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
January 20, 2007
The Anthropology Review Database currently contains 2667 reviews and citations, almost exclusively of books/films/CDs on social anthropology. A cool feature of the site is that they offer review copies to volunteer reviewers: currently there are 162 titles available. So if you feel that you would…
January 19, 2007
Scandinavian animal art starts in the late 4th century AD and goes through a long series of innovative styles until it's abandoned in the 12th century and a naive version of Continental Romanesque takes over.
One of the weirdest, funniest and most abstruse varieties of animal art is what Bernhard…
January 18, 2007
A gifted friend of mine suffers from a continuous psychological dilemma. He wants to be more productive and become somewhat famous, but he's pretty lazy and there isn't anything in particular he really wants to do. So, despite being hugely talented, he often feels inadequate. His problem is that he…
January 18, 2007
One of the journals I edit periodically receives letters from an old man in the country. They are written in an old-style hand with many quaint expressions of respect, and concern the price of subscription and back issues. The letters are clearly products of an old brain stuck in an infinite loop.…
January 17, 2007
British author and elderblogger Michael Allen, a.k.a. the Grumpy Old Bookman, has just released Lucius the Club. It's a new 48-page crime story available as a free CC-licensed PDF and a €4 chapbook from Lulu. I haven't read it yet, but I've enjoyed his other recent fiction very much and I follow…
January 17, 2007
Dear Reader, welcome to the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival -- in science land! 4SH is about anthropology in the widest (American) sense: nothing human is alien to us, from Homo habilis bones via Early Medieval metalworking debris to on-line gaming subcultures.
Aardvarchaeology is my new blog,…
January 17, 2007
A recurring theme in my blogging of the past year (e.g. here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4) has been that a degree in Scandinavian archaeology (BA, MA or PhD) is almost entirely useless from a career perspective. The reason is that our labour market is over-populated at all levels, from the lowly shovel-wielder…
January 15, 2007
Coturnix over at A Blog Around the Clock announces that the 2006 Science Blogging Anthology has now been published. The title is The Open Laboratory. Very apt! As mentioned here before, the volume contains a piece by yours truly. Get it while it's fresh!Zivkovic, Bora. 2007. The Open Laboratory.…
January 15, 2007
The British Museum has purchased a set of 7th century golden garnet-studded sword hilt mounts from a metal detectorist who found them at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England, in 2002.
It's a funny find: the hilt has clearly been deposited in one piece with all the mounts held together by the tang…
January 15, 2007
Reader "Chez Jake" suggests that I might write a few "basics of archaeology" posts like other Sb bloggers are doing. I'd be happy to! Dear Reader, please tell me something basic you'd like me to explain about archaeology that isn't answered well by Wikipedia.
January 15, 2007
The Swedish Skeptic Society's annual awards for 2006 were announced yesterday. (See also the 2005 awards.)
Professor of international healthcare Hans Rosling receives the Enlightener of the Year award,
"... for his enlightening efforts to spread a fact-based picture of the state and development…
January 14, 2007
Behold R. Hampton's excellent masthead banner! Book token goodness and a massive charisma bonus are coming hes way.
The blog-reading public has reacted very favourably to my move to Scienceblogs on 29 December. Statshot: my old Blogger site is still attracting 136 median unique first-time readers a…
January 14, 2007
Since a 1997 change in UK law, metal detectorists in that insular realm are reporting ever more finds to the authorities.David Lammy, the minister of culture, said that metal detetectorists who spend days scanning newly ploughed fields in the hope that a beep will lead them to buried treasure, are…
January 13, 2007
My buddy Hans asked,Do you mean that no excavations are done on churchyards, even though they are from the Middle Ages? Why?
A Medieval Swedish churchyard abandoned more than about a century ago will be excavated with great care if threatened. For instance, this happened recently at the cathedral…
January 13, 2007
Chris O'Brien at Northstate Science gave a speedy reply to my questions of this morning.
