http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/ Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff. en Copyright 2009 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:20:59 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.261 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss scienceblogs/lgtNhttp://feedburner.google.com <p>Hear me, Ubuntu-using brothers and sisters! Never use the on-line upgrade option to switch to a newer version of the operating system! In little more than two years, it has trashed my setup twice, once killing the machine outright, and the last time (yesterday) making it impossible to boot from the linux partition.</p> <p>When the time comes to upgrade, copy all your files to somewhere else, re-format the linux partition and install the new Ubuntu version from scratch. Then copy all your stuff back onto the partition. There is no safe way to upgrade an existing installation.</p> <p>A corollary of this is that you should either use an on-line e-mail service that stores your mail off-site, or local e-mail software that makes it really easy to export all your mail to another disk and then re-import it into the software after the upgrade (if any such e-mail software does in fact exist). In other words, do not run Mozilla Thunderbird like I did.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/upgrading_ubuntu_linux_is_risk.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/GZgvQ7CXtSI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/GZgvQ7CXtSI/upgrading_ubuntu_linux_is_risk.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/upgrading_ubuntu_linux_is_risk.php Tech Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:20:59 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/upgrading_ubuntu_linux_is_risk.php <p><a href="http://www.detekt.dk/sdf/funddatabase/displayimage.php?pos=-8672"><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya/Lejre.jpg" width="510" height="390" alt="Lejre.jpg"/></a></p> <p>So you're a metal detectorist and you <a href="http://roskilde.lokalavisen.dk/et-unikt-fund-af-odin-fra-lejre/20091113/artikler/711139709">find a silver figurine</a> at storied Lejre in Denmark. It depicts a person sitting in a high seat whose posts end in two wolves' heads. And on either arm rest sits a raven. The style is typical for about AD 900. So when you hand the thing over to the site manager, he of course exclaims, "Holy shit! It's Odin!". And that's what he tells the press.</p> <p>Until somebody like me comes along and points out that it's a woman.</p> <p>She's wearing a floor-length dress. And a shawl. And four finely sculpted bead strings. This is a standard depiction of an aristocratic lady of the later 1st Millennium. The Lejre figurine is a direct counterpart to the Aska pendant (below), which is universally understood as the effigy of a goddess. The high seat is Odin's, allright. But the occupant is most likely Frigga or Freya. Or maybe, just maybe, Thor in drag during the hammer reclamation mission. That is so cool! This find will mess with everybody's mind!</p> <p>Congratulations to detectorist Tommy Olesen who found the piece two months ago! And thanks to Tobias Bondesson for the heads-up.</p> <p><a href="http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=18171"><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya/aska.jpeg" width="399" height="448" alt="aska.jpeg"/></a></p> <p><i>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/odin" rel="tag">odin</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/paganism" rel="tag">paganism</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/aesir" rel="tag">aesir</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/religion" rel="tag">religion</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/denmark" rel="tag">denmark</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/vikings" rel="tag">vikings</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/freya" rel="tag">freya</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/goddess" rel="tag">goddess</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/silver" rel="tag">silver</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/figurine" rel="tag">figurine</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/oden" rel="tag">oden</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/freja" rel="tag">freja</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/hedendom" rel="tag">hedendom</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/religion" rel="tag">religion</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/vikingar" rel="tag">vikingar</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/danmark" rel="tag">danmark</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/silver" rel="tag">silver</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/figurin" rel="tag">figurin</a>.]</i></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/gzlBCfLVXjY" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/gzlBCfLVXjY/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya.php Archaeology Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:34:17 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/odin_from_lejre_no_its_freya.php <p><em>Aard</em> enjoys complimentary subscriptions to a number of popular archaeology magazines from which I learn a lot before passing them on to the Fisksätra public library. Here are my favourite stories from three recent issues that have crossed my current-reading shelf.</p> <p><em>Current Archaeology</em> 234, Sept.