of pigs and dogs found at the site, to determine the constituent ingredients of their diet; more from the linked article...

So the team looked instead at the remains of dogs, pigs, and humans who appear to have consumed the grain. Millet is a so-called C4 plant, which has a very efficient photosynthetic system for capturing carbon dioxide, whereas most other plants that grow in northern China are less efficient C3 plants. Because C4 plants concentrate more of carbon's heavier isotopes compared with C3 plants, a technique called stable isotope analysis--which measures the relative concentrations of isotopes in animal bones--can often detect which plants predominate in the diet.

The team found that the isotopic signature of bones located at the site changed over time. In the first phase of occupation at Dadiwan, between 7900 and 7200 years ago, pigs ate only C3 plants, whereas most of the dogs had C4 signatures, meaning that they ate millet. (Human bones from this phase were not available for analysis.) But during the second occupation phase, 6500 to 4900 years ago, all human and dog bones, and the great majority of pig bones, showed strong C4 signatures, indicating that all of their diets contained a lot of millet.

he team, which reports its results online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that millet was farmed at Dadiwan in its earliest phases but not by rice farmers from the south. Rather, the presence of pigs with C3 signatures implies that they were wild; the early dogs with C4 signatures, on the other hand, were probably domesticated and being fed millet by humans.

That means Dadiwan was likely settled by local hunters who were farming on the side. Later, when millet farming intensified, it became the mainstay of an integrated agricultural system that included millet-eating domesticated pigs and dogs. These findings, the team says, suggest that millet farming helped fuel the rise of the Yangshao culture, one of north-central China's most important early civilizations.

This model conforms more closely to the expected scenario that early agriculture and crop domestication gave rise to later, more sedentary societies, in line with what happened in the Americas, but in contrast to Anatolia where crop domestication looks to have occurred several millennia earlier, and as a direct result of cultural activities in the Epipalaeolithic.

Here's a final comment from Science Now...

Dorian Fuller, an archaeologist at University College London, calls the report "an important new study" that "provide[s] a novel methodology for thinking about the development and intensification of agriculture." Moreover, Fuller says, domestication of millet was apparently under way in northern China at a time when farmers in the south were just beginning to cultivate wild rice. The study provides definitive evidence "for millet agriculture developing earlier than full-fledged rice agriculture."

Little can any of these early farmers have dreamt that they would be ultimately responsible for the subsequent and abominable rise of radio soap operas like The Archers, and after listening to a couple of episodes on even the most infrequent basis, still causes me to question whether the onset of agriculture was worth it after all.

To finish, here's a link to a paper at PLoSONE, and as with yesterday's post, concerns the use of phytoliths to determine plant use from the distant past...

Phytoliths Analysis for the Discrimination of Foxtail Millet (Setaria italica) and Common Millet (Panicum miliaceum)

PLoS ONE. 2009; 4(2): e4448. Published online 2009 February 12. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004448.

image of millet from here

Corn: It's Not for Cocktails -- Michael Balter @ ScienceNOW

Corn: It's Not for Cocktails -- Balter 2009 (323): 2 -- ScienceNOW

Michael Balter reports for Science Now on the recent discovery of the oldest known signs of maize domestication in the Americas - as this article will only be online for 4 weeks from the publication date, I'll include some extensive quotes for posterity, beginning with this introduction by the author...

Pity the first corn eaters. The ancestor of the plant that gives us its succulent yellow kernels is an unappetizing grain known as teosinte, whose ears harbor only five to 12 rock-hard grains. Scientists have now found the earliest known traces of corn--or maize--at a site in central Mexico dated to nearly 9000 years ago. And although this ancient plant was probably tough on the teeth, the find suggests that early farmers did indeed eat it--rather than turn it into alcoholic beverages, as some researchers have suggested.

If the evidence from the attached image is anything to go by, the food item on the left looks most unappetising, and gives further proof that our ancestors didn't always get to eat prime cuts of meat on the hoof, or a nice basket of freshly gathered fruits and nuts - at least I'm assuming it was hunger rather than gastronomic considerations that prompted people to partake of this food item. The hunt for the earliest origins of maize - or corn as it's more commonly known this side of the Atlantic - has been under way for many years, as we see in this excerpt...

Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out where maize (Zea mays) was first domesticated and why. Many researchers suspected a link between teosinte and today's corn, but the evidence was not conclusive. In 2002, a team led by geneticist John Doebley of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found the smoking gun. They used genetic testing to show that maize is a very close relative of a variety of teosinte that grows today in Mexico's Balsas River area. What's more, Doebley's team found that maize had been domesticated only once, about 9000 years ago, and then spread throughout the Americas.

This date of around 9,000 years ago accords roughly with the dates for the ealriest known domestication of other agricultural resources, namely squash, peanuts and cotton, the latter of which was largely responsible for maintaining the lifestyles of the citizens of Caral, a few millennia later. Back to the article for further detail of the maize research...

