Aardvarchaeology

Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.

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Four Stone Hearth: Call for Submissions

Mar 14, 2010 4:54am

The 88th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at Ad Hominin on Wednesday. Submit great recent stuff to Ciarán, your own or somebody else's. Anything anthro or archaeo goes! The next open hosting slot is on 12 May. If you're a blogger with an interest in the anthro/archaeo field, drop...

Baby Christened, Dad Unhappy and Surprised to Learn

Mar 12, 2010 11:51am

Here's an interesting case. A woman took her baby to Danderyd church (where I once took first communion) and had the child baptised -- against the father's wishes, as it turned out. He isn't happy. And the priest admits that he should have checked with the dad but that he...

Whale Bones Trawled Up From Bottom of Baltic Sea

Mar 11, 2010 12:56pm

I've written before about a recent whale vertebra that someone had dropped into a lake far from the sea in northern Sweden. This past summer, fishermen trawling off the country's southern coast caught two old whale bones, and they've turned out to belong to a grey whale, a species that's...

University Degrees that Lead to Jobs in Sweden

Mar 10, 2010 5:20am

A recurring theme here on Aard is my complaints about how useless certain kinds of higher education is if you want a job. For a change, let's take a look at what kind of degree is most likely to get you a job in Sweden over the coming decade. The...

French Soft Drink Promises to Change Your Sexual Orientation

Mar 9, 2010 5:20am

Christian fundamentalists like to believe that homosexuality is an illness that can -- and should -- be cured. The factual belief is contradicted by a solid scientific consensus, and the value judgement is widely considered to be a repressive holdover from the Bronze Age. The makers of the French orange-based soft...

Skiing Break

Mar 8, 2010 5:20am

Last week was skiing break for my kids. I couldn't find anywhere good to stay in the mountains, so we didn't go off on holiday. Here's what we did for fun instead. Dinner at the home of a Chinese friend. It was one of those no hablar parties that spouses in...

Rick Astley and Nirvana

Mar 6, 2010 5:20am

Thanks to Swedepat for the tip-off. Read the comments on this post......

Antiquity's Spring Issue

Mar 5, 2010 5:20am

Spring has reputedly reached certain areas way south of where I still shovel snow daily, and with it comes Antiquity's spring issue. This is of course an intensely interesting journal, and not solely because the summer issue will feature that opinion piece of mine that I quoted from on the...

Distributed Sun-Staring

Mar 3, 2010 2:51pm

Human eyes and brains are still way, way better at image recognition than computers. There are many visual tasks that we do swiftly ourselves but that we can't yet get machines to do reliably at all. In January of '06 I blogged about the Stardust @ Home project where you...

Weekend Fun: Books and Games

Mar 2, 2010 5:20am

Weatherwise, last weekend was thawing and misty and overcast, so I didn't feel like doing much outdoors. I finished reading Daryl Gregory's new novel (didn't do much for me) and started Douglas Adams's fifth Hitch-hiker book. When it appeared in 1992 I didn't bother with it since it seemed too...

Jungle-Covered Impact Crater

Feb 27, 2010 5:20am

The Vichada river in Colombia is a tributary of the Orinoco. In 2004 part-time geologist Max Rocca discovered that it skirts South America's largest impact crater. It measures 50 km in diameter, nearly a third of the Chicxulub crater caused by the space rock that killed off the non-avian dinos. This...

Beautiful Vendel Period Jewellery

Feb 26, 2010 5:20am

I'm happy and relieved. A 73-page paper that I put a lot of work and travel into and submitted almost five years ago has finally been published. In his essays, Stephen Jay Gould often refers to his "technical work", which largely concerns Cerion land snails and is most likely not...

Pray and Get Rich

Feb 25, 2010 5:20am

Being an atheist and a rationalist, I find most religious beliefs quite silly. But religious people vary hugely in their behaviour, and many do excellent deeds. Generally, I find it easier to respect the believer who lives by the core tenets of his faith, as all major religions have pretty...

Anthro Blog Carnival

Feb 24, 2010 8:10am

The eighty-seventh Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Anthropology in Practice. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to Ciarán at Ad hominin. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me for hosting....

Hot New Science Blogging Anthology

Feb 23, 2010 11:59am

The Open Lab 2009 science blogging anthology has been published and is available as a paperback book and a PDF file. There's a piece of Aard in there among many fine contributions. Tell me what you think and what e-reader you're using if you buy the PDF! Read the comments...