<ul><li>Figures <a href="http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/galloping-down-the-centuries-new-light-on-britains-chalk-cut-hill-figure.htm">cut into chalk hillsides</a> in Britain, such as the Uffington horse (6 pp.).</ul></p> <p><em>Current Archaeology</em> 236, Nov.<ul><li>A huge 7th century <a href="http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/trophies-of-kings-the-staffordshire-hoard.htm">gold and silver hoard</a> found recently in Staffordshire. Excellent pix! I haven't blogged about this since it's been all over the mainstream news and I had little to add. (10 pp.)<br /> <li>A <a href="http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/water-power-in-medieval-greenwich.htm">London tide mill</a>, sturdily built in the 1190s and well preserved in the river sediments, its great wheel partly still in place (6 pp.).</ul></p> <p><em>Archaeology</em> Nov/Dec.<ul><li>A <a href="http://www.archaeology.org/0911/abstracts/storm_god.html">Bronze Age temple</a> under the Citadel of Aleppo in Syria (6 pp.).<br /> <li>A 5th century burial with <a href="http://www.archaeology.org/0911/abstracts/korea_iron_man.html">full scale armour for man <i>and horse</i></a> in South Korea (4 pp.).<br /> <li>Archaeologists studying the <a href="http://www.archaeology.org/0911/abstracts/homeless.html">camps of today's homeless Americans</a> (2 pp.).</ul><p><i>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/archaeology" rel="tag">archaeology</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/arkeologi" rel="tag">arkeologi</a>.]</i><br /> </p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/recent_archaeology_mags.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/4UmxJeRNd2o" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/4UmxJeRNd2o/recent_archaeology_mags.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/recent_archaeology_mags.php Archaeology Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:35:29 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/recent_archaeology_mags.php <p>One of the best friends I made during my decade in the Tolkien Society is Florence Vilén; poet, novelist, connoisseuse of art and letters. She recently published a volume of poetry, <a href="http://www.boksson.se/purpurprant,9789186207397.html"><i>Purpurpränt. Dikter med rim och reson.</i></a> And earlier tonight when she visited us she threw out one of the aristocratic one-liners she delights in.</p> <p>Florence once told me off the cuff, "The educated layman became extinct about 1940". Tonight she happily proclaimed, "I have learned my entire vocabulary of obscene English words from the Times Literary Supplement".</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/intellectual_aristocrat.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/7w34hHPgKMM" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/7w34hHPgKMM/intellectual_aristocrat.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/intellectual_aristocrat.php Humour Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:26:03 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/intellectual_aristocrat.php <p>We know quite a bit more now about the archaeology of <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/05/sattuna_fieldwork_report_on-li.php">Sättuna in Kaga parish</a>, Östergötland, than we did before me and my homies <a href="http://saltosobrius.blogspot.com/2006/04/fieldwork-in-kaga.html">started fieldwork</a> there in April of 2006. My blog readers have had news of the site as it appeared, pretty much in real time. But now it's time to put up a new signpost next to Christer's barn. Today I wrote some new text for the sign and sent it to the County Archaeologist's office. Here's the tiny English bit at the end.<blockquote>The field with the barrow hides a 6500 year old Stone Age camp site and an aristocratic manor site of the 5th-9th centuries AD. Bronze jewellery was cast here and gold-foil miniatures made. Very few such manor sites are known in Östergötland. The barrow has not been excavated but probably dates from the 9th/10th century AD. It may be the last thing the ruling family here built before they moved. Later a 12th century royal dynasty emerged from this area.</blockquote><p><i>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/archaeology" rel="tag">archaeology</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Sweden" rel="tag">Sweden</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/outreach" rel="tag">outreach</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/arkeologi" rel="tag">arkeologi</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/%F6sterg%F6tland" rel="tag">östergötland</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/link%F6ping" rel="tag">linköping</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/f%F6rmedling" rel="tag">förmedling</a>.]</i></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/sattuna_signpost.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/WcftJELmJ7U" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/WcftJELmJ7U/sattuna_signpost.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/sattuna_signpost.php Archaeology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:52:08 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/sattuna_signpost.php <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/new_book_on_the_early_history/skargard-o-orlog.jpg" width="260" height="350" alt="skargard-o-orlog.jpg"/></p> <p>In addition to the archive reports on my <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/02/djurhamn_2008_fieldwork_report.php">two seasons of fieldwork</a> at the Late Medieval and Early Modern harbour of Djurhamn, I have now published a paper that discusses and interprets the results. It's in a symposium volume from the Royal Academy of Letters, edited by my friend Katarina Schoerner and bearing the name <i>Skärgård och Örlog. Nedslag i Stockholms skärgårds tidiga historia.