That and other discoveries led Dolores Piperno, an archaeobotanist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and her co-workers to begin searching for archaeological evidence of the earliest maize in the Balsas River region. Until then, the earliest known maize cobs, found near Oaxaca, Mexico, had been dated to only 6200 years ago. Piperno and her colleagues began using new techniques to identify early domesticates using microscopic plant fossils, called phytoliths, as well as starch grains, both of which are often preserved on the stone tools used by early farmers in the humid tropics.

In 2005, a team led by Piperno and Anthony Ranere, an anthropologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hit pay dirt: Under a giant boulder in the Balsas River region, called the Xihuatoxtla Shelter, the researchers discovered a trove of prehistoric grinding stones to which phytoliths and starch grains from maize were still adhering. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found with the earliest of the stones pegged the corn as 8700 years old, bearing out the genetic dating by Doebley's group.

The study of phytoliths seems to be a comparitively new area of archaeological research, and one that has far proven to be very useful indeed, as traces of ancient stone tool use can be traced back many thousands of years, and has even been used to try and determine whether archaic humans were exploiting acacia wood 1.5 million years ago, and from the more recent Clovis site of Cactus Hill.

Back to the article for some surprising revelations concerning the use to which this early foodstuff was put, contrary to previous thinking on the matter...

The findings, which the team reports in two online papers today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also appear to discount a leading hypothesis for why early farmers would bother domesticating the unappealing teosinte plant in the first place. Several researchers, including Michael Blake, an archaeologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have suggested that the plant was valued not for its tough kernels but for its sugar-laden stalk, which might have been used to make early alcoholic drinks.

Only later, after it had come under cultivation, did teosinte undergo the genetic changes that turned it into maize and a staple food crop, according to the hypothesis. But none of the phytoliths and starch grains at Xihuatoxtla come from the stalk; even at this very early period of domestication, the team found, the people who used the shelter were grinding the kernels.

This period of domestication appears slightly later in the Americas than Anatolia, where the earliest signs of large-scale agriculture appear to coincide with the extraordinary phase of construction at Göbekli Tepe, a site which has turned all previous thinking about the emergence of monumentalism after the advent of agriculture on its head. As far as I can tell, there have been no similar contemporary discoveries in the New World, demonstrating that although societies began crop cultivation in earnest within a few millennia of each other, the circumstances, motives and resulting move to sedentary lifestyles were quite strongly contrasted.

Here's the final paragraph from the linked essay...

Blake concedes that the new findings do not support his idea and that the "primary interest" of the Xihuatoxtla people appears to have been the maize kernels rather than the stalks. Nevertheless, he argues, it is still possible that the farmers squeezed the juice out of the stalks while they were still in the fields and fermented it there rather than taking it back to the shelter.

But most importantly, Blake says, the new discovery raises hopes that researchers will eventually find larger, visible fragments of cobs, kernels, and stalks at early farming sites, which would provide critical insights into how they were processed and domesticated.

See also :: Teosinte - Maize's Wild Ancestor (PDF)

There are a couple of suggested links to related articles by Michael Balter, namely...

Early Chinese May Have Eaten Millet Before Rice

Michael Balter (25 March 2009)
ScienceNOW 2009 (325), 1.
| Full Text »

In Science Magazine

NEWS FOCUS
PLANT SCIENCE: Seeking Agriculture's Ancient Roots

Michael Balter (29 June 2007)
Science 316 (5833), 1830. [DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5833.1830]
| Summary » | Full Text » | PDF »

image:: Traces of the oldest known corn were found under this boulder in Mexico. Early farmers domesticated unappetizing teosinte (left in inset), transforming it into edible form (right).

Credit: (rock) Anthony Ranere; (teosinte/maize) John Doebley

Earthen Long Barrows of Northern Europe: Some Considerations - Blogosophia

Blogosophia: Earthen Long Barrows of Northern Europe: Some Considerations

This post is by way of an introduction to a new blog, Blogosophia, which is an offshoot of Archaeosophia, more of whom in due course, after a quick look at the most recent post by author Jasmine Bonning, who describes herself as an archaeologist and researcher. The linked post on Neolithic barrows is well worth reading, as will be apparent from the opening paragraphs...

Monumental earthen long barrows, or long mounds, lie scattered across the European landscape from Poland to Ireland and represent one of the most tangible and enduring confirmations of Neolithic peoples’ funerary practices. Their elongated forms hug the land, nestling, like the ancestors inside them, against the body of the earth. Though no two are conspicuously alike, their shapes generally conform to similar constructional characteristics, but have been noted to include oval, rectangular, trapezoidal and triangular layouts.

