Two Museums in Minneapolis
Category: Archaeology
I was appalled to see how much recently looted archaeology the Minneapolis Institute of Arts shows.
Posted by Martin R at 3:52 AM • 14 Comments •
Aardvarchaeology
Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
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Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
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- 17th Century Pastoral Novel
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- How Is Energy Consumption Moderated In A Car?
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- Bengt Gabrielsson on Digging at the Finnestorp War Booty Sacrificial Site
- Martin R on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Birger Johansson on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Birger Johansson on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Martin R on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Martin R on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Birger Johansson on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Martin R on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Birger Johansson on 17th Century Pastoral Novel
- Martin R on My Autumn's And Winter's Work
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Blogroll
Sweden:
Wikileaks' Non-Mountainous Non-Bunker
Category: Tech
We're told that Wikileaks is "partly hosted on a server in Sweden that is lodged in a former nuclear bunker drilled deep inside the White Mountains". This confused be for a moment, since there is no mountain range of that name in Sweden.
Posted by Martin R at 3:34 AM • 7 Comments •
Gingerbread Cult of Saint Lucy
Category: Children
We really need a Candle Maiden in deep December when we're still a week on the wrong side of the solstice.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
Elitism?
Category: Politics
I can really see why people would be angry with their political class, their "elite", if the only way to join it was to pay huge term fees at Harvard or Princeton. But in Sweden, that is not the case.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 38 Comments •
Swedish Populists Want Folksy Art
Category: Art
Anyone with some knowledge about the issues at hand will recognise the whole thing from senator Jesse Helms's attacks 20 years ago against Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano and other Entartete artists. It's a breathtakingly naïve move.
Posted by Martin R at 11:59 AM • 34 Comments •
Swedish Election Results
Category: Politics
The only real reasons for me to rejoice somewhat after this election is that my housing estate's participation was significantly less crap than usual and that the anti-immigration party remains unrepresented in our municipal hall.
Posted by Martin R at 2:54 PM • 27 Comments •
Two Queenly Careers
Category: History
One thing that really gets me about these people is how briefly they lived, how little education they had and how young they were when they did the deeds that wrote them into history.
Posted by Martin R at 1:46 PM • 18 Comments •
Lukewarm Normative Scandy Atheism
Category: Skepticism
Because of blogging and my involvement in the skeptical pro-science movement, in recent years I have come into close contact with Americans as never before in my adult life. More than half of Aard's readers are in the US. It's...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 69 Comments •
Beautiful Vendel Period Jewellery
Category: Archaeology
I have mixed feelings about this paper now. From a scientific point of view, I'm very proud of it. But from a career-strategical point of view, however, I have to say that it was a failure.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 25 Comments •
Futile Land Reclamation
Category: Archaeology
It's tragicomical reading, really. Because regardless of whether people were trying to drain and cultivate bogs, or if they were digging for peat and trying to process and sell it, there was a huge disconnect between their high hopes and the actual outcome.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Rutabaga
Category: Food
Everybody knows that English has borrowed the words ombudsman and smorgasbord from Swedish. But did you know that rutabaga is another Swedish loan? And that it was borrowed from a rural Swedish dialect, not standard Swedish? "Rutabaga" is an American...
Posted by Martin R at 1:19 PM • 17 Comments •
Theological Carolling
Category: Sweden
Muslim immigrants have become more numerous from the 80s on, the Swedish Church separated from the state in 2000, and so it is no longer uncontroversial to bring entire school classes to church.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
Medieval Genius Sculptor Vaporised
Category: History
There are few named Medieval artists. And they have acted as magnets for attribution of anonymous masterpieces.
Posted by Martin R at 10:10 AM • 6 Comments •
Gay Men Allowed to Donate Blood (in Theory)
Category: Health
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has decided to change the rules. Gay men are now allowed to donate blood. If the last time they had sex with a man was more than a year ago.
Posted by Martin R at 8:47 AM • 17 Comments •
New Book on the Early History of the Stockholm Archipelago
Category: Archaeology
In addition to the archive reports on my two seasons of fieldwork at the Late Medieval and Early Modern harbour of Djurhamn, I have now published a paper that discusses and interprets the results.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Archaeological Namesakes
Category: Archaeology
I am not the first Rundkvist in Swedish archaeology.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Swedish Research Council Releases Funding Lists
Category: Archaeology
The Swedish Research Council just released the list of researchers who are getting funding this year. The following archaeological projects are on the list.Ingela Bergman: Trade, trade routes and Sami settlements -- socio-economic networks in northern Sweden AD 1000-1500. Gunilla...
Posted by Martin R at 1:14 PM • 9 Comments •
Anti-Monarchist
Category: Politics
Last night somebody googled the phrase "martin rundqvist republikan" and ended up here on my blog. Note the K: this person probably didn't wonder if I'd vote for Sarah Palin. They wondered what I think about the Swedish constitution,...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 29 Comments •
Marzipan Gold Hoard
Category: Archaeology
In 1995 a gold hoard was found at Vittene in Norra Björke parish, Västergötland. Its contents had been amassed over two centuries, and it was committed to the earth in the 3rd century AD.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
5th Century Regional Brooch Design
Category: Archaeology
Here's a piece of fragmentology. In the 19th century a brooch (inset) was found at Vistena in Allhelgona parish, Östergötland. It's a copper-alloy piece decorated with embossed silver sheet panels in the Nydam style, approx. AD 375-450. In 2008...
Posted by Martin R at 9:05 AM • 0 Comments •
Velvet Bolete Orgy
Category: Food
My wife and I made a short mushrooming excursion to Lake Lundsjön after lunch. Little more than half an hour in the woods garnered us only four species, but huge amounts of one: velvet bolete. We went home early...
Posted by Martin R at 10:57 AM • 4 Comments •
Archaeological Fatherhood
Category: Archaeology
I'm very proud to see that my brain babies are having babies of their own now. That proves to me that the work I put in back in the day was worthwhile.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Fresh New Site, 5000 Years Old
Category: Archaeology
My Stone Age bros Roger Wikell and Mattias Pettersson have descended from their Mesolithic heights and are now looking at Middle Neolithic sites in locations that were quite extreme at the time -- way, way out in the Baltic.
Posted by Martin R at 3:48 PM • 4 Comments •
Phobos-bound Tardigrades Portrayed
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 •
First Interplanetary Travellers Will Be Little Swedes
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 •
Ladies of the Barrow
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 •
Stjernsund Manor
Category: Photography
[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 •
Breaking and Making Bodies and Pots
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 •
Tern Island
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 •
Swedish History Reenactors in Canada
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 •
Medieval Stockholm
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 •
I've Made News in Västergötland
Category: Archaeology
My recent talk in Trävattna parish hall, Västergötland, was covered by two regional papers. Rune Torstenson has kindly scanned the items for me. The headlines read "Power once originated in the mead-hall" and "Searching for ancient power-wielders". To read...
Posted by Martin R at 7:54 AM • 4 Comments •
Axes and Grain for the Neolithic Gods
Category: Archaeology
They've been richly rewarded with the most essentially Neolithic kind of find possible: litre after litre after litre of carbonised grain.
Posted by Martin R at 9:10 AM • 6 Comments •
Digging at the Finnestorp War Booty Sacrificial Site
Category: Archaeology
Silted-up lakes whose anaerobic peat deposits are full of vandalised military equipment taken from unfortunate invading armies of the Iron Age...
Posted by Martin R at 3:23 PM • 3 Comments •
Book Completed With Skedevi and Regna
Category: Archaeology
I've been busy filling in gaps and writing the last piece of text for my Östergötland book. It's been my main project for almost four years.
Posted by Martin R at 11:40 AM • 3 Comments •
1950s Aerial Pics of the Swedish Countryside
Category: Archaeology
Employees in pilot uniforms would ride around in limousines and sell copies to the landowners.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Weekend Fun
Category: Tech
Saturday me and the kids went on an unusual package tour. First we took the 1903 steam ship Mariefred from Stockholm to Mariefred, and got to visit the engine room while the machine was working. Mariefred is a small...
Posted by Martin R at 2:51 PM • 14 Comments •
Libertarian Columnist Smears Sweden in the Guardian
Category: Politics
Andersson has fed his editor a scary interesting story that happens not to be true. His choice of words suggests that he has pretty extreme libertarian opinions that cause him to want the Swedish system to fail.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
11th Century Viking Silver Hoard Found
Category: Archaeology
Dating from the 11th century and consisting mainly of about 1000 German and English coins, it also has some Islamic ones, one from Sigtuna and even one from India, a very rare occurrence.
Posted by Martin R at 10:03 AM • 5 Comments •
Swedish Atheist Ad Campaign
Category: Skepticism
It may seem a little gratuitous in a country where few people are religious any more, but the ads make the point that there's a lot of quiet Christian influence still around in society.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 9 Comments •
17th Century Coin Forgery
Category: Archaeology
It appears to be a forged gold coin, consisting of a soft grey metal (tin?) with a thin coating of a yellow metal.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
Vänern Wreck Probably Not a Viking Ship
Category: Archaeology
I received pictures and x-rays of the purported weapons. I am quite sure that they are a) not weapons, and b) not from the Viking Period.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Conflict Between Universities and Former State Church of Sweden
Category: Skepticism
One of the evaluation's main findings is that the Church of Sweden has too much influence over the universities, and that this influence has grown in recent years.
Posted by Martin R at 3:20 PM • 9 Comments •
How To Metal Detect Legally In Sweden
Category: Archaeology
A friendly Englishman asked me how a law-abiding metal detectorist should go about getting a permit to pursue their hobby in this country.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 77 Comments •
Three Swedish Archaeology Programs Warned
Category: Archaeology
All the warnings are due to inadequate quantity and quality of teaching staff per student.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Ancient Power Nodes
Category: Archaeology
Anglophones find it really funny that one of Sweden's oldest towns is named Sick Tuna.
Posted by Martin R at 8:28 AM • 8 Comments •
Sättuna Fieldwork Report On-Line
Category: Archaeology
Check it out if you're into the Late Mesolithic!
Posted by Martin R at 8:22 AM • 4 Comments •
North Shore Battlefield
Category: Archaeology
I'm particularly interested in the pre-battle finds that are starting to accumulate.
Posted by Martin R at 11:37 AM • 2 Comments •
Prehistoric Reenactment Centre
Category: Archaeology
You can book guides with which you participate in flint knapping, leather working, cooking, archery, trapping and so on.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Sorted Newsfeed in Swedish
Category: Sweden
Printed newspaper are crap. The news in them is old, you still get entire multipage sections that you don't want, they use up trees and gasoline, they crowd your mailbox and you have to dispose of them after reading them....
Posted by Martin R at 9:34 AM • 4 Comments •
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