</i> ("Archipelago and naval warfare. Case studies in the early history of the Stockholm archipelago"). Other contributors are Jonathan Adams, Kajsa Althén, Jan Glete, Sven Lilja, Peter Norman, Mary Pousette, Johan Rönnby and Bengt Windelhed.</p> <p><a href="http://vitterhetsakad.bokorder.se/showTitle.aspx?id=1473">Order the book here</a> if you read Scandy!</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/new_book_on_the_early_history.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/-BVpSFG48uI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/-BVpSFG48uI/new_book_on_the_early_history.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/new_book_on_the_early_history.php Archaeology Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:20:44 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/new_book_on_the_early_history.php <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/information_longevity_talk_in/Cuneiform%20tablet%20detail.jpg" width="500" height="413" alt="Cuneiform tablet detail.jpg"/></p> <p>On Tuesday 17 November 17:30 I'm giving a talk as part of Mathias Klang's <a href="http://www.itufak.gu.se/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=488540&languageId=100000&contentId=-1&refresh=true&eventId=1767873828">information security course</a> at the University of Gothenburg. The theme is "Årtusendenas glömska: arkivsäkring i det riktigt långa perspektivet", which may hint to the intelligent reader that I'll be speaking in Swedish. I'll cover ways that information has survived from the distant past, and aspects of how data from archaeological sites and museum collections can be safeguarded for a long future.</p> <p>The lecture is free and open to the public. The venue is at <a href="http://hitta.se/LargeMap.aspx?var=Forskningsg%e5ngen+6">Forskningsgången 6</a>, square 2, floor 2, on the premises of <a href="http://www.ituniv.se/">IT-Universitetet</a> on Lindholmen. Hope to see blog readers there!</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/informationsecurity" rel="tag">informationsecurity</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/informationss%E4kerhet" rel="tag">informationssäkerhet</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/information_longevity_talk_in.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/OaJn1LXGUIY" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/OaJn1LXGUIY/information_longevity_talk_in.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/information_longevity_talk_in.php Tech Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:17:30 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/information_longevity_talk_in.php <p>The seventy-ninth <a href="http://fourstonehearth.net/">Four Stone Hearth</a> blog carnival is on-line at <i><a href="http://anthropology.net/2009/11/04/four-stone-hearth-79-anthropology-net/">Anthropology.net</a></i>. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology!</p> <p>Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to <a href="mailto:clmorgan@DELETE-THISgmail.com">Colleen at <i>Middle Savagery</i></a>. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to <a href="mailto:arador@algonet.se">volunteer to me</a> for hosting. The next vacant hosting slot is <b>in less than four weeks, on 2 December</b>. It's a good way to gain readers. No need to be an anthro pro.</p> <p>And check out <a href="http://www.blue-genes.net/2009/11/the-123rd-congregation-of-the-skeptics-circle/">the new Skeptics' Circle</a>!</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/anthro_blog_carnival_55.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/7ro0DMVzXxI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/7ro0DMVzXxI/anthro_blog_carnival_55.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/anthro_blog_carnival_55.php Archaeology Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:56:32 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/anthro_blog_carnival_55.php <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/archaeological_namesakes/ghr.JPG" width="250" height="350" alt="ghr.JPG"/></p> <p>I've been publishing stuff in <i>Fornvännen</i> since 1994. But making a vanity search in the journal's on-line version, I found that I am not the first Rund??ist in <i>Fornvännen's</i> history. My family name was mentioned once in those pages before I showed up.</p> <p>In 1935, Bengt Hildebrand published a <a href="http://fornvannen.se/pdf/1930talet/1935_273.pdf">bibliographical essay</a> in <i>Fornvännen</i> titled (and I translate), "Notes on the bibliography of Swedish numismatics and archaeological historiography". It covers writings about coins and the history of archaeology. And on page 285 we find mention of one G.H. Rundquist who had published a "Catalogue of the coin and medal collection in Växjö high school as well as similar collections united with it though belonging to the Museum of Småland in Växjö". The man's full name was Gustaf Hilding Rundquist, and he was custodian of that collection from 1916 to 1965, almost 50 years.</p> <p><a href="http://www.smalandsmuseum.se/Myntkabinett/Bilder/myntet_artikel.pdf">Says Lars Thor</a> (and I translate),<blockquote>"Hilding Rundquist had an unbelievable working capacity. It is also told that during his many years as a teacher he did not take a single day of sick leave, and that he and his wife were known to entertain a considerable number of friends in their home. Taking into account that Rundquist, apart from all this, was also an active lodge member and enthusiastic choir singer, the picture of him of course becomes even more impressive."