This brief investigation will attempt to account for their various guises and locations by identifying whether a parity or difference can be signified in their aspects between the northern and the western barrows and whether this constitutes a continuum or transference of building practices and monumental traditions, or whether they should be seen as separate entities, with distinct and specific identities, which may allow us to glimpse facets of long-departed communities and their inherent weltanschauung.

One of the most challenging tasks we have when addressing the past is gaining insights to the world views of our ancestors, and how those views came to be, how they shaped lives in the past, and to what extent they still persist to the present day, whether we are aware of that or not. This is a long and detailed essay, during which the author suggests the following...

It is therefore tentatively proposed here, a connection between the shape of the axes themselves and long mounds as forms of ritual symbolism that equate to ceremonial interaction between the worlds of the living and the dead. The ritual importance of the polished stone axe in Neolithic society has been noted (Clarke, 1965, Nilsen, 1984, Rech, 1979 cited by Midgley, 2005) and it seems therefore interesting that alongside the symbolic use of axes when we find them associated with funerary goods, in ritual deposits and as indicators of social identity, is their inherent connection between their point of origin – the earth – which can also be seen as humans’ point of departure as evidenced by the earthen coverings of barrows and mounds with the directly axe-like form of the funerary architecture itself.

It is cautiously suggested here, that there be a subtle yet observable relationship between the shape of the axes, evident as prestige-related non-functional or ceremonial axe heads and the intrinsic shape of the long mound, diffusing perhaps in tandem with the already noted development of form from the LBK longhouse.

As we have seen, axes have been found carved into some of the sarsens at Stonehenge, as well as many other megalithic sites, and this linked essay offers some intriguing insights into the role played by the axe-head in contemporary Neolithic societies - to read the entire article just head over to Blogosophia.

Jasmine Bonning also works at Archaeosophia, a research company described thus...

With a strong academic background in in the areas of anthropology, history and archaeology, Archaeosophia has extensive experience in gathering hard to find information as well as having access to information from private collections, archives, libraries and catalogues.

We will consolidate the material into attractive, original and easy-to-use content for film, television, documentary and publishing.

There is a portfolio available, as well as a list of services, whilst the main page is here.

Megalithic Visions, linked to in this post, is also well worth a visit.

image - West Kennet Long Barrow by Hrvoje Crvelin from here

Four Stone Hearth #63: Bathing In The Warm Waters Of Ancient Knowledge @ Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub

Four Stone Hearth #63: Bathing in the warm waters of ancient knowledge Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub

For this edition of 4SH, it's off for a quick dip in Millard Fillmore's Bathtub (let's hope there's plenty of room), as it's time to read through another very good compilation of what's been attracting the attention of anthro-bloggers this past fortnight.

One item that caught my eye was the article on the debate surrounding altruism versus the selfish gene theories, over at Neuroanthropology, as well as a linked post to a rather ill-considered attack on the science establishment for refusing to countenance the teaching anything that refutes evolution as the only process by which all life, past and present on this planet, can be explained.

Going down the overly worn path of claiming that because there are gaps in the knowledge in the fossil record means that the overall theory of organic evolution must be in error, is to my mind merely attempting to lead people up the garden path, at the end of which little is to be found but a compost heap of old and recycled ideas, quietly festering away, and liable to spark into spontaneous combustion from time to time due to the amount of hot air issuing forth from the minds and mouths of creationsists and so-called intelligent designers, who are there gathered all around.

On the subject of fossils, there's a very nice piece at Zinjanthropus aka A Primate of Modern Aspect, which looks at the construction of the primate inner ear, with particular regard to the semicircular canal - the bigger it is, the more agile its owner is likely to be - obviously there's a great deal more detail in the actual post, so to check that and all the other contributions, just head over to the bathtub, an immerse yourself in some excellent writing.

The next edition of Four Stone Hearth will be hosted at Quiche Moraine on Wednesday, April 8th.

Conservation Of The Côa Valley Rock Art Outcrops: A Question Of Urgency And Priorities - Antiquity Journal

Antiquity Journal

This is a brief article by António Pedro Batarda Fernandes, at the School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, and relates to his PhD dissertation, supervised by Professor Timothy Darvill, who in April 2008, was instrumental in the excavations at Stonehenge.

This linked article points out that ways and means of preserving rock art at exposed locations are as yet under-researched and by default, not fully understood, with particular reference to the Côa Valley in north-eastern Portugal; as we see...

The Côa Valley in north-eastern Portugal is one of the most significant prehistoric open-air rock art sites in the world, as its inscription in the World Heritage List demonstrates. The majority of engraved motifs (see Figures 1, 4, 5 & 6) has reliably been dated to the Upper Palaeolithic (Aubry & Sampaio 2008), although imagery from the Neolithic, Iron Age, historical and contemporary periods have also been identified (for an introduction to the Côa rock art see Baptista 1999 or Baptista & Fernandes 2007). Most of the outcrops which contain rock art motifs are located in an area of schist bedrock, scattered along both banks of the final 17km of the river Côa and positioned at the foot of sharply inclined hills (Figures 2, 3 & 4).

