Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
I received submissions from eight people for this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. From my perambulations around the internet, however, I knew that there were more good posts than this. So I went out and drafted some folks. As I sat at my computer trying to organize the wide variety of posts assembled for this edition it began to dawn on me that I was, perhaps, a little over ambitious. I thought about just not using some of the stuff I had found, but didn't think that would be fair. So, fair warning this edition is not a tidy well organized edition. What we see is the wide variety of subject matter covered by the field of anthropology in all its chaotic glory. One of the interesting things about hosting the Fourstone Hearth is that you learn about new anthropology blogs - and there are several in this edition that are new to me. So, if you have not hosted before you might consider giving it a try. You can learn more about hosting here.
Disability Studies, Temple U. tells us about the prosthetic toe found, recently, in Cairo. This may be the world's oldest example of a prosthetic device.
Kris Hirst tells us about aNew Elite Burial Discovered at Sipán
Julien at A very Remote Period Indeed gives us an update on a story that refueses to go away in That Hill in Bosnia. You won't believe what she has to say.
Martin has a similarly unbelievable post in Swedish Heritage Board: "We Have Abandoned All Scientific Ambition". Apparently, POMO reigns at the Swedish Heritage Board.
Christopher Witmore has a A comment on "What comes after Post-processualism???"
Savage Minds has a post which brings an end to the POMO section of the Hearth in A Grumpy 'Counterdiscourse' - gotta love Sahlins!
Fennelle Miller has some questions about The Rise of GPS & GIS Requirements.
Golublog also has some interesting news about open access - this in the form of a free book on land tenure in Australia and Papua New Guinea
Carl at Hot Cup of Joe has an interesting post about Blogging for Anthropology and Archaeology that is definitely worth reading.
Chris O'Brien gives us A Preview Of Lassen County Science Camp - but you will have to read the post to find out how in relates to archaeology.
Pursed Lip Square Jaw tells us about Collaborative work is hard, and other thoughts on research residencies - very interesting stuff.
In, perhaps, my favorite post of the last little while, Duane at Abnormal Interests tells us about Helena Zheng. Ostensibly about the departure of a friend, the post talks about what it means to be an outsider and what community means.
Speaking of outsiders, Linguistic Anthropology talks about Invisible Minority Languages
Magnus Reuterdahl at Testimony of the Spade tells us about Hulta klint and Singoallas grotta - the latter being featured in the work of Viktor Rydbergs.
Motes and Theories on Anthropology tells us what an athropology degree will get us in Anthro majors gone wild! - I can relate...
This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics tells us why reality TV stars should consult cultural anthropologists in Going Paula.
Alun tries to unravel The Rotherwas Ribbon.
Some of you may remember the recent article in Nature purporting to prove that anatomically modern humans evolved in a single center in Africa. John Hawks says Not So Fast".
Kambiz at Anthropology.Net takes on Intelligent Design advocate, and self styled expert on paleoanthropology, in If upright walking is so energetically favorable, why do apes still "knuckle-walk"?
Yann Klimentidis tells us that Monogamy associated with larger brain - fascinating stuff!
Eric Johnson at Primate Diaries has three posts in this edition. The first, Bonobo (Re)Visions talks about the recent New Yorker article and why it was wrong. The second, Life Lessons: How the grandmother hypothesis hits the nail on the head. takes aim at the intelligent design movement by talking about life history theory and reproductive senescence. The third discusses The Evolution of Morality.
Martin at Aardvarchaeology recently had a one-off blog carnival called The Ever-Present Past: Your Nearest Site in which he asked readers to go to their nearest archaeology site, take pictures and post them on their blog. For my contribution to the Four Stone Hearth I shamelessly ripped the idea off, er, I mean I creatively modified it for my own wonderful purpose. In Know your Primate: Colobus guereza I asked readers to go to their local zoo and take a picture of the behind of a black and white colobus. You will have to read the post to find out why...
A late strangler, Tim Jones at Remote Central reveals that the Whalebone Mask May Rewrite Aleut History.
So, that is all for this edition. The next edition of the Four Stone Hearth will be hosted at Archaeolog on August 15th.
Comments
Extra points for the use of the word "perambulations."
Also, the next Boneyard is coming up this Saturday, so if you want to thrown in on the new edition just let me know.
Posted by: Laelaps | August 1, 2007 1:32 PM
The post I *wanted* to have done & up in time for this submission is finally posted: Forbidden Archaeology? The Nampa Image Hoax.
I thought I'd include it here in the comments since I think the post above was from the *last* 4SH. I'm so bad this summer... letting the summer sun get to me :)
Cheers,
Carl
Posted by: cfeagans | August 2, 2007 3:58 PM
Thanks a lot for taking the time to post my late story, cheers.
Posted by: Tim Jones | August 2, 2007 5:36 PM