Aardvarchaeology
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, board gamer, bookworm, and father of two.
aardvarchaeology | January 23, 2008
Descending toward Ft Lauderdale airport this morning, I was shocked by the expanse of suburban sprawl stretching to the horizon below me. A huge drained swamp, all flat, covered by an intricate pattern of canals and streets and plots with low single buildings, broken only by a few golf courses and one or two cluster of skyscrapers. And nothing in sight older than a few decades. I suddenly realised that the reason the cities in Sim City look so artificial is that they model actual American urban areas. Nothing in this area has arisen organically. Everything has been planned, block by block,…
aardvarchaeology | January 21, 2008Back in April, I installed Ubuntu Linux on my oldish Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, bought in early 2005. Ubuntu's rapid boot process and snappy action has made it my favourite operating system (while I continue to run Win XP and Mac OS on other machines). The sense of non-commercialism is also nice. But of course I have some problems. They may be things that are fully possible to do in Ubuntu, though too complicated for me to accomplish at my current level of ignorance; or semi-possible to do in Ubuntu through an ugly kludge that's not worth it; or they may simply be impossible to do in Ubuntu.…
aardvarchaeology | January 21, 2008
I just popped out for a burger at Arbee's, and I chose a seat with a good view of the full moon riding high over a Shell gas station. On the wall of the station was a large luminescent white sign bearing the words "Build Your Life on Eternal Truths". Chapel Hill has a huge number of churches, most being very small and privately run by their pastors, so I guess what the Shell proprietor really means is "Make sure to follow a culturally sanctioned subset of the many commandments in the Bible". Or perhaps "Spend a lot of your time participating in church rituals and talking about Christian…
aardvarchaeology | January 21, 2008
Above is a candid pic by Nathan L. Walls, showing yours truly at Saturday's hum & soc sci session. The teeshirt is from the Swedish Skeptics and reads "I am skeptical" in an obscure North-European language.
Yesterday's highlights were
An informal brunch with congressman Brad Miller, who came across as low-key, thoughtful and friendly, with a serious interest in science policy and gender equality issues. Few US politicians ever come across as half as trustworthy in the media. I wonder if I've ever actually talked to a Swedish congressman?
A sunlit 7 km walk into Chapel Hill along a six-…
aardvarchaeology | January 20, 2008
A good thing about jet lag is that it gets you up in the morning. I awoke at five, played around with the computer, showered, breakfasted and was outside at half past seven.
It's a brisk, cold sunny morning with snowy lawns and smoking breath. I took a short walk over to the nearest geocache (by Research Triangle Park's little memorial plaza) and took a few pix on my way back.
[More blog entries about photography, northcarolina, snow; fotografi, northcarolina, snö.]
aardvarchaeology | January 19, 2008
Whew, what a day! I've been to the Second NC Science Blogging Conference, and I've had a blast.
The best part was actually to meet loads and loads of blogging friends whom I'd only seen in pictures. Amazing to actually meet them, hug or shake hands, talk and laugh. I even listened in as Bora chatted in Serbian with a compatriot. These are the eighteen nineteen SciBlings I managed to bag (I'll put all those links in later, too tired & jet lagged now):
Tara of Aetiology
Evil Monkey of Neurotopia
Shelley of Retrospectacle
James of Island of Doubt
Sheril & Chris of The Intersection
Bora…
aardvarchaeology | January 18, 2008I'm back in the US for the first time since 2002. Before that, the last time was in 1978, when I had lived in Greenwich, Connecticut and gone to Kindergarten for two years. Everybody's way fatter than I remember them. But very cheerful and friendly.
My first time in North Carolina: I'm at the Radisson Hotel (in Swedish I always call these things Hotell Rädisan, "Radish Hotel") in Research Triangle Park after having travelled for about 20 hours. Lost my itinerary printout, ran around Newark airport like a headless chicken, was then put on a standby list despite checking in an hour an a half…
aardvarchaeology | January 17, 2008Anybody in the Ft Lauderdale area want to meet up some time 23-24 January? I'd like to befriend some natives!
I'm touching down at FLL at noon on Wednesday the 23rd and will be staying in Plantation. I'll be a tourist during Wednesday and Thursday, and then I'll attend the TAM 5.5 skeptical conference on Friday and Saturday.
aardvarchaeology | January 17, 2008Anybody in the Chapel Hill / Durham area want to meet up some time 20-22 January? I'd like to befriend some natives!
I'm attending the NC Science Blogging conference in Research Triangle Park on Saturday 19 January. After that, I'm staying on in Chapel Hill until Wednesday morning 23 Jan. I'm going to be a tourist during Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday, and then I'm giving a talk about my research at UNC on Tuesday afternoon.
aardvarchaeology | January 17, 2008
Around the time when a senior academic retires, she will, if she's lucky, receive a Festschrift. The word is German and means "celebration publication": typically, it's an anthology put together by her colleagues and students. The contents of a Festschrift often vary wildly in quality and level of ambition: solid research papers occur alongside humorous reminiscences of travels and travails endured while the august old professor was still a lanky undergrad.