The conservation of rock art in caves is a field of expertise that has benefited from extensive research. Similarly, methods to monitor the evolution of weathering patterns in caves with rock art are also well developed. Unfortunately, the same does not apply to monitoring decay on outcrops with open-air rock art; nor is their conservation, especially when located in schist bedrock, well developed.

Therefore, references pertaining to this situation do not abound within rock art studies. The Côa Valley will thus become a 'live' laboratory where pioneering but reliable direct conservation interventions on vertical schist outcrops can be developed and tested together with methods to monitor systematically the evolution of weathering processes. So far we have been developing a conservation programme for the Côa Valley rock art that set the bases for such monitoring and conservation work.

Among the actions already implemented, we should highlight pilot conservation interventions in un-engraved outcrops with weathering and erosion dynamics at work similar to those affecting the engraved ones. These experiments were designed to test the applicability and aging of conservation materials and techniques that might be used in the future to confer stability to fragile rock art outcrops and panels, such as the ones depicted in Figures 4, 5 & 6 (for more detailed information see Fernandes 2007 & 2008).

I imagine this research will be made additionally difficult by the nature of our increasingly unpredictable climate, not to mention difficulties in persuading governments and agencies to fund ongoing research and conservation, especially as there is little that can be done to make such projects financially profitable. However, as the author points out, the cultural value of this irreplaceable gift we have inherited from the depths of the Stone Age cannot be over-estimated...

If this invaluable heritage is to be entrusted in the best possible condition to future generations (Figure 6), it is essential to implement well-planned conservation work that makes the most of the limited available resources. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect that the outcome of this project may also be of use to conservators and managers elsewhere, thus broadening existing knowledge of open-air rock art conservation.

This area of Portugal is indeed unique, some of whose apsects were touched upon in the excellent BBC Radio series last year, called 'The Drawings On The Wall', with the rest of the series covered in these pages.

N. B. I'm trying to get hold of a paper called 'No Sex Please, We're Auriganicans', by Paul Bahn, and if anyone out there has a copy they'd kindly forward to me via my email link on the profile page, I'd be most grateful.

image :: Canada do Inferno rock 1. The engraved motifs (all from the Upper Palaeolithic) are located on the higher part of the panel, from Antiquity Vol 83 Issue 319 March 2009.

Stimulus Respond - 'Skin' Issue - Out Now

Stimulus Respond :: Literature - Fashion - Art - Photography

Although for the time being, Stimulus Respond is of economic necessity published once again as a digital edition, rather than print, readers will no doubt be heartened to hear that Skin has now been published, and that editor Jack Boulton is hailing it as one of the best so far. Thus without further ado, here are the details of the contents and where you'll be able to view them...

After many months delay, the Skin issue of Stimulus Respond is finally here!

View the number through issuu here, or download a PDF here.

www.issuu.com/stimulusrespond/docs/skin

www.stimulusrespond.com/skin.pdf

If you view through issuu, please don't forget to leave a comment!

The Spanish edition, featuring new material not seen in the English version, will be available soon.

Contents of the English edition include:

Literature
John Hutnyk - Spectacular Transports
Betti Marenko - Skin Flaying and the Transgression of Boundaries
Franziska Schroeder - Caressing the Skin: Mobile Devices and Bodily Engagement

Fashion
Yusuke Miyazaki - W=70-AUV/10
Kristel Kristopher - If You Can't Beat Them, Beat Them
Louise Hilton - The New Orleans Voodoo Queen
Justino Esteves - Hunter
Robert Glowacki - My Second Skin
April Coley - The Last Resort

Photography
Marie Kristensen

Art
Esther Teichmannn
Skin of the Painter - Re-Paintings. An Exhibition on Coats

Music
Fly Kkillers
Andrea Rushton

Poetry
Geraldine Monk, Francis Kruk, Carol Watts
Plus others

Thanks very much for reading, and please do get in touch with any comments: jack@stimulusrespond.com.

Warm regards,

Jack

Moreover, details of available past print issues, extras and news can also be found at the Stimulus Respond website.

World Builder on Vimeo

World Builder on Vimeo


World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Hat tip to Schmoo for the heads-up.

Current Anthropology - Volume 50, Nr. 2 - April 2009 Edition - Out Now

Chicago Journals - Current Anthropology

As this is something of landmark edition for CA, I've included the opening passages of Mark Alfenderfer's introductory notes...

It is with great pleasure that I offer to you my first words as editor of Current Anthropology. Although I have been hard at work with the journal since January 2008, I’ve spent my first year learning the editorial system, shepherding to publication the last of the manuscripts that arrived during Ben Orlove’s term, and perhaps most important, calibrating my experience as an anthropologist against the remarkable breadth and depth of the manuscripts that have been submitted to us. It has been an exciting and humbling experience: exciting to be a part of one of the world’s leading journals of anthropology, but humbling to be reminded almost daily of what I don’t know about the field and its varied practitioners.

