Aardvarchaeology
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, board gamer, bookworm, and father of two.
aardvarchaeology | January 4, 2009Dear Reader, remember the remote-controlled Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity? How long is it since the last time you thought of them? Spirit landed on Mars five Earth years ago today, Opportunity on 25 January -- and both are still going strong! These machines were originally meant to work for three months, yet they continue to trundle around that cold, distant planet, taking pictures and analysing rocks. Check out the project's web site for news!
[More blog entries about astronomy, space, mars, nasa; astronomi, rymden, mars, nasa.]
aardvarchaeology | January 3, 2009The fifty-seventh Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Testimony of the Spade. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology!
Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. The next open hosting slot is on 28 January, weeks from now. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me for hosting. No need to be an anthro pro.
aardvarchaeology | January 2, 2009The houses in our new neighbourhood are clones of one basic design: an L-shaped single-story structure with a fenced yard inside the angle of the L. The main entrance (1) is on one of the L's outer long walls. The grubby-boots entrance (2) is on the gable adjoining the wall with entrance 1. Finally, there's an entrance from the yard (3) which in many cases is fitted to be unlocked only from the inside: it's how the architect intended us to reach the yard from inside the house.
Our particular specimen of this design only has entrance 3, combining the functions of all three entrances from the…
aardvarchaeology | December 31, 2008I have made peace with the passing of the 70s. I no longer feel that the 80s is the default present decade during which everything still happens. But let me tell you, Dear Reader, in my mind the 90s still lie mostly in the future. Windows 98 is a very new operating system. Nobody born in the 90s is able yet to walk or eat or use the potty unaided. I was really shocked when I realised that people born in the 80s were playing hockey and participating in porn.
And now there's only one year left of the Noughties. To me it's been a decade of fatherhood, of my second marriage, of PhD-hood, of site…
aardvarchaeology | December 30, 2008A house I have been asked to check in on over the holiday season was burgled last night along with two neighbouring houses. I've been on the phone to the police and the window repairman, and then I've been showing them around. My acquaintances had a burglary alarm system with motion detectors -- on the first and second floors. The burglars somehow scaled the wall to the third floor, broke open the window to a bedroom and went in. There they rifled through all cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, left a laptop computer and a TV untouched, opened a second window and nimbly jumped out. Looks like…
aardvarchaeology | December 29, 2008
Today marks Aard's second anniversary. I'm still having fun and hope you are too! Looking at October and November, the blog had about 950 unique readers daily and was ranked #24 out of 74 blogs on Sb. I recently updated the Best of Aard page for those of you who want to check out some past goodies.
For much of these two years I have bragged in the left-hand side-bar that Aard had the highest Technorati rank among the net's archaeology blogs. This is no longer so, and the main reason is that I have stopped hosting blog carnivals. Technorati ranks a blog according to the number and quality of…
aardvarchaeology | December 28, 2008John Ajvide Lindqvist's 2004 debut novel Låt den rätte komma in came as a pleasant surprise. From a stand-up comedian of respectable but unremarkable standing, suddenly we had this excellent vampire novel set in a staid Stockholm suburb in 1982 -- a time and a place I personally know quite well.
The novel is about adolescent friendship set against a thematic backdrop of forbidden thirst: the young vampire Eli craves blood, his paedophile handyman lusts for children, and the worn drunks upon whom they prey convene around their thirst for alcohol -- and friendship. There are a few scenes of…
aardvarchaeology | December 24, 2008Merry Christmas, Dear Reader! I am in a good mood, checking my mail while most of the celebrants at my dad's house watch the annual Disney special, just having dropped my kids off for dinner at my mom's place where my son's mom will join them. This, you understand, can only be Scandinavia, where:
Christmas Eve is a big thing and Christmas Day nothing,
People are willing to watch the same Donald Duck show every year,
Everybody's a divorcee.
I hope you also have a good stressless Christmas in enjoyable company!
aardvarchaeology | December 22, 2008Blogging's been low what with many boxes to unpack and no broadband connection. But things are getting into shape at home. Hope I find the electric drill tonight so I can get some of the paintings up off the floor.
Archaeology Magazine is a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America and so tends to concentrate on areas of the world where US archaeologists work. I recently got a complimentary subscription and received the Jan/Feb issue, whose cover story is a richly illustrated feature piece about Maya beauty ideals (abstract available on-line). My dentist was fascinated to see the…
aardvarchaeology | December 21, 2008The fifty-sixth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at The Greenbelt. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology!
Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. The next open hosting slot is on 28 January, a bit more than a month from now. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me for hosting. No need to be an anthro pro.
aardvarchaeology | December 18, 2008
Very timely, a friend told me that his ex-employer is getting rid of furniture. We have enough for about 90 sqm, which leaves us with 24 sqm to furnish in the new house. So, I took the opportunity to grab a 1940s mahogany laminate table with six matching chairs and a 1990s Gärsnäs solid-birch sofa.
aardvarchaeology | December 16, 2008
Here are two snaps of my new home, taken just after breakfast today (the first bread I've baked in the house!). Both are taken toward the north: one from the kitchen door toward the dining room, the other standing just west of the dining room and looking down the length of the living room.
Note:
Many Swedes hang a star-shaped lamp in their windows during December. It harks back to the star of Bethlehem but is really just a feeble attempt to alleviate seasonal affective disorder (cf. our celebration of St. Lucy).
The semi-assembled book case ended up like that because I haven't found the…
aardvarchaeology | December 15, 2008I'm typing this on my smartphone while digesting an evening meal of ramen noodles, egg and Chinese Sauerkraut from the tin. I'm in our new house. It's a mess, boxes everywhere. My wife is having a foot bath. Juniorette is playing with legos in her room. Both are singing in Mandarin.
Yesterday a crew of about fifteen friends & family moved our stuff here -- many thanks guys! I am very proud to have so many good people in my life whom I can rely on.
Today my wife and I skipped work and spent the day getting things into order. I've done some washing and assembled two book cases and a high…
aardvarchaeology | December 12, 2008
After a bit more than seven and a half years, we're leaving our apartment on Burbot Street and moving to a 114 sqm house on Shroud Street. Fisksätra's four main housing areas have street names themed for fish, fishing gear, boat details and sea birds respectively. I've lived on Carp Bream Street and Grayling Street before. Spent most of my young manhood in those three apartments. And now Junior deserves a room of his own and my wife wants a corner for her easel and a few flower beds. Me, I want... I don't actually want anything I haven't already got (except a uni job). But I look forward to…
aardvarchaeology | December 10, 2008The Swedish language has produced three truly great fantasists. Two are internationally reknowned: Astrid Lindgren (with Pippi Longstocking) and Tove Jansson (with Moomin). The third, Erik Granström, is almost exclusively known among Swedish gaming nerds like myself. From 1987 to 1994 he published a series of wildly innovative adventure and background books for the Swedish role-playing game Drakar och Demoner. Granström's material soared miles above the fare us ex-kobolds were used to, particularly the 1988 travelogue/novella that introduced us to the islands of Trakoria. I game-mastered…
aardvarchaeology | December 10, 2008
Gold disc brooch from King's Field, early 7th century. This cloisonné ornament has lost all the garnets that originally filled its gold-walled cells. BM 1028.a.'70.
From my buddy Barry Ager at the British Museum comes big news: the museum has launched a state-of-the-art on-line catalogue. Search here.
In Stockholm, being aye-tee savvy Scandies, we have of course had this sort of thing for years and years already at the Museum of National Antiquities. Search here. But admittedly our collections don't quite have the BM's scope.
aardvarchaeology | December 9, 2008
Two weeks ago I left my pocket calendar on my desk at the Academy of Letters where I only work one day a week. This was inconvenient as I rely entirely on the calendar to remember what I'm supposed to do apart from my weekly routine. When I finally got my hands on it again last Thursday, it calmly informed me that I was due to give a talk that same evening.
The mishap made me decide to switch to an on-line calendar instead. I spend hours every day using on-line computers, and my smartphone allows me to call the site up when I'm moving about. So, though the new year is approaching, I'm…
aardvarchaeology | December 9, 2008Another career whine.
Applying for academic jobs that are invariably given to people who are much older than me, I've come across a frustrating conundrum.
In Scandyland, it takes about seven months from the application deadline to decide who gets an academic job. This is because the selection process is guided by two or three external referees. The department doesn't get to choose the person they want, but they can pretty much choose the referees, and so influence whether they'll be likely to get e.g. an empiricist or a theoretician.
Now, one of the most important assets an academic can…
aardvarchaeology | December 8, 2008
Working with the Gothenburg Historical Society's metal detector group at Sättuna near Linköping in the spring of 2007, I was fortunate enough to be on site when Niklas Krantz found the thirteenth gold foil figure die known to scholarship. These dies were used in the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries to make tiny images of gods or rulers out of gold foil. The beauty of the dies is that the figures themselves are too small and light to trigger a most metal detectors. Not so the dies. And finding one of them is more interesting than finding a foil figure, since the die documents a site where the…
aardvarchaeology | December 6, 2008My friend of twenty years, retired broadcaster Lars Erik Ãström, died the other day of cancer at age 69. Too soon by far: he has young grandchildren and he was a very good man without whom the world is worse. MaðR harða goðr. I will think of him every time I read of caves and flottholmar, floating islands.
Lars Erik's family posted a lovely secular obit notice headed by a big omega, symbol of caves and the final letter of the Greek alphabet. I translate:
With warmth we remember your wisdom, your high-precision sense of humour and your sonorous radio voice. We had such a good time and got…