Now, here's something unusual from Norway: archaeologist Jenny-Rita Næss's Festschrift is being published as a web site. So far, seven…
aardvarchaeology | January 16, 2008The thirty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Testimony of the Spade. Archaeology and anthropology and anthropology and archaeology!
Also, don't miss the 78th Skeptics' Circle over at Skeptical Surfer.
aardvarchaeology | January 16, 2008Here's breaking news.
Many European archaeologists feel bad about Nazi archaeology in the past. In my opinion, this is usually way overstated: a few of our pre-War colleagues were Nazis, which was opportune at the time, but archaeology had (and has) nothing like the kind of political oomph necessary to take any significant part in actually giving the Nazis power. Archaeologists are political opportunists by necessity because we're so poorly funded, which is one reason that everybody in the field today is a humanistic liberal like myself. We are now in general neither more nor less good-…
aardvarchaeology | January 15, 2008
Conservation of the early-16th century sword I found back in August continues apace at Studio Västsvensk Konservering. Its preservation is exquisite, and as usual with conservation of metal objects, a lot of new discoveries are made in the lab. Check out Vivian Smits' photographs!
This is clearly a battle-worn weapon that has been lost during combat. The edges have several fresh parry nicks that would have made the sword hard to sheathe, damage that would have been seen to after the fighting's end. But the sword was most likely dropped into the sea.
Update 16 January: Vivian Smits adds, in…
aardvarchaeology | January 14, 2008Western European archaeology is largely a humanistic tradition where many scholars have little knowledge of the natural sciences. For instance, I myself haven't studied natural sciences in any organised way since high school. Still, in my field, I'm known as an unusually science-orientated guy. (Just look at me now, merrily blogging away at Sb.) I believe that human societies are to a fairly large extent shaped by human nature, which has long been controversial in anthro circles. I also favour stringent methods of data collection and analysis: archaeology should study and interpret its object…
aardvarchaeology | January 12, 2008
My friend Mickey Huss (the virtual lamprey guy) has alerted me to the existence of near-future noir flick Gene Generation. It's said to be the first Hollywood movie directed by a Singaporean. I haven't seen it, but I gotta say, that's the first non-porn movie poster I've come across that's shot from the perspective of a gynaecologist. Vadge power!
aardvarchaeology | January 10, 2008
I had a meeting with my geophysicist buddy Immo Trinks of the National heritage Board the other day, and he showed me an amazing Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey from Borre in Vestfold, Norway.
Borre is Norway's equivalent of Old Uppsala, with a large cemetery with huge barrows. One was obliterated by road workers in 1852, yielding a fairly well-preserved Viking Period ship burial of the Oseberg / Gokstad / Tune type, which sadly does not survive. Some copper-alloy metalwork from the grave gave the Borre Style its name, defined by knotwork with nicked ridges and Mickey Mouse heads.
The…
aardvarchaeology | January 9, 2008
Hey everyone, and welcome to the 96th Tangled Bank blog carnival! This is where you can toadally catch up with the best recent blog writing on the life sciences.
Beasties
Grrlscientist at Living the Scientific Life explains why bright blue tits make better mothers.
Tangled Up In Blue Guy gives us a run-down of the phylogeny of bioluminescent animals.
Podblack Cat describes her contribution thus
A brief look at taxonomy quirks(and you thought being famous had perks...) -Crypto-zoo claims,Real wacky namesAnd Seuss shows some science in his works!
Jeremy at Stand Up For REAL Science discusses…
aardvarchaeology | January 8, 2008
Felicia, Tor, Jesper, Johan, Thinker, Paddy, Kai, Lars, Martin R, Martin C. Photographs by friendly man at nearby table, shoppery by Lars.
Our latest Stockholm after-work blogmeet was way back in September. It was high time for another one! Good food, good company, silly jokes. And Paddy K hatched a plan: we're setting up a one-off Geek Fashion Blog Carnival!
aardvarchaeology | January 7, 2008
Turquoise mosaic dragon and bronze bell in rich male burial at Erlitou, phase II, c. 18th century BC.
A really good historical source is coeval with the events it describes, or it may even form a part of those events, such as in the case of a land deed. It is written by a knowledgeable participant in the events, one who is not strongly politically biased or whose bias is at least known. And any statement in a good historical source is ideally corroborated by other independent good historical sources.
Now, in no part of the world is there any historical source older than the first proto-…
aardvarchaeology | January 6, 2008Canadian newspaper The National Post seems to be subscribing to a blog-buzz service that everybody on Sb got onto a while ago. Therefore, I just got an intriguingly worded letter from Canadian creationist David Johnston (appended below the fold for the edification of the interested Dear Reader).
In response to David's letter, I'll just say that I have decent basic knowledge of biology and Christian scripture, and that my reading has convinced me that the latter has nothing to contribute to the former.
Hello Dr. Martin.
Where does a skeptic (or anyone) find an origins scientist? No such thing…