As I researched the history of the journal in preparation for assuming my duties, I took comfort and inspiration from the words of Ethel John Lindgren, who wrote a letter to the editor, published in the March 1960 issue of Current Anthropology, saying, “The general plan seems excellent, though depending on an Editor sans peur et sans reproche.” I fully intend to live up to Ethel’s requirements!

My vision for Current Anthropology is simple and is based in large part upon Sol Tax’s original ideas for the journal and the ways in which my five predecessors—Tax, Cyril Belshaw, Adam Kuper, Richard Fox, and Ben Orlove—have implemented them. Foremost is to maintain the strength and centrality of the journal. As one of the few four‐field journals left standing in this era of increasing specialization, Current Anthropology strives to be open to diverse forms of anthropological inquiry and seeks to blur the boundaries between subdisciplines whenever feasible.

It has become more apparent than ever that truly interdisciplinary research is likely to lead to the most significant insights into understanding both the similarities and differences of humankind. However, no approach to the study of our common humanity is a priori off‐limits, and any manuscript that is clearly written and has a solid theoretical stance and a compelling argument is welcome.

(Regarding that last sentence, I can think of at least one researcher, Algis Kuliukas who will be hoping his work will be re-considered in that context, especially as I think I recall him citing CA as one journal that has in the past, apparently declined to publish his research, but as that's the partial subject of another post, I'll address that issue more fully therein.)

Returning to Mark Alfenderfer's stated mission objectives, we also learn that he intends giving greater voice to research that comes from beyond the English-speaking world, and several editors from discrete regions spanning South America, Europe and Asia have been appointed with the intention of offering the readership greater access to the literature emanating from those places. Africa and the Middle East have yet to be added to this initiative, and it would be good also to see an inclusion from Scandinavia, places like Latvia and Lithuania, out-lying regions such as Siberia, and indeed many of those nations around areas like the Black Sea, from whom we seem to hear precious little.

The editor notes that in addition to this being Darwin's bicentenary, Current Anthropology is celebrating it's own 50th anniversary, and moreover, there will be an experimental issue, described thus...

Later in the year, we will publish a special issue, organized by Mark Cohen, on the origins of agriculture, a topic where evolutionary thinking assumes a salient role. This issue will be something of an experiment; instead of five or so longish articles, it will instead feature ten or so shorter papers on varied themes related to the origins of agriculture, which will then be discussed and critiqued by ten or so commentators. The issue promises to stimulate new thinking and critical debate.

It will be especially interesting to see how Göbekli Tepe will feature in this, especially in relation to really early sites like Ohalo II, which shows signs that people were cultivating crops over 20 thousand years ago - and of course, we can probably expect to see extensive coverage of the Natufian as well.

Moving on to the rest of this latest edition, one paper in particular caught my eye, namely 'Fifty Years of Looking at Human Evolution' by Clifford Jolly, and from which the following is excerpted...

In hindsight, however, we can already discern the seeds of what was to become an informative paradox in the study of human evolution. Conventional wisdom saw human origins and human evolution as a unitary story—a one‐phase progression driven by adaptation to culture—but the fossil evidence had already begun to indicate that this story was too simple. After paring down early hominin taxonomy and applying new synthesis standards, J. T. Robinson (1954) had identified not one but two hominin adaptive types: the megadont, “gorilloid,” and supposedly vegetarian Paranthropus and a (dentally) more gracile, supposedly more omnivorous/carnivorous, and more humanlike lineage rooted in Australopithecus. Moreover, he and Broom (Broom and Robinson 1949) had shown that the South African site of Swartkrans had yielded both Paranthropus and a more humanlike hominin morph, which they called Telanthropus. If this interpretation was correct, there was obviously more than one way to be a hominin, and these two lifeways differed enough to permit their practitioners to coexist in a single ecosystem.

A passing comment suggests that Mayr (1953) evidently spotted the disturbing implication, but Robinson’s finding did not immediately lead to a widespread reevaluation of the one‐phase model. One reason, presumably, was that, in the mid‐'50s, the academic mainstream (i.e., outside Africa) was still digesting the notion that the australopithecines, as a group, were prehumans rather than aberrant apes. Only recently had the heated debate swung decisively in favor of hominin status, with the publication of W. E. LeGros Clark’s (1946) “Significance of the Australopithecinae” and his The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution (1955; our text for the course at University College, London). In this context, evidence of adaptively related diversity among the earliest hominins was an unwelcome distraction from the central story and was treated as unimportant or even mistaken by LeGros Clark and others.

