Saturnalia is over, and the Feast of St. Stephen is almost upon us, so before the latter rolls round, this is just a quick note to wish everyone all the best over the Christmas holidays, and even if this time of year doesn't signify anything of note to you, we hope you have a good... Continue Reading →
Public Access to Publicly Funded Research – Be Heard at the White House
I'm cross-posting this from everyone, the community blog of PLoS ONE, who are asking all those with an interest to involve themselves in this initiative from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, (OSTP), who state the following: Yesterday we announced the launch of the Public Access Forum, sponsored by the White House... Continue Reading →
Lithic Assemblage Dated to 1.57 Million Years Found at Lézignan-la-Cébe, Southern France
Physorg are reporting an exciting find of what are described as 30 'pebble culture' lithic tools, dating back over 1.5 million years, at a site which has been dated argon dated to 1.57 million years old, thanks to an ancient volcanic eruption whose lava flow preserved the ancient ground surfaces. Although no human remains have... Continue Reading →
Four Stone Hearth #82 @ Anthropology in Practice
My apologies once again to yet another host of Four Stone Hearth for failing to submit something - in this case, Krystal D'Costa who is running the current edition at her blog, Anthropology in Practice - you'd think that 2 weeks would be plenty long enough to get a submission together, but either the passage... Continue Reading →
More Clovis Comet Debate and a Response from Dr.Richard Firestone
Having already posted two articles which call into question the findings of Richard Firestone et al, in their 2007 paper Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling, I decided to contact Dr. Firestone to try and add some balance to the current debate;... Continue Reading →
Mayas Saving Maya Culture – The Archaeology Channel
The latest offering from the Archaeology Channel is now online, and in this 22 minute video produced by Timothy Knowlton, which in brief is described thus: An association of Tz’utujil Maya people from Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, struggle to establish a cultural center and archaeological site museum at the nearby lakeside site of Chuitinamit, once home... Continue Reading →
Synchronous Extinction of North America’s Pleistocene Mammals Placed Within 2,000-Year Time Frame
Synchronous extinction of North America's Pleistocene mammals — PNAS Following on from my recent post regarding the apparent lack of evidence for a Clovis comet, I want to address this recent paper by J. Tyler Faith, in which he and his fellow authors offer statistical evidence to suggest that the mammalian extinction event at the... Continue Reading →
Evolution: Like any other Science it is Predictable – Simon Conway Morris
Apologies for the sparsity of posts here in recent days, but while I'm finishing another post on Pleistocene extinctions, I hope this linked essay and the related papers will be of more than temporary interest to readers here. As part of the Royal Society's 350th anniversary celebrations, they have just made available online a series... Continue Reading →
The Clovis Comet That Wasn’t? Mystery Deepens
In recent years a theory has emerged that seeks to explain three mysterious events that took place at around 13,000 years ago (kya) - the sudden cooling phase known as the Younger Dryas, at the end of the Bølling Allerød warm interstadial, the sudden termination of the Clovis culture in North America, along with the... Continue Reading →
A New Homo erectus (Zhoukoudian V) Brain Endocast From China – Free to Access
As mentioned previously, the Royal Society are celebrating 350 years of publication, and in recognition of this they are offering free access to a vast number of papers, both past and present - indeed the current edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) treats us to a Special Issue 'Recent advances... Continue Reading →
