Martin Rundkvist
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
Posts by this author
July 26, 2008
Anybody got a copy of Chaosium's 1980 game-rules booklet Basic Role-Playing? And the 1982 Worlds of Wonder boxed set, specifically the Magic World booklet? I'd love to have a look at them (photocopies or a brief loan would be fine), since combined and translated they became the first Swedish role-…
July 25, 2008
Here's a cool update on the old Programmer Mel story, a tech-nerdy short story by George Dyson on Google as an emergent AI. It's sort of a fantasy-fulfillment tale for the boomers who seem to make up the bulk of the Edge crowd. This time Mel is named Ed, probably in honour of Ed Nather who wrote…
July 24, 2008
On my evening walk, while listening to a Skepticality interview with secular humanists Mel Lipman and Lori Lipman Brown, I took some pix of fireweed growing in weird places. (That's Epilobium angustifolium, Sw. rallarros, mjölkört, "railroad man's rose", "milk plant"). The plant propagates by…
July 23, 2008
Alun tells me that Google Knol is now live. It's like Wikipedia, only written by experts and pwned by Google. Check it out!
Also, I happened upon Everything2, this other weird & interesting hypertext community where anything goes, not modeled on an encyclopedia.
July 23, 2008
A Trondheim colleague has kindly invited me to head a session at the Nordic TAG conference next May. T.A.G. means "Theoretical Archaeology Group", and denotes a series of annual conferences rather than a defined group of people. The invitation hinted that I might perhaps want to contribute…
July 22, 2008
Pandemic is a new board game for 1-4 players. The players take on the roles of field operatives for the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA, as four simultaneous pandemics threaten global life and civilisation. It's a collaborative game: either you find cures in time and everybody wins --…
July 21, 2008
I'm a big fan of sculptress Maria Lundberg, particularly her work in hardwood. Now, I can't afford to buy her stuff. But being a good friend of the family, she's agreed to a somewhat unusual arrangement. I've rented one of her pieces for a year.
Most artists have a large backlog of unsold work…
July 20, 2008
A man in northern Sweden recently found a giant vertebra in a lake at 210 meters above sea level. A preliminary statement from the National Museum of Natural History suggests that it may belong to a whale. The find spot hasn't been near the sea since the end of the latest ice age. I'm looking…
July 19, 2008
A much-publicised trial in Falun, Sweden is giving me a funny feeling. The man on the stand has confessed to the murder of a woman and a small girl, and is also charged with the violent rape of both and of a second woman. The case makes me feel queasy in more ways than one.
Anybody half sane will…
July 18, 2008
Amateur archaeologist Bob Lind, whom I have often mentioned here in connection with his wild archaeoastronomical ideas, issued me a challenge today (and I translate):
Hello Martin!
I saw a statement of yours in yesterday's Sydsvenska Dagbladet, where you encourage researchers to blog more, which…
July 17, 2008
Reading up on some pseudoscientific ideas common among dowsing-rod enthusiasts, I happened upon a funny detail. Many Swedish dowsers believe in the "Curry grid", consisting of "power lines" across the surface of the Earth, detectable only by dowsing. They were invented (not discovered, as they are…
July 16, 2008
On my desk is a copy of the 2009 Skepdude pinup calendar. It features lascivious images of many prominent skeptical gentlemen, including D.J. Grothe, Hemant Mehta and Brian Dunning. For March, there's even a picture of a skinny white dude in partial déshabillé, skilfully shot by my art-school-…
July 14, 2008
I know what a documentary film is. I know what fiction is. And I know what a mockumentary is: a fictional documentary. Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy attempts to combine these approaches within the framework of comedic fiction, and it left me really confused.
Director and narrator Randy Olson…
July 13, 2008
Paddy K is hiking in Scotland without any portable internet connection. He just texted me a request for the coordinates of the Bridge of Orchy. He's currently in Inverardran, about 20 km SSE of the bridge. People in the area who would like to meet a charming Irish/Swedish blogger are encouraged to…
July 11, 2008
Everybody with an interest in anthropology and archaeology who isn't lost in some green summery haze far from the nearest internet connection -- it's time to contribute good new blog entries to next week's Four Stone Hearth blog carnival. You needn't have written them yourself: if you've found…
July 11, 2008
I often dig old crap out of the ground, so today's chore at the summer house provided some novelty. I won't say welcome novelty: I re-cut the cesspit and emptied the outhouse barrel, burying new crap.
In recent years, there has been a vogue among archaeological museums to host "incavations". Museum…
July 10, 2008
Today we dug and sieved our 33rd and last square-meter test pit at Djurhamn, and I took the gear back to the County Museum's stores. Unless a colleague with better early-modern pottery skillz than mine provides any surprises, it seems that we have not found any of the evidence for 16th/17th century…
July 7, 2008
I spent Thursday and Friday digging test pits with a group of energetic volunteers at Djurhamn, the first two of seven planned days in the field. The great Ehrsson brothers are now joined by an equally solid Ehrsson nephew, among other hard-working people. We're looking for archaeological evidence…
July 5, 2008
The forty-fourth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Greg Laden's blog. Archaeology and anthropology, and all about luta livre!
Luta livre is a broad term referring to wrestling in Portuguese. In Brazil, it may also refer to a martial art that resembles catch wrestling. With the…
July 4, 2008
Here's a set of pics from the Music Tuscany mini-festival near San' Giovanni d'Asso in Tuscany, Italy, last week.
July 4, 2008
I've put some pix from my recent trip to Tuscany in Italy on-line.
In other news, my wife has suggested a brilliant and radical re-interpretation of the Swedish 70s dansband pop hit "Margareta", by Sten & Stanley. Comprehensible only to speakers of Scandy, I'm afraid.
July 3, 2008
Journey to 10,000 BC is a new made-for-TV documentary about Clovis-era North American archaeology and palaeontology (not to be confused with Roland Emmerich's baroque fantasy feature 10,000 BC). The format of the film is conventional: a voiceover intercut with clips from interviews with scholars.…
July 2, 2008
Here's an interesting development. Top science bloggers have become a commodity hot enough that a situation like that in European football is emerging. Players are getting snatched from team to team through hostile buyout (Carl Zimmer of The Loom), and the number of really good non-pro players is…
June 29, 2008
Since some time in the early 80s I've laboured delightedly and intermittently to catch up with Ursula K. LeGuins oeuvre. I've covered her collections of short fiction and essays, and I will soon have her novels done, leaving the poetry and short kids' books.
Apart from her latest novel, I've yet to…
June 28, 2008
Drove yesterday to the village of San Giovanni d'Asso (Sw. Sankt Hans pÃ¥ Dass). Stopped on the way at an excavation, the church site of San Pietro in Pava, where as yet poorly known Roman activity gave way to continuous church use from the 6th through the 13th century. Nobody was on site because…
June 26, 2008
Got up early this morning, six thirty, and slipped out for an hour's walk. The sun was already pretty high but still veiled in mist. I walked past vineyards and olive groves toward a farmhouse until yapping guard dogs made me turn on my heel, and then I left the road.
The area is heavily altered by…
June 25, 2008
I write this sitting in a rental car near the Cathedral of Montalcino, a small Medieval fortified hilltop town in the heart of Tuscany's brunello wine district. Sweat is running freely down my forehead and nose, no matter that the windows are open and the car is in a shaded alley. Wife and children…
June 24, 2008
The beavers are rallying in Sweden, multiplying and repossessing old habitat. The other day I rode my bike to Lake Källtorpssjön and photographed some beaver work.
June 23, 2008
Over at Podcastle, I just heard an amazing reading/performance of an amazing surrealist love story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery". It was written by John Schoffstall, first published as text two years ago, and read by Heather Lindsley at Random Jane. It's got some gore and a few naughty…