Now on ScienceBlogs: Casual Fridays: What makes a good writer, and what motivates them?
Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
August 31, 2009
Category: Having Fun
Logged four geocaches. One helped me discover a huge vestigial highway overpass. Highway 222 was built in the early '70s, and at one spot west of Nacka high school the road engineers thought that they might one day want to...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
August 30, 2009
Category: Space
Stacy L. Mason is an Aard regular and a talented artist. Check out his awesome interpretation of the Swedish tardigrades that are going to Phobos! In other news, I have issues with the lyrics of the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas...
Posted by Martin R at 2:33 AM • 8 Comments •
August 29, 2009
Category: Space
Those microdaddies will go to Phobos and back, and then biologists will be able to compare them to their stay-at-home buddies to learn what the environment out there in interplanetary space really does to an Earth creature.
Posted by Martin R at 8:43 AM • 3 Comments •
August 28, 2009
Category: Blogging
Quoth Overlord Erin,In the next three to four weeks, we'll be creating and unveiling a user registration program ... This will allow users to sign in, create a profile, track discussions they're interested in, customize their content, and interact with...
Posted by Martin R at 3:04 AM • 10 Comments •
August 27, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The main reason that I was asked on board was because there are weird rust flecks in the cremation layer. They look a lot like they might be really poorly preserved clench nails from a boat, like some of the ones me & Howard Williams found in the unburnt Skamby boat burial.
Posted by Martin R at 1:54 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
The seventy-fourth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Natures/Cultures. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome...
Posted by Martin R at 1:55 AM • 0 Comments •
August 25, 2009
Category: Art
Near Kaufdorf, Switzerland is an auto junkyard that was in use from the 1930s to 1970. It has become overgrown with various forest flora. Recently, the government has decreed the place an environmental hazard.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Blogging
The 74th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at Natures/Cultures tomorrow, Wednesday. Submit your best recent stuff to Adam. Anything anthro or archaeo goes!...
Posted by Martin R at 4:29 AM • 0 Comments •
August 24, 2009
Category: Art
[More blog entries about Sweden, photography, manor; Närke, Askersund, foto, herrgård.] My part-time employers, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, sometimes receive rather hefty donations. This is how they came to own Stjernsund manor near Askersund in the province of...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
August 22, 2009
Category: Skepticism
Regardless of the venue, you do not need to throw a senior archaeologist, a senior liberal theologian and a hot-shot Bible philologist at Mats Molén to win the debate.
Posted by Martin R at 9:50 AM • 23 Comments •
August 20, 2009
Category: Skepticism
The Nazis were no strangers to occultism. But Friedrich Marby was too much even for Himmler: he invented runic aerobics.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
August 19, 2009
Category: Books
Daryl Gregory has published a number of very good short stories over the past few years, notably a few science fiction pieces based on neuropsychiatry. So I was very keen to read his first novel, Pandemonium (Ballantine/Del Ray 2008). Genrewise...
Posted by Martin R at 4:10 PM • 4 Comments •
August 18, 2009
Category: Archaeology
As an Aardvarchaeology exclusive, here's the abstract of Å.M. Larsson's as yet not even printed thesis: bleeding-edge osteo-archaeology about the Middle Neolithic B in the Lake Mälaren area, c. 2800-2400 cal BC.
Posted by Martin R at 9:37 AM • 9 Comments •
August 17, 2009
Category: Biology
Sean B. Carroll's latest book, Remarkable Creatures, is a collection of mini-biographies of people who have made important discoveries in evolutionary biology.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
August 16, 2009
Category: Biology
On the island I found the dry leg of a dead bird on the seashore, soft tissue almost gone, sinews still holding it together, foot still covered with skin. And around the lower leg, an aluminium ring with a series of digits...
Posted by Martin R at 9:09 AM • 10 Comments •
August 14, 2009
Category: Food
I love black tea, and by that I mean brews from leaves of Camellia sinensis and C. s. assamica, nothing else, milk and sugar please. Earl Grey is basically Assam flavoured with oil of bergamot, a citrus fruit. It's OK...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 27 Comments •
August 13, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The seventy-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Greg Laden's blog. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology! Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. All bloggers with an interest in the subject...
Posted by Martin R at 12:31 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Space
Did you notice something funny about the Google logo yesterday? It was full of falling stars.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
August 11, 2009
Category: NOIBN
If you look up an organisation on Wikipedia, then the article will be pretty useless if it's written by people with any sort of passionate relationship to that organisation. If they hate it, if they love it, they're not the right people to write about it.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 26 Comments •
August 10, 2009
Category: Introspection
Maybe it isn't such a good idea to tell your kids they're anything else than just plain Joe & Jill. Because regardless of how talented (or not) they are, it is clearly possible to live a happy life without standing out in any way.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 39 Comments •
August 8, 2009
Category: Sweden
Imagine a flat gneiss and granite plateau criss-crossed by huge faults and crevices. Now run a few glaciations across it, sanding it down real good, so that everything is rounded.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
August 7, 2009
Category: Archaeology
The Institute for Archaeologists announces that one in six jobs in UK contract archaeology have been lost since the start of the recession, with more losses likely in the near future.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
August 6, 2009
Category: Film
From Birmingham art students Tanya Mircheva and Mihaela Calin, a clip about office-job boredom....
Posted by Martin R at 3:39 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
For almost 150 years, we have tried to make sense of Iron Age armies from their gear. Never have we really dreamed of finding the dead guys themselves!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
August 5, 2009
Category: Archaeology
It's a copper mine that was worked from 1723 until shortly after 1945. This is one of the coldest parts of Norway, which means that the wooden structures don't decay much through microbial action -- they mainly just erode.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
August 4, 2009
Category: Archaeology
We're seeing two periods of Scandy history being celebrated here. Tina & hubby represent the Viking Period in the 9th & 10th centuries. The other people, the ones erecting a may pole, are into the rural culture of the 19th century,
Posted by Martin R at 1:38 PM • 11 Comments •
August 2, 2009
Category: Archaeology
Time and time again, the town on the island and the heavily fortified castle at its northern end were in the hands of opposing political factions. Little wars were repeatedly fought between Stockholm town and castle!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
