It has taken me too long to get round to reading Charles Redman’s great book Human Impact on Ancient Environments – Arizona, 1999. I came to the book because of the upcoming exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, of the photographs of Edward Burtynsky – they foreground massive environmental impacts. [Link] We need a…
archaeology
collecting culture and intellectual property
Had lunch with Ralph Maurer today. He researches organizational behavior and is interested in how people get attached to what they make, the ideas they have and such, and how this attachment may lead them to manage work and intellectual property without reference to economic gain. Economic relationships are embedded in all sorts of cultural…
Tim Webmoor on social software and heritage politics
Great talk last night from Tim Webmoor at our New Media workshop at Stanford. He is working at the fabulous site of Teotihuacan, Mexico, on different attitudes and understandings of the site – local and beyond. Teotihuacan has become emblematic of the Mexican state and Mexican heritage. I posted some comments last year from Meg…
archaeological fakes in the German academy
A fascinating item today in the Guardian – History of modern man unravels as German scholar is exposed as fraud Flamboyant anthropologist falsified dating of key discoveries Luke Harding in Berlin It appeared to be one of archaeology’s most sensational finds. The skull fragment discovered in a peat bog near Hamburg was more than 36,000…
surreality – Barbie dolls in Minoan Crete
Stringy Carter has put me on to an extraordinary web site – Minoan Culture, a Discussion by Frederick John Kluth of Kent, Ohio Barbie as prehistoric matriarch He has created a series of scenes from his reading of Minoan Crete using Barbie dolls … not the usual gendered interpretation of Minoan culture and society! But…
organizing memories – the example of Flickr
For some time I have been promoting collaborative information building and sharing. Philip put me on to Flickr – a photo store and share site. You can upload your pictures from camera phone or computer and organize them, keep them private or share them with others. You can “tag” them or part of an image…