Anthropology.net

Today marks the half-way point between the most recent edition of Four Stone Hearth and the next, so here’s a quick recap on the 78th edition, as hosted by Paddy K – if by some chance you haven’t been able to read the various entries, please be sure to do so, as there is a very good range of posts covering stuff like the contested origins of Neanderthals in Europe, who as we learn in a presentation from TED probably had fair skins, and on to thick-skinned Creationists who appear not only to have entirely missed the gist of the Ardipithecus implications, but as far as I can tell, apparently show not the slightest interest in the other animals and plant-life, or the landscapes they inhabited 4.4 million years ago, let alone how the sites under investigation came into existence and were preserved in the first place.

One destination almost certainly not on the must-see wish-lists of said Creationists would likely be the seedier side of the British Museum’s less known rooms, where a goodly collection of controversial art and artefacts have accumulated over the years, including an intriguing 11,000 year-old carving in calcite of a couple locked in embrace, from the desert of Judaea, as I recall. Zahi Hawass is heard darkly muttering beneath the brim of his slightly odd hat, whilst elsewhere we see a vision of the future that was old hat before we even got there. There’s plenty more in this issue to make it worth setting aside about an hour to read the lot, so many thanks to Paddy K for continuing what has been a very good series of 4SH blog carnivals, despite the hazardous nature of his cycling activities around the streets of Stockholm.

The next edition, the 79th no less, will be held here at Anthropology.net on Wednesday November 4th – I think my email address for submissions should be somewhere onsite, or if in doubt, maybe get them to me via Martin R; details here at Four Stone Hearth.