archaeology

Wednesday 1 August the will see the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival appear in all its archaeo/anthro glory at Afarensis. If you have read or blogged anything good on those themes lately, then make sure to submit it to the proprietor ASAP. (You are encouraged to submit stuff you've found on other people's blogs.) There's an open hosting slot on 29 August and further ones later in the fall. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me.

A weakness of mine is that the memories of a few embarrassing events in my past sometimes come back to haunt me and make me cringe with self-loathing. Very likely, I am the only person in the world who ever thinks of (or even remembers) these events, but I just can't help feeling bad about them. Two of the worst have to do with archaeology and English, and so I thought I might as well dump them on you, Dear Reader. 1. Summer of 1993. I am 21, working my second season as a field archaeologist, and I've just learned about context-stratigraphic excavation and documentation methods à la Edward…

In today's paper issue of main Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter is a news item headlined "Hobby Researcher Gives New Signs to Stones" (currently not available on-line, but here's another relevant piece). It relays a few statements from museologist Ewa Bergdahl of the Swedish National Heritage Board regarding the Ales stenar visitor's sign debacle. Bergdahl is head of the Heritage Tourism unit. --There isn't just one single truth. This place is so incredibly more complex than previously believed, says Ewa Bergdahl, unit director at the National Heritage Board. [...] The Heritage Board has long…

As discussed here in a recent entry, there has long been a conflict over Ales stenar, a prehistoric stone ship monument in Scania, southern Sweden. Scholarship has argued that like all other large stone ships in southern Scandinavia with ample space between the standing stones, Ales stenar was built as a grave marker (or perhaps assembly site) in the late 1st Millennium AD. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the date. On the other hand, amateur archaeo-astronomer Bob Lind has led a vociferous campaign asserting that the ship is several thousand years older than that and originally built as a…

A large and varied 10th century silver hoard of typical Scandinavian character with international components has been found at Harrogate in Yorkshire. Amateur metal detectorists made the find and immediately notified the authorities. Thanks to Tim at Walking the Berkshires and Jeff Lanam for the tip-off.

For years and years, there has been an on-going conflict over Ales stenar, a prehistoric stone ship monument in Scania, southern Sweden. Scholarship has argued that like all other large stone ships in southern Scandinavia with ample space between the standing stones, Ales stenar was built as a grave marker in the late 1st Millennium AD. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the date. On the other hand, amateur archaeo-astronomer Bob Lind has led a vociferous campaign asserting that the ship is several thousand years older than that and originally built as a calendarical observatory. People have…

From that soft-spoken friend of all Sweden's little idiosyncracies, Paddy K, a fresh cell phone snapshot of Kilnaughton abbey in Tarbert, County Kerry, south-west Ireland. The ruins are 600 years old and the site is still in use as a cemetery: among other illustrious lineages, the K clan has a family plot. Tarbert is a common place name on the Celtic fringe, meaning "isthmus", Sw. näs, a narrow stretch of land between two bodies of water. A well-informed source assures me that the ones in Scotland are quite inferior to the Co. Kerry original.

Over at my buddy Frans-Arne's blog Arkeologi i Nord I found a great quotation from Norwegian archaeologist and anti-Nazi politician Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884-1951): "Det vi vet er så uendelig lite mot det som er hendt. Arkeologen er som den som går langs en strand og finner småtterier, skyllet i land fra et forsvunnet skib. Men selve skibet som gikk i dypet med menneskene får han aldri se." "What we know is infinitely little compared to what once happened. The archaeologist is like one who walks along the shore and finds little bits and pieces, flotsam from a lost ship. But the ship that…

People have been everywhere on Earth and whatever they did originally in a certain spot rarely continues into the present. The Swedish legal definition of an archaeological site is that it should contain remains of people's activities in the past that have become permanently discontinued. This means that our planet's entire surface (including the waste-strewn ocean floors) is a cultural landscape, a single humongous archaeological site. Our global culture layer also extends to celestial bodies such as neighbouring planets, moons and even a comet. A weightless culture layer orbits Earth in…

Without much fanfare, the Department of Archaeology in Lund continues its excavations at the insanely large and wealthy 1st Millennium settlement at Uppåkra parish church outside Lund. This place was clearly a royal seat and the finds are unbelievably rich both in number and quality. A week-by-week fieldwork diary in Swedish is available here, and that's where I've nicked the photographs of gold finds from recent weeks: one of two gold bracteates and a gold filigree cross pendant, all dating from c. AD 500. The two new bracteates are identical to each other and to one found at the site and…

Most people recognize Tutankhamun as the boy-king of ancient Egypt. He is the most well-known pharaoh because his tomb was discovered apparently intact* and, more importantly, because it contained the magnificent gold mask that has become an icon of Egypt. Tutankhamun was otherwise unremarkable, as was his mother Nefertiti, who is renowned only for her beauty. Of far greater interest, and importance, than both Tutankhamun and Nefertiti was the pharaoh who some believe was Tutankhamun's father: Akhenaten, the so-called "heretical" pharaoh. Akhenaten was an eighteenth dynasty pharaoh…

As mentioned here before, Stockholm osteology professor Ebba During died in May. Her colleagues have now sent me an appreciation as a guest entry. [More blog entries about archaeology, obit, obituary, Sweden, osteology, ebbaduring; arkeologi, dödsruna, osteologi, ebbaduring] In Loving Memory of Professor Ebba During, 21.8 1937 - 15.05 2007 By Anna Kjellström and colleagues Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory University of Stockholm Colleagues and friends at the department of Archaeology and Classical studies at the University of Stockholm are saddened by Ebba During's death on the 15th…

Alun at Clioaudio has done an excellent job of tracking down good archaeo & anthro material for the 18th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival. The 19th 4SH will appear at Sherd Nerd on Wednesday 18 July. Submit good stuff (your own or somebody else's) to Amanda. Bloggers with archaeo and anthro interests are invited to volunteer for Four Stone Hearth hosting duty. It's a good way to market your blog and make new blogging friends! I'm hosting the Carnival of the Godless here on Sunday 22 July. Submit here.

Here's something for my fellow burial aficionados to ponder. The news item's headline is overstated ("Woman Grieved for Seven Years at Empty Grave"), but the actual occurrence is kind of interesting. A Gothenburg woman grieved for seven years at her mother's grave, but the urn with the mother's remains had never left the crematory. "This shouldn't be allowed to happen. That's why you turn to an undertaker's, otherwise I could have done the work myself", says the woman to Swedish Radio Gothenburg. An urn should by rights be buried within the year. At crematories, urns occasionally remain for…

[More blog entries about archaeology, Belgium, Merovingian, burial; arkeologi, Belgien, folkvandringstiden, vendeltiden, gravar.] Belgian Dear Reader Bruno is one of the astronomy buffs behind Blog Wega (in Dutch). A piece about Bruno's nearest archaeological site wouldn't fit that blog, but I'm happy to have it as a guest entry. Rich 1st Millennium graves, what more can you ask for? This is the sixth entry I receive for the Your Nearest Site carnival. Gimme three more NOW, people, and I'll put it on-line! Merovingian Motorway at Grez-Doiceau By Bruno Van de Casteele Yes, this is my…

Dave over at The World's Fair is asking a few questions about interdisciplinary envy. Do biologists wish they were physicists? Or do physicists dream of biology? And what about archaeologists? 1. What's your current scientific specialty? I'm an archaeologist specialising in Scandinavian Prehistory, mainly the 1st Millennium AD. 2. Were you originally pursuing a different academic course? Nope, I've concentrated on this subject since day one at the University of Stockholm back in 1990 when I was 18. I chose between archaeology and astronomy, but went for the field where I could dive straight…

[More blog entries about archaeology, Sweden, Mesolithic, forestfire; arkeologi, mesolitikum, Tyresta, skogsbrand.] Spent Friday working for my friends Mattias Pettersson and Roger Wikell, digging on one of their Mesolithic sites in the Tyresta nature reserve south of Stockholm. It's an incredible place. Imagine: An archipelago with lots of little rocky islands, located far from the coast of the mainland and teeming with seals. Mesolithic people go there in kayaks to hunt at certain times of the year, bringing chunks of rock for toolmaking. At their camps, they knap it into arrowheads,…

There's a newsbit doing the rounds of international summer-starved media about a funny cranium found at St. Nicholas' church in Sarpsborg, Norway during excavations headed by Mona Beate Buckholm of Østfoldmuseet. The cranium belonged to a batch of bones surfacing when some rose bushes were moved. Radiocarbon dates them to most likely the 11th century AD. The find is touted as having "the same genetic marks as the Inca people of Latin America". This is an oversimplification. Here's what it's all about, and I translate from the Norwegian: "One of the men had a cranium with a split neck bone, a…

In the current issue of Antiquity is a review of G.G. Fagan's edited volume Archaeological Fantasies (available on-line behind a paywall). I reviewed this book favourably back in September: it's pretty much a skeptical attack on pseudo-scientific archaeology. Antiquity's reviewer, however, doesn't like the book at all, and for an interesting reason. Wiktor Stoczkowski is a sociologist of science working in Paris, and he isn't very interested in the interpretation of the archaeological record. His main concern is with the dynamics of current society. "The editor of the volume insists that its…

My friend Lars at Arkland always comes through with ace photographs when I ask for them. Here's a pic he took in 1995 when a landowner at Vittene in Västergötland had come forth with an Early Iron Age gold torque he had kept in a closet for many years. In this picture, our late colleague Ulf Viking is wearing a makeshift rain coat made of a black plastic garbage bag, ready to search for more parts of the hoard. Read more here! Dear Reader, feel free to follow Lars example and send me archaeopix! Just tell me a few words about what's in the pic to aid my dull understanding.