It seems that any evaluation of whether the US has strong or weak site protection depends upon what standards are actually followed when a site is considered for the National Register of Historic Places. I…
January 12, 2007
Chris O'Brien at Northstate Science has a great post comparing US and Swedish site protection rules, a response to my entry on who owns archaeological finds in Sweden. I'm definitely recruiting his entry for next week's Four Stone Hearth carnival. (To which all readers are invited to contribute.)…
January 12, 2007
I wrote my PhD thesis about the largest prehistoric cemetery on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The place is named Barshalder and straddles the boundary between Grötlingbo and Fide parishes. The first graves are from the early 1st century AD and the last from about the year 1100. Some…
January 12, 2007
Something that may be the earliest known settlement site in the Americas has been found -- in Minnesota of all places. It's just a knapped-stone assemblage, no organics, so there can be no radiocarbon dates until they dig some more and get lucky. The find's position in the geological stratigraphy…
January 11, 2007
Spaced-out humorous occultist, conspiracy novelist and psychonaut Robert Anton Wilson has passed away.
January 11, 2007
Any artists out there? This blog needs a nice masthead banner at the top. I'd like it to feature the following:The word AardvarchaeologyAt least one recognisable aardvarkRecognisable archaeology stuff, e.g. a square pit, a spoil dump, a sieve, a trowel, a bucket, a folding rule, a metal detector, a…
January 11, 2007
The Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is coming up here at Aardvarchaeology on Wednesday 17 January. 4SH is about anthropology in the widest American sense: the study of humankind, throughout all times and places. Four lines of research are emphasised (the stones of the hearth):Socio-cultural…
January 11, 2007
Ship burials are rare and signal royal status: Sutton Hoo, Oseberg, Gokstad, Borre, Tune. Burials in smaller boats, large enough for only three or four pairs of oars and useless on the high sea, are far more common (though never a majority rite). The most famous and richly equipped boat…
January 10, 2007
Check out Lars Lundqvist's web site about the Slöinge excavations in Halland, Sweden! It's been on-line for ages and I only found it just now. All in English.
The above picture shows a tiny gold foil figure of an embracing couple -- possibly the divine ancestors touted by Vendel Period aristocrats…
January 10, 2007
For the last couple of years, a new kind of beggar has operated in the Stockholm subway. These people walk through the carriage handing out little photocopied notes, and then they move back, collecting the notes and whatever spare change people are willing to give. The notes say things like "I am…
January 9, 2007
I just came across a pretty far-out book. On 1 December, Isto Huvila passed his viva for the PhD degree in information science in Turku/Åbo, Finland. His thesis is entitled The Ecology of Information Work (available on-line)."The study explores an interface between the human patterns of…
January 9, 2007
The kids' teachers had a training day yesterday, so we picked up a visiting cousin in town and went to the science centre in Södertälje. I hesitate to tell you its name: the place's mascot is for some reason named Tom Tit, and there's no genitive apostrophe in Swedish, so our much-beloved science…
January 9, 2007
In the left-hand sidebar are two new buttons, one of which will, if pressed, mark Aardvarchaeology as one of your favourite blogs on Technorati. The other one will allow you to rate the blog with the Swedish service Bloggtoppen: yea verily, you can either pan it or praise it. Use them wisely, kids.
January 8, 2007
One of my blog entries from last spring has made it into a science blogging anthology (a "blook") edited by fellow Sber Coturnix! It'll soon be published as a paperback through Lulu.com. The chosen piece is about the Field-Archaeological Paradox, that is, the curious fact that it is far easier in…
January 7, 2007
As the first reader-submitted pic, my buddy Lars Lundqvist has sent me a snap of himself taken by Klas Höglund in October 1995. Lars is happy in this picture, the reason being that he's just found the object he's holding. It's a large plough-mangled Continental gold neck ring of the first few…
January 7, 2007
The Seventh Annual Weblog Awards have opened their site for nominations."From now until 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) on Wednesday, January 10, 2005, anyone can nominate their favorite weblogs.
That Saturday, January 13, three panels of 50 voters will receive an e-mail. It will list the…