More news from the Shire April 29, 2008
Posted by argotnavis in Archaeology, News.Tags: blogs, conferences, Flores, John Hawks, physical anthropology
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God, I bet physical anthropologists just hate when people use titles like “More news from the Shire” for blog entries about Homo floresiensis. Anyway, I wish I'd been at the AAPAs this year (via, again). It must have been pretty intense. I imagine that this was one of those “boisterous” conferences my professors were always talking about. It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing turns out.
On a related note, John Hawks blogged last week on Peter Brown's response to claims that LB 1 has a filling. That appears to be basically resolved; as Hawks said, “That's enough to convince me.”
By the way, in addition to the two posts I just linked to, Hawks has an extensive archive of posts on H. floresiensis. You know, in case you're curious.
Anthropologists are basically awesome March 12, 2008
Posted by argotnavis in Archaeology, TV/Movies.Tags: archaeoblog, awesome, blogs, Flores, internet, John Hawks, physical anthropology
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I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had actually never read, or heard of, John Hawks' very entertaining (and educational!) blog before today. I discovered it this afternoon (via) and spent most of my free time at work reading through it. If you're at all interested in biological anthropology or human evolution, it's a pretty good read. His latest post on LB 1, for example, is pretty cool if you've been following the Hobbit news lately (edit: I guess I should point out that he has written, uh, a bit more about the Hobbits, too).
I, of course, was mostly drawn to his TV reviews. Here are some highlights:
The post that drew me in was his review of 10,000 BC drawn from the IMDb message board (apparently IMDb is the new YouTube). The “hey guys, the correct term is BP” comment really made this one for me.
His comparison of Apocalypto and Collapse sums up much more elegantly than I've ever been able to my basic opinion of Jared Diamond's writings on anthropology (see also).
This older entry is pretty good.
I enjoyed this even older entry simply because the discussion about “race” reminded me of something my skeletal analysis professor said: “Remember, the police generally are not interested in lectures on the socially constructed nature of race. They really just want you to help them figure out who those bones belonged to.”
This entry is easily one of my favorites.
Also, it's not in the TV reviews section, but I always think it's cool when I see reviews of papers by people I used to say hello to in the hall, such as this one. Even if that paper was over 20 years old at the time.
Anyway, the point is, he has a pretty cool blog. Someday I hope to be at least that cool. Perhaps I'll send him an e-mail and let him know . . . probably not, but hey.
