@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

ArchaeoIain

@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social

Australian retired archaeologist, Emeritus Professor at University of New England, Armidale. Writing book on (mostly the evolution of) art. Published on bones, stones, language origins, art etc. Worked with Gamilaraay, Wangkamadla, Yulluna, Kalkadoon and Mitakoodi people.
We must have a politics which encourages equality and fights climate change. Poverty and environmental destruction are caused by human greed