Four Stone Hearth 7

Dear Reader, welcome to the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival -- in science land! 4SH is about anthropology in the widest (American) sense: nothing human is alien to us, from Homo habilis bones via Early Medieval metalworking debris to on-line gaming subcultures.

Aardvarchaeology is my new blog, started only a few weeks ago. Before, I blogged at Salto sobrius, where you may have read entries about archaeology during 2006.

Anthro scholars are rare here at Scienceblogs, most of the others being specialised in natural sciences like biology. But I feel at home here. For one thing, my opinion is that all Wissenschaft is the same at heart, regardless of whether you study quasars, zebra fish or Bronze Age burial sites. It's all about studying source material systematically in order to find out what the world is or has been like. Also, archaeology's source material is entirely physical and we can't understand it well without help from natural scientists.

OK, here we go.

• Besty at the Primatology.org group blog reports on a psychological experiment performed in a zoo in Adelaide, Australia: humans are being kept in an unused orangutan enclosure. I wonder if they get to fling their faeces at visitors.
  
• Tim at Remote Central discusses (with copious comparative material) a recent Minnesota find of knapped stone tools sealed by late glacial sediment. Is this the earliest known archaeology in the Americas?
• Kris at About:Archaeology reports on new research into the Lapita Culture of Remote Oceania. Has the protoype of the faces adorning Lapita pottery been identified at sites in Papua New Guinea?
  
• Carl at Hot Cup of Joe takes a look at what "significance junkies" call O.O.P.s: out-of-place artefacts. They believe that finds have been made that shouldn't have been there. You know, like the laser guns we always find at archaeological digs and then have to get rid of discreetely to avoid spilling the beans on the Great Conspiracy.
• Erika at Tur i oturen presents her recent findings about Swedish naming traditions. Skål tammefan!
  
• Kambiz, King of Persia, founding father of the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival, member of the Anthropology.net group blog, hairdresser to the stars, etc., offers his take on recent research into the rate of evolution in brain-expressed genes among various primates. Then he invades Greece.
• Henrik at Recent Finds has an illustrated two-part piece on Scandinavian garden allotments and the tiny houses built on them. He's a Danish Thoreau, conducting a Walden Pond experiment! (Only I happen to know that he's cheating a bit, being accompanied by a lovely osteoarchaeologist.) 1 - 2.
• Razib P-ter at Gene Expression lays out the current consensus on the genetic basis for human races.
• Troels at Iconoclasm reports from a recent talk on Late Antique sculpture at the Getty villa in Malibu.
• Yann Klimentidis reports on new research into long-distance running as a hunting strategy. Have humans evolved to outrun antelopes and zebras on long distances?
  
• Chris at Northstate Science and myself have been comparing the rules for preservation and ownership of archaeological sites and finds in Sweden and the U.S. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5. Afarensis weighed in as well.
  

That's all, folks. The next Four Stone Hearth will be kindled at Northstate Science on 31 January. Until then, don't take that decorative bone out of your nose, and remember: we decorate the pottery to negotiate our social constructs, not the other way around.

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[More blog entries about archaeology, anthropology, carnival; arkeologi, antropologi, bloggkarneval.]