</blockquote></p> <p>And other Rund??ists in Swedish archaeology? Apparently none who have written very much. There's Sten Rundkvist and Harry Rundqvist and Bengt & Maj Rundquist and Lisa Rundqvist Nilsson who have all made unpretentious contributions to the literature. And then there's me. No relation of the others, to my knowledge.</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/v%E4xj%F6" rel="tag">växjö</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/sm%E5land" rel="tag">småland</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/numismatik" rel="tag">numismatik</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/mynt" rel="tag">mynt</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/archaeological_namesakes.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/RFr_ReEzzyc" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/RFr_ReEzzyc/archaeological_namesakes.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/archaeological_namesakes.php Archaeology Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:20:30 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/archaeological_namesakes.php <p>My family and I just came home from our local <i>vårdcentral</i>, the public medical centre, where we've taken our shots for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic">epidemic H1N1/09 swine flu</a>. It cost us nothing and we waited for only about 15 minutes. We got something called Pandemix, which appears to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix">Pandemrix</a> mixed with another vaccine. They're not sure if a second shot will be needed or not, but if so then we will take it at the same time as I get my annual non-swine flu shot. Juniorette cried a little after the jab but calmed down after eating two saffron buns. She then went with her mom to swimming class.</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/h1n1" rel="tag">h1n1</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/flu" rel="tag">flu</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/swineflu" rel="tag">swineflu</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/vaccines" rel="tag">vaccines</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/svininfluensan" rel="tag">svininfluensan</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/vaccin" rel="tag">vaccin</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/h1n1" rel="tag">h1n1</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/influensa" rel="tag">influensa</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/the_rundkvists_have_taken_thei.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/m5_T7S2-unA" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/m5_T7S2-unA/the_rundkvists_have_taken_thei.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/the_rundkvists_have_taken_thei.php Health Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:57:23 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/the_rundkvists_have_taken_thei.php <p>Finland has a lot of cairns, usually sitting on hill tops near the sea. Unlike a mound, the cairn consists only of stones, and so it lets rain water percolate through. This messes up the contents of the cairn. Bones and burial goods are rarely preserved, and it seems that the ancient Finns didn't stock their cairns with a lot of interesting stuff to begin with anyway. This makes individual cairns difficult to date, though seen as a class their chronology is fairly well understood.</p> <p>Despite the fact that few Finnish cairns contain anything interesting or valuable to a layperson, a lot of them have central depressions indicating that people have delved into them some time after their construction. There is no evidence to suggest that the depressions are due to the collapse of any internal wooden chambers.</p> <p>During the excursion last Saturday at the Bronze Age conference in Helsinki, Tapani Tuovinen let us in on an interesting methodological development. How do you know at what date a burial cairn was looted?</p> <p>The bedrock in southern Finland weathers in a characteristic way visible in a microscope. During the last Ice Age, a lot of nice round pebbles were produced through abrasion, and they're really good for cairn building. When you retrieve one them from the sea or the glacial till, they show no signs of microweathering at all to begin with. But if you look at pebbles on an undisturbed 3000-y-o cairn, you find heavy microweathering on the upper half of the stones. Their lower halves are far less weathered.</p> <p>Tapani & Co looked at the stones scattered around the central depressions in looted cairns, and found that many of them were upside down: the undamaged bit was no longer pointing downward. This showed that they had been moved around relatively recently, most likely during the 19th century. The method doesn't give absolute dates, but it's still useful information.</p> <p>Then the team looked at the bedrock beneath cairns they excavated, and found that it was much less weathered than the rock outside the bases of the cairns. This confirmed that they are pretty damn old: the cairns have been sitting there long enough for a slow weathering process to produce a visible difference.