“Early human marks are ‘symbols’” – a BBC report headline today. A series of parallel lines engraved in an animal bone between 1.4 and 1.2 million years ago may be the earliest example of human symbolic behaviour. University of Bordeaux experts say no practical process, such as butchering a carcass, can explain the markings. But…
archaeological news
archaeological rats
There is a small exhibition on at the British Museum of a grave dating from the late third millennium/early second. The grave of a man dating to around 2,300BC was discovered three miles from Stonehenge by Wessex Archaeology staff in May 2002. His grave was the richest from this period (the early Bronze Age) ever…
Phluzein
Anders Bell at Phluzein has pointed out that his blog has no affliation with the Cotsen Institute. I had made the association through the RSS feed, so I went to have a proper look. It’s quite a nice miscellany about various archaeological news items.
Issues of cultural property – the usual tensions
Two articles this weekend about the Parthenon marbles. The Guardian reports a video making a case for the return of the marbles sent to 1000 members of Parliament in the UK. The New York Times yesterday ran an article about the guilt instilled by a new museum on the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens,…
Ben Cullen
Ben Cullen died eight years ago today in Cardigan, Wales. He was only 31. He had the same birthday as my daughter Molly; died on my parents wedding day. He was a great friend. Ben’s big idea was that biological organisms and things are not always as radically different as we usually hold. Viral phenomena…
Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory
Conference – Bristol UK – encounters between past and present CHAT – Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory – great new project starting in a conference that wants archaeologists to think – archaeology merging more with the study of contemporary material culture. As long as it is realized that materiality only makes sense in terms…