Similarly, the implications of australopithecine features that were derived but did not foreshadow conditions in later humans were also overlooked or ignored at this time. This was partly, I presume, because they were another unwelcome complication but also because the single‐phase, artifact‐determinant scenario simply had no place for them. A good example is in the dentition. Much was made, by LeGros Clark especially, of the humanlike, low incisor/molar ratio seen in australopithecines and its supposed relationship to dependence on cutting tools. The inconvenient fact that the low ratio was due to supersized cheek teeth at least as much as to “reduced” incisors was not mentioned or even, it seems, noticed until much later (e.g., Wolpoff 1971).

As the author acknowledges, his paper applies a broad brush when describing some of the more salient issues and debates that have arisen over the last 50 years, but it nevertheless covers a lot of ground. Bipedalism, the architecture of the hand with relation to eating smaller food items like seeds, and the role that hybridisation is thought to play in evolution are but three of the many and varied topics discussed in this very readable paper, which the author finishes by suggesting where future research might be focussed.

For a full table of contents, which includes several other papers and articles of note, just click through to the Current Anthropology page - a subscription is required to gain full access, details of which can be found here.

The Missing Years of Jesus - The Greatest Story Never Told - by Dennis Price - First Review by Frank Somers

BooksS1

News not only of the first known review of Dennis Price's recent book, but also a few words from the author himself, as he talks us through some of the central themes of a work that claims to have good proof that Jesus as referred to in the New Testament, visited England during the so-called missing 18 years of his life - there is no reference in the canonical texts to Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30, a mystery which has puzzled scholars and researchers for many a long year.

I've embedded this clip of Dennis from Frank Somers' website, who as we will see in a few minutes, has posted a very positive review - but first to the video clip...

Although Frank Somers was hitherto unknown to me, he is all by all accounts well thought of by members of the archaeological community, as well as English Heritage, as we see from this description by Dennis Price at Eternal Idol...

With this in mind, I was surprised and intrigued to learn from my publishers that Frank Somers (pictured above, in white, and at the bottom of this piece) had earnestly requested a copy for review. Frank is the leading light and spokesman of the Stonehenge Druids and he’s chosen to contribute to the pages of Eternal Idol in recent times, putting forward his views on various matters in an eloquent, passionate and informed fashion. While I have a great deal to say about the ancient Druids and their links with Stonehenge, it would be accurate to say that I don’t proceed in reverential awe of some of the modern Druids, nor am I exactly wide-eyed with admiration for some of those who claim to represent the various orders and organisations.

Frank Somers, however, is an exception, and I’m clearly not alone in holding this point of view. I understand that English Heritage keep Frank’s details available as a point of contact for those various media organisations wishing to learn more about Stonehenge and the beliefs of the latter-day Druids, while he was also chosen to lead the ceremony at Stonehenge last year that was conducted by Professors Wainwright and Darvill, pictured below, [along with what many people have pointed out to be a face looking on from the side of one of the uprights].

I haven't as yet read the book, but as Frank Somers offers this enthusiastic endorsement...

Quite simply, this is one of the most exciting books I have read in decades; rarely is a book published that has the potential to be world changing for many people, but I honestly believe that this is one such book.

As a Stonehenge Druid, I’ve always been interested in stories of ancient Britain and I had vaguely heard of the legends of Jesus visiting Britain ‘in ancient times’, as described in William Blake’s poem ‘Jerusalem.’ I had never heard of any serious investigation into these legends, though, and I suppose I had dismissed them as unlikely.

However, this book is very well researched and the incredible case is presented so meticulously that the burden of proof has shifted dramatically - now those who would contest the idea that Jesus spent up to eighteen years in Britain must prove otherwise.

Even as a non Christian and a Druid, I acknowledge that Jesus was one of the greatest spiritual leaders ever to have lived – he’s the central figure in Christianity and the second most revered prophet in Islam, the world’s two major religions.

I feel enormously proud to think that this amazing man probably met with our direct ancestors when they were in their prime as a free and courageous people (who had twice defeated the legions of the hated Caesar), and that the young Jesus was readily given hospitality, friendship and sanctuary from the threat he faced from the Romans occupying his homeland when he was a stranger and a guest in our green and pleasant land.

...doubtless this book will receive a great deal more publicity in days to come, be it in print, online or the mainstream media, and will hopefully be read by as many interested readers as well.

Someone I'd definitely consider to be well qualified and motivated to discuss this book would be radio host Ian Punnett who hosts the Saturday evening broadcast of Coast to Coast am - not only does he always seem able to get hold of interesting topics and interviewees, he also manages to raise plenty of relevant points, asking good, searching questions whilst keeping an objective impartiality throughout. Moreover, I believe he is also a Chaplain, and thus I'd imagine this topic would be of particular interest not only to himself, but several million Coast listeners besides.

NASA - Kepler Mission

NASA - Kepler


If by chance you're planning on testing out a teleportation device at around 10.49 pm Eastern Standard Time, Friday March 6th, take care not to plot your co-ordinates anywhere near Pad 17-B, Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, otherwise you might well find your evening's experimentation coming to an untimely end beneath the Kepler Mission spacecraft, as it is thrust skywards by the power of its Delta II rocket. Here are some details of what would be singeing your eyebrows...

• Stage I: RP-1 and liquid oxygen tanks that feed the Rocketdyne RS-27 main engine for the ascent.
• Solid rocket booster motors: Used to increase thrust during the initial two minutes of flight. The medium-capacity Delta II has nine motors total (six fire on the ground, three in flight); the other models use only three or four.
• Stage II: Fuel and oxidizer tanks feeding a restartable, hypergolic Aerojetlow Earth orbit. This propellant mixture is highly corrosive and once loaded the launch must occur within approximately 37 days or the stage will have to be refurbished or replaced.^[4] This stage also contains the vehicle's "brains", a combined inertial platform and guidance system that controls all flight events. AJ10-118K engine that fires one or more times to insert the vehicle-spacecraft stack into
• Stage III: Optional ATK-Thiokol solid rocket motor (some Delta II vehicles are two-stage only, and generally used for Earth-orbit missions) provides the majority of the velocity change needed to leave Earth orbit and inject the spacecraft on a trajectory to Mars or other target beyond Earth orbit. It is connected to the spacecraft until it is done firing, and then separates. This stage is spin-stabilized and has no active guidance control; it depends on the second stage for proper orientation prior to Stage II/III separation. It also includes a yo-yo de-spin mechanism to slow the spin before spacecraft release, as many spacecraft cannot handle the high spin rates needed for stability of this stage.
• Payload fairing: Thin metal or composite payload fairing (aka "nose cone") to protect the spacecraft during the ascent through Earth's atmosphere.

i.e. the rocket is big, emits a great deal of heat, and generally makes a lot of noise - another reason for staying well away from the launch site is that this is a night launch, and to get a panoramic view of the illuminated sky, it's probably best to be a good mile or more away.

It is hoped that once clear of Earth's atmosphere, the craft will, as we see from this report at Physics World...

... enter in a “trailing orbit” that will fall behind Earth by roughly 18 million km each year. From here, it will stare at the same part of the sky in hopes of catching any star that "blinks" as a planet passes in front.

In fact, Kepler will keep up this multi-million mile stare for at least 3 years and 6 months, with the sole aim of detecting other Earth-sized planets whose orbits lie within the habitable zones of distant stars, i.e. where temperatures on those planets allow for the existence of liquid water, thought by many to be a prerequisite for life.

Although I'm not sure whether Kepler's imaging equipment will also be able to detect moons around those planets - if our own solar system is anything to go by, moons (such as Jovian Europa), would also seem to be a good target to investigate - Kepler's onboard telescope is nevertheless well equipped for the job in hand. As we see...

The Kepler telescope is specially designed to detect the periodic dimming of stars that planets cause as they pass by. Some star systems are oriented in such a way that their planets cross in front of their stars, as seen from our Earthly point of view. As the planets pass by, they cause their stars' light to slightly dim, or wink.

The telescope can detect even the faintest of these winks, registering changes in brightness of only 20 parts per million. To achieve this resolution, Kepler will use the largest camera ever launched into space, a 95-megapixel array of charged couple devices, known as CCDs.

"If Kepler were to look down at a small town on Earth at night from space, it would be able to detect the dimming of a porch light as somebody passed in front," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

By staring at one large patch of sky for the duration of its lifetime, Kepler will be able to watch planets periodically transit their stars over multiple cycles. This will allow astronomers to confirm the presence of planets. Earth-size planets in habitable zones would theoretically take about a year to complete one orbit, so Kepler will monitor those stars for at least three years to confirm the planets' presence. Ground-based telescopes and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will perform follow-up studies on the larger planets.

The mission is named for Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), credited with discovering the laws of planetary motion, it's primary stages will be covered on NASA TV, and the BBC has a piece called 'Is There Anybody Out There?', which is described thus...

What is the chance that alien life exists? Nasa's latest mission - the Kepler Space Telescope due to launch on Friday night to survey the heavens for Earth-like planets - could take us a step closer to an answer. Kathryn Westcott asks four experts whether mankind prefers the idea of being alone and unique or whether we long for cosmic cousins.

Whilst over at Centauri Dreams, the post entitled 'Kepler, SETI and Ancient Probes' is worth a read, while this link should enable you link to other articles covering the same and related topics.

Launch is due in about 1 hour and 11 minutes as I write this, so there's just time to wish NASA and everyone involved the very best of luck with what should be a revelatory project that many will hope will be of benefit to ourselves of the present, as well as our descendants, far into their future.

Update: NASA's Kepler Mission Rockets to Space in Search of Other Earths

Kepler Mission: Frequently Asked Questions

image :: Johannes Kepler

The Open Laboratory 2008 is here!

A Blog Around The Clock : The Open Laboratory 2008 is here!

Once a year, an anthology of the best of the science blogosphere is compiled, converted to PDF, or alternatively, wrapped in a cover with 'Open Laboratory', printed on the front, and published shortly thereafter.

Although I couldn't see specific details of authors included in the 50 essays, one poem and a cartoon, there are nevertheless other details explaining how to get your hands on a copy, either via download at Lulu.com or in traditional book format for those with space to spare on their shelves.

Readers are encouraged to obtain their copy from Lulu.com as the proceeds can more effectively be invested in a similar project, which at a print price of £8.99, or the even lower digital download price of £4.35, should be affordable to the majority of readers; as we see from the linked site...

If you have missed them the first time around, you can still buy the 2006 anthology and the 2007 anthology. Both of those, as well as the new one, are available in paperback or as a PDF download at Lulu.com. In a few weeks, the book will also be available at other online retailers, e.g., Amazon.com, but we prefer that you buy from Lulu.com as the proceeds will go towards organizing ScienceOnline'10 next January.

As always, we will appreciate if you spread the word about the book - the link to the page where you can buy it is, again, here.

For further details of those responsible for putting it all together, just click through to A Blog Around The Clock.

The Missing Years of Jesus - the Greatest Story Never Told - by Dennis Price - Out Now

Hay House Publishers

As of March 2nd, Dennis Price's book is now available for purchase, either through this link to Hay House, the publishers, or through Amazon.co.uk, although currently the latter seem to be out of stock, so be sure to check back.

Here's the synopsis as it appears at Amazon...

'And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England s mountain's green
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen?'

Do William Blake's lyrics for the popular hymn Jerusalem reveal an extraordinary insight into the so-called missing years of Jesus - the 18 years that are unaccounted for in the Bible from when Jesus was a boy of 12 to his sudden reappearance at the age of 30?

Archaeologist and classical scholar Dennis Price has investigated the clues in Blake's evocative poem and has paid meticulous attention to the accounts in the ancient Aramaic and Greek versions of the Bible, and he's also conducted an exhaustive and unprecedented study into the myths and legends of Christ in Britain. With the assistance of specialists in their own fields and by viewing this enthralling subject as a modern missing person's investigation, Dennis Price has pieced together the various pieces of the jigsaw and now presents compelling and highly original evidence that Christ did indeed visit Britain in the company of Joseph of Arimathea in ancient times .

The weight of new material suggests that Christ remained in Britain for several years before eventually returning to his homeland in the east, and this truly extraordinary book now provides a wealth of new information for all those who are intensely curious about this otherwise undocumented period in the life of the most famous person the world's ever known. The implications are astonishing and they are presented here, in the greatest story never told.

And in case your next question is "Dennis Price - who he?", here's a brief word on his own life and times...

An archaeologist, writer and performer, Dennis Price is an expert on Stonehenge, with a particular interest in the ancient myths, legends and historical accounts of these enigmatic ruins.

He was the last archaeologist to set foot inside Silbury Hill, Britain's only pyramid, before work began to seal it off forever, while he's collaborated with specialists and experts in their field the world over in an attempt to uncover the real history of these monuments that continue to captivate people the world over, thousands of years after they were first built. He currently lives in Devon, in the south of England, with his wife, two children and black dog.

I imagine the book will also be available in UK book-stores, though I'm not sure when the book is due for release in the US - in the meantime, here's some more info from the author's website, Eternal Idol.

Carnival of Evolution #9 @ moneduloides

Carnival of Evolution #9 @ moneduloides

Here's a link to a blog carnival that for some reason has only just come to my attention, and for which in a fairer, kinder world, I'd attempt making a more extensive review; but time and tide run ever faster, roughly in sync with the growing number of other posts I should by now have finished writing, so in this instance, brevity is the key.

Very briefly, CoE should in the long-term prove a very valuable and welcome addition to the world of blogospheric carnivalia, both to readers who research various topics in the field, as well as the lay reader who might be interested in looking at how evolution is not only a more complicated mechanism than often supposed, but doesn't run in a single upward direction in pursuit of a pre-ordained perfection. Or put slightly more coherently, here's the description from the Carnival of Evolution main page...

Do you care about the science behind evolution? Do you marvel at the tiny molecular machines spewing out coded messages to the microscopic inhabitants of your own bodied world? Do you grow irate at the ignorance pushers and the disintegration of evolution education in the modern world? Do you like to stay abreast of current topics and scientific findings in the study of the organismal existences surrounding us or those long gone?

If so, this is the blog carnival for you. (Don't know what a "blog carnival" is? Read this.)

To read some truly intriguing posts, compiled for us at Moneduloides, just click the link, and for details of previous and presumably future editions, how to submit material etc., the dedicated web-page should do just fine.