</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/archaeology" rel="tag">archaeology</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/datingmethods" rel="tag">datingmethods</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/geology" rel="tag">geology</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/arkeologi" rel="tag">arkeologi</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/dateringsmetoder" rel="tag">dateringsmetoder</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/geologi" rel="tag">geologi</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/dating_the_looting_of_ancient.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/9CI0sfnutSs" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/9CI0sfnutSs/dating_the_looting_of_ancient.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/dating_the_looting_of_ancient.php Archaeology Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:20:33 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/dating_the_looting_of_ancient.php <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/11/runological_report_on_the_hogg/red-rune.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="red-rune.jpg"/></p> <p>Runologist James E. Knirk has <a href="http://www.khm.uio.no/forskning/publikasjoner/runenews/hogganvik.htm">published a report</a> on the recently found <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/5th_century_rune_stone_found.php">Hogganvik rune stone</a>. His transliteration is<blockquote>[?]kelbaþewas:s(t)^ainaR:aaasrpkf<br /> aarpaa:inanana(l/b/w)oR<br /> eknaudigastiR<br /> ekerafaR</blockquote><p>His translation is<blockquote>Skelba-þewaR's ["Shaking-servant's"] stone. (Alphabet magic: aaasrpkf aarpaa). ?Within/From within the ?wheel-nave/?cabin-corner. I NaudigastiR [="Need-guest"]. I, the Wolverine.</blockquote><p>So there isn't actually an explicit lord-retainer relationship in the text, just a guy whose name includes the word for servant, <i>thewar</i>. It also occurs in two names inscribed on weaponry from Danish war booty finds.</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/runes" rel="tag">runes</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/runestones" rel="tag">runestones</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Norway" rel="tag">Norway</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/runor" rel="tag">runor</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/runsten" rel="tag">runsten</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/Norge" rel="tag">Norge</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/runological_report_on_the_hogg.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/7X2xyspmnjU" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/7X2xyspmnjU/runological_report_on_the_hogg.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/runological_report_on_the_hogg.php Archaeology Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:20:57 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/runological_report_on_the_hogg.php <p>If I had to take a paper newspaper, then I would like <em>Dagens Nyheter's</em> news section, <em>Svenska Dagbladet's</em> arts & entertainment section, no sports section and no business section. SvD is a conservative rag and some of its political columnists are really distasteful, but DN never gets anywhere near SvD's coverage of the historical humanities. DN's arts section is mainly preoccupied with pretentious modern crap, installation artists and poets who will be forgotten three months from now.</p> <p>So I was very pleased when the editor of SvD's arts essay page (through the good offices of Åsa Larsson of <em><a href="http://tingotankar.blogspot.com/">Ting & Tankar</a></em>) asked me to write for him about a couple of new books. Getting onto that essay page (and hopefully staying there) has been a latent goal of mine for many years. And I was even more pleased when the piece I submitted was <a href="http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/understrecket/artikel_3736545.svd">published today</a>: on a Sunday, when people actually had time to read the thing before they tossed the paper into the recycling bin.</p> <p>Nor was my sunny outlook diminished this evening when I received a letter from an editor at a major monthly mag who, on the strength of the SvD piece, offered me a reviewing gig on the spot.</p> <p><i>Editor Ludvig Hertzberg <a href="http://blogg.svd.se/understrecket?id=16403">comments on my piece</a> on his blog.</i></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/i_got_a_prime_time_spot.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/PFtZHKH1iKs" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/PFtZHKH1iKs/i_got_a_prime_time_spot.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/i_got_a_prime_time_spot.php NOIBN Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:11:59 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/11/i_got_a_prime_time_spot.php <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first/DSCN9097LORES.JPG" width="500" height="375" alt="DSCN9097LORES.JPG"/></p> <p>I'm posting this from a Helsinki basement café after a day's excursion by bus and boat in the countryside west of town. We mainly looked at cairns of various form, date and function, including a group of very fine large mountaintop ones of the typical Bronze Age variety.</p> <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first/DSCN9096lores.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="DSCN9096lores.jpg"/></p> <p>Toward the end of the day we saw a preserved little bit of an excavated cemetery to which had been added a memorial stone in the 1930s. On the plaque the site is dated to about AD 100 and proclaimed as burial place of the first Finns! The reasoning went like this.</p> <p>"We have a gap in the archaeological record during the Last Millennium BC. And the linguists believe that the Finnish language arrived here from Estonia about AD 1. And the grave type here has its closest parallels in Estonia. So this must be the grave of early Finnish-speaking colonists who arrived in the country when it was empty about AD 1!"</p> <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/upload/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first/DSCN9099LORES.JPG" width="263" height="350" alt="DSCN9099LORES.JPG"/></p> <p>In the decades since, we have learned that there is no gap in the Finnish settlement record in the Last Millennium, and the grave type has been shown to be native to the coasts all around the south-eastern Baltic Sea. And the linguists have changed their mind about the date of the arrival of the Finnish language. So all that remains of the ideas celebrated on that stone is that yes, we still date the grave goods to about AD 100.</p> <p>But as I told my colleagues, this is not by far the silliest memorial stone erected on an archaeological site. A strong candidate is found at Vendel church in Uppland where rich boat-burials have been excavated. It reads,</p> <p>VENDEL PERIOD<br /> PERIOD OF STATE-BUILDING<br /> PERIOD OF MEN</p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/archaeology" rel="tag">archaeology</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/arkeologi" rel="tag">arkeologi</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/4pBxh1vG9oc" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/4pBxh1vG9oc/not_resting_place_of_the_first.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first.php Archaeology Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:26:14 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/not_resting_place_of_the_first.php <p>The jaw-drop moment of <a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/arkeologia/bronzeagesymposium2009/index.html">the conference</a> came for me when osteologist Lise Harvig off-handedly showed us pictures of what she is doing. She's a PhD student with <a href="http://sund.ku.dk/profilen/nielslynnerup/">Niels Lynnerup</a> at the Dept of Forensic Medicine at Copenhagen. Remember the crumbling <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2008/02/early_neolithic_amber_hoard_ct.php">Neolithic amber bead hoard</a> that the Danes ran through a CT scanner instead of excavating and stabilising the thing? Now Lise is putting <i>entire Bronze Age urn burials</i> through that scanner. She knows where every piece of bone and bronze is in those urns before she even cuts open the plaster they've been encased in since being lifted out of the ground. She has perfect 3D digital models of urns that fall apart when you remove the plaster. And she has demonstrated that a lot of the bone fragmentation, that has commonly been assumed to be due to dedicated crushing and grinding by the mourners, is actually simply due to the brittleness of burnt bones whose organic component has leached away over the millennia. Big bones are sitting in the urns, each fragment in place, and fall apart when you try to lift them. As Lise put it, "The one who does the ritual crushing is me, when I empty the urns".</p> <p>So, how can a PhD student in archaeology afford to use this sort of hi-tech equipment? Turns out, the technology is developing so fast that the hospitals frequently swap their CT scanners for newer models. The used one at the Dept of Forensic Medicine makes one slice every three millimeters. Not good enough anymore for brain surgery. But perfectly useful for archaeology.</p> <p>Other issues covered in today's presentations were:<ul><li>Correspondence analysis of Gotland's stone ships.<br /> <li>The landscape situation of sacrificial sites in the Lake Mälaren area (me).<br /> <li>An Early Bronze Age magnate farm excavated recently near Halmstad.<br /> <li>Human sacrifice and corpse rituals in Lithuania.<br /> <li>The unusually late introduction of animal husbandry in Finland.<br /> <li>Bone pins in the Baltic states.<br /> <li>Copper in Fennoscandia before the Bronze Age.<br /> <li>Bronze ring casting sites on Saaremaa and elsewhere in the Baltic states.</ul></p> <p><em>[More blog entries about <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/nordicbronzeageconference" rel="tag">nordicbronzeageconference</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/computertomography" rel="tag">computertomography</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/bronzeage" rel="tag">bronzeage</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Denmark" rel="tag">Denmark</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/Sweden" rel="tag">Sweden</a>; <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/nordiskabrons%E5lderskonferensen" rel="tag">nordiskabronsålderskonferensen</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/datortomografi" rel="tag">datortomografi</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/brons%E5ldern" rel="tag">bronsåldern</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/Finland" rel="tag">Finland</a>, <a href="http://bloggar.se/om/Danmark" rel="tag">Danmark</a>.]</em></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/danes_run_entire_urn_burials_t.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~4/CYmTwNYs1BI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/lgtN/~3/CYmTwNYs1BI/danes_run_entire_urn_burials_t.php http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/danes_run_entire_urn_burials_t.php Archaeology Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:03:48 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2009/10/danes_run_entire_urn_burials_t.php