The Four Stone Hearth #37 - The Pulp SciFi Edition

Pulp Science Fiction is a cultural gem that I recently rediscovered at a second hand book store when I chanced upon a pile of science fiction anthologies. The cover art was fantastic! I ended up not purchasing any of them and immediately regretted it when I got home, so I spent the better part of [...]

Recent News In Mesoamerican Archaeology

The King Has Left The Building
Apparently Maya elites and royalty weren’t the only ones building temples and pyramids. And the mystery of the blue pigment used in Maya pottery and murals has been solved.
Mayanists, archaeologists that specialize in the study of Maya culture in Mesoamerica, have long believed that temples were built by and for [...]

Archaeologica Americana

North American history and archaeology isn’t  as glamorous and monumental as Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or even European with its henges, barrows, and castles. We’re a young country and the predominant cultures (like the Algonquin, the Hopewell, etc.) of the North American Continent left little in the way of durable material remains. No marble friezes or [...]

Aswan Tombs Video

Here’s an interesting video that I stumbled across in YouTube today. This YouTuber just posted it 1 day ago and its his first video. For those unable to actually get up and go to Egypt, videos like this help put the experience into a perspective that you won’t find on The Discovery Channel or BBC [...]

Funerary Practices of Middle Class Egypt - 4.5 Centuries Ago

The burial chamber of an Egyptian official who lived up to about 4,500 years ago was unsealed recently, revealing some valuable insights into the funerary practices of the middle class. Pharaonic funerary practices are well-known, though there are still doubtless many things we don’t know, but the practices of non-ruling classes is far less known.
This [...]

A Southern Migration Out of Africa: The Arabian Corridor

I’m a fairly regular reader of Geotimes, a magazine devoted to geology and Earth-related topics like climate and, sometimes, anthropology. So imagine my surprise when my eye catches the credit to the photograph shown here of the African savannah belonging to an anthropologist friend and then another photo (shown below) to yet another friend! As [...]

Egypt Copyrights It’s Most Famous Antiquities

Apparently, anything that’s on display in the museums of Egypt or considered a national treasure is about to be copyrighted and “Commercial use of ancient monuments like the pyramids or the sphinx would also be controlled,; said Zahi Hawass. “Even if it is for private use, they must have permission from the Egyptian government.”
I’m not [...]

Four Stone Hearth XXIX @ Remote Central

The 29th edition of the Four Stone Hearth is now up at Remote Central.
I was going to say a word about the next edition, hosting, and submitting, but let me just quote the good people at Anthropology.net (i.e. Kambiz, without whom we wouldn’t have the Four Stone Hearth to begin with):
The next edition of [...]

The Anthropology of Catastrophe: Volcanoes

Humans have always been afflicted by natural catastrophes ranging from tectonic to weather related and, possibly, even impacts from space! But none, perhaps, have found the significance both culturally and destructively, as the volcano. Throughout the history and prehistory of man, volcanoes have erupted, obliterating entire islands, destroying settlements and cities, ruining local crops and [...]

The Four Stone Hearth #28

Thank you for reading this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. As most of you are aware, the Four Stone Hearth (4SH) is a bi-weekly blog carnival dedicated to anthropology, welcoming post submissions on all aspects of anthropology. The name is taken from the “four” major fields in anthropology: archaeology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, and [...]