Four Stone Hearth 19

Greetings, it is time for the 19th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival. The four stones in this hearth are archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology.

It's personally very cool for me to be doing it this go 'round. I'm just a wee part time student and this blog is basically just to keep my friends and family in the loop so I'm honoured to present the work of real life archaeologists and anthropologists.

Onwards.

Testimony of the Spade on the mysteries and wonders of rock carvings in Uppland.

Martin at Aardvarchaeology paints a typically evocative portrait of a Mesolithic landscape.

Anthropology.net pieces together the "parallel lives and deaths" of the Anasazi and Gallina people, which may have a lesson for us all:

it reminds us that we too, despite our supposed vastly superior civilisation, could one day go the same way - leaving the few fragments of a future society to sit and wonder where it all went so quickly and badly wrong for their own vanished ancestors.

The curse of the bad back is a staple of quacks and tabloid current affairs shows the world over, but serious scholars take a keen interest too. Afarensis casts a sc/keptical eye over a recent publication.

Speaking of afarensis. Hominin Dental Anthropology with a post on ... hominin dental anthropology. Specifically, "fossils that may prove to be a bridge to establishing a relationship between the earlier Australopithecus anamensis (and the later Australopithecus afarensis early human species." Jason analyses the associated photos and the insight into the work of an expert is fascinating.

Mallard Fillmore's Bathtub on the value of a good historical story. If there's one thing historians know it is that truth is stranger than fiction.

I like to think of Assyriology as Egyptology's evil twin brother. I say that with love. A cuneiform tablet possibly referring to the biblical Jeremiah created a wee fuss in the field recently. In the first paragraph of this Abnormal Interests post there are links to numerous discussions of it, as well as AI's Duane having a good bash at translation.

We're on a winter break from uni here so it's been a while since I wrestled with hieroglyphic grammar. The bruises have healed, the scars are barely visible and I almost have use of thumbs back. So, I'm mentally ready to dive back into ancient linguistics. This discussion of the subjunctive in early Indo-European at Paleoglot is a good place to start.

Open Objects has a couple of posts on the issue of museums using Facebook and related social networking sites the young folk are so fond of. Also popular on teh innertubes these days are podcasts and Anthroblog reminds us we have limited time to download some from the 2007 meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology.

Digital Arts and Humanities has an online discussion about geospatial computing in archaeology.

John Hawks on political sensitivities involved in the Lucy exhibition in Houston and also the perennial issue of baby mammoth cloning. Complete with picture. A picture of a baby mammoth. How cool is that?

Anthropology is not just dead folk. Anthropologi.info on varying reactions to a new book on the modern Islamic world, Akbar Ahmed. And Marcus Griffin -- an anthropologist working with the US Army in Iraq -- on building rapport with "subjects."

Bad Archaeology on bad archaeological reporting, this time involving a lost Indian city. If it involves Graham Hancock you know it's gotta be pure class on the evidence front. Mmmmmm....woo-y goodness.

Hot Cup of Joe blogs about why he blogs:

I’m also interested in what blog readers, who don’t necessarily have a blog of their own, think about anthropology blogs and what they like about anthropology blogs

What do we link about anthropology blogs? We loves them.

Finally, some Egyptology! (Graham Hancock snark does not count) To update: they found Hatshepsut (apparently) and made a TV show about it. ArchaeoBlog's reaction. I'm disappointed to hear it wasn't hokey and melodramatic. If you can't rely on a Discovery channel show on Ancient Egypt to be that, what's the world coming to?

Latest photos from Bulgarian finds. They are turning up amazing stuff at a rate of knots over there.

Early Modern Notes on the difficulties of deciding whether two people with the same name in historical records are or are not, the same person.

Next 4SH is at Afarensis on August 1st. Submit away!