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
Spent the day walking around Djurhamn with my colleague Kjell Andersson of the Stockholm County Museum, searching for visible field monuments and generally scoping the area out for our coming investigations. We found no new features belonging to the 16th and 17th cenury harbour, but we identified…
This is the first time that I'm aware of the US primary elections. I've never been very interested in the news, having at best a hazy idea even of Swedish politics. Blogging is entirely responsible for my heightened awareness of US political matters over the past two to three years. I've taken to…
One evening last week in North Carolina, walking back from Chapel Hill to the Holiday Inn along road 54, I heard this brilliant send-up of everything Barry White ever recorded on the radio. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you "Business Time" with Flight of the Conchords, live on stage!
A miniature face on a gilded cast copper-alloy display buckle, 5th century AD
One of the many things us Swedish archaeologists envy our Danish colleagues is their numerous large and well-preserved finds of Iron Age war booty. Clearly people in modern-day Denmark had the custom of sacrificing war…
A pretty Chinese maths teacher said hello to me on ICQ the other day, hoping to marry a Westerner. This inspired me to dig out and re-post the following entry from November 2006.For many years I have spent most of my working days alone at a computer. Alone, but thanks to the internet and messaging…
The thirty-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Greg Laden's. His blog is, err, like, laden with archaeology and anthropology.
Here's a healthy chunk of video footage from the session on blogging about humanities and social sciences that I chaired at the NC Science Blogging Conference Saturday before last. Much of it shows me and Jennifer Jacquet looking blank as we listen to people speaking off-camera.
I wrote this last night in Florida, but the hotel wifi was on the blink, so I couldn't get it on-line. I am now at Newark airport in New Jersey, having just eaten my first bowl of matzoh soup. Oy vey, good stuff!
Audience frowning in concentration
I've been to gaming conventions and academic…
Spent yesterday volunteering at the James Randi Educational Foundation, doing manual work and getting to know people. I moved furniture, cleaned up trash, painted a door and pasted errata sheets into books. And everybody was so nice to me! Loads of good conversation and silly jokes. I'm here as a…
Took a walk around the local geocaches, ended up trapped for half an hour in a nightmarish retirement community. Endless identical white single-story houses with garages and immaculate lawns, the streets deserted in the baking January afternoon. I was half-expecting octogenarian Stepford wives to…
Descending toward Ft Lauderdale airport this morning, I was shocked by the expanse of suburban sprawl stretching to the horizon below me. A huge drained swamp, all flat, covered by an intricate pattern of canals and streets and plots with low single buildings, broken only by a few golf courses and…
Back in April, I installed Ubuntu Linux on my oldish Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, bought in early 2005. Ubuntu's rapid boot process and snappy action has made it my favourite operating system (while I continue to run Win XP and Mac OS on other machines). The sense of non-commercialism is also nice.…
I just popped out for a burger at Arbee's, and I chose a seat with a good view of the full moon riding high over a Shell gas station. On the wall of the station was a large luminescent white sign bearing the words "Build Your Life on Eternal Truths". Chapel Hill has a huge number of churches, most…
Above is a candid pic by Nathan L. Walls, showing yours truly at Saturday's hum & soc sci session. The teeshirt is from the Swedish Skeptics and reads "I am skeptical" in an obscure North-European language.
Yesterday's highlights were
An informal brunch with congressman Brad Miller, who came…
A good thing about jet lag is that it gets you up in the morning. I awoke at five, played around with the computer, showered, breakfasted and was outside at half past seven.
It's a brisk, cold sunny morning with snowy lawns and smoking breath. I took a short walk over to the nearest geocache (by…
Whew, what a day! I've been to the Second NC Science Blogging Conference, and I've had a blast.
The best part was actually to meet loads and loads of blogging friends whom I'd only seen in pictures. Amazing to actually meet them, hug or shake hands, talk and laugh. I even listened in as Bora…
I'm back in the US for the first time since 2002. Before that, the last time was in 1978, when I had lived in Greenwich, Connecticut and gone to Kindergarten for two years. Everybody's way fatter than I remember them. But very cheerful and friendly.
My first time in North Carolina: I'm at the…
Anybody in the Ft Lauderdale area want to meet up some time 23-24 January? I'd like to befriend some natives!
I'm touching down at FLL at noon on Wednesday the 23rd and will be staying in Plantation. I'll be a tourist during Wednesday and Thursday, and then I'll attend the TAM 5.5 skeptical…
Anybody in the Chapel Hill / Durham area want to meet up some time 20-22 January? I'd like to befriend some natives!
I'm attending the NC Science Blogging conference in Research Triangle Park on Saturday 19 January. After that, I'm staying on in Chapel Hill until Wednesday morning 23 Jan. I'm going…
Around the time when a senior academic retires, she will, if she's lucky, receive a Festschrift. The word is German and means "celebration publication": typically, it's an anthology put together by her colleagues and students. The contents of a Festschrift often vary wildly in quality and level of…
The thirty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Testimony of the Spade. Archaeology and anthropology and anthropology and archaeology!
Also, don't miss the 78th Skeptics' Circle over at Skeptical Surfer.
Here's breaking news.
Many European archaeologists feel bad about Nazi archaeology in the past. In my opinion, this is usually way overstated: a few of our pre-War colleagues were Nazis, which was opportune at the time, but archaeology had (and has) nothing like the kind of political oomph…
Conservation of the early-16th century sword I found back in August continues apace at Studio Västsvensk Konservering. Its preservation is exquisite, and as usual with conservation of metal objects, a lot of new discoveries are made in the lab. Check out Vivian Smits' photographs!
This is clearly…
Western European archaeology is largely a humanistic tradition where many scholars have little knowledge of the natural sciences. For instance, I myself haven't studied natural sciences in any organised way since high school. Still, in my field, I'm known as an unusually science-orientated guy. (…
My friend Mickey Huss (the virtual lamprey guy) has alerted me to the existence of near-future noir flick Gene Generation. It's said to be the first Hollywood movie directed by a Singaporean. I haven't seen it, but I gotta say, that's the first non-porn movie poster I've come across that's shot…
I had a meeting with my geophysicist buddy Immo Trinks of the National heritage Board the other day, and he showed me an amazing Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey from Borre in Vestfold, Norway.
Borre is Norway's equivalent of Old Uppsala, with a large cemetery with huge barrows. One was…
Hey everyone, and welcome to the 96th Tangled Bank blog carnival! This is where you can toadally catch up with the best recent blog writing on the life sciences.
Beasties
Grrlscientist at Living the Scientific Life explains why bright blue tits make better mothers.
Tangled Up In Blue Guy gives…
Felicia, Tor, Jesper, Johan, Thinker, Paddy, Kai, Lars, Martin R, Martin C. Photographs by friendly man at nearby table, shoppery by Lars.
Our latest Stockholm after-work blogmeet was way back in September. It was high time for another one! Good food, good company, silly jokes. And Paddy K hatched…
Turquoise mosaic dragon and bronze bell in rich male burial at Erlitou, phase II, c. 18th century BC.
A really good historical source is coeval with the events it describes, or it may even form a part of those events, such as in the case of a land deed. It is written by a knowledgeable participant…
Canadian newspaper The National Post seems to be subscribing to a blog-buzz service that everybody on Sb got onto a while ago. Therefore, I just got an intriguingly worded letter from Canadian creationist David Johnston (appended below the fold for the edification of the interested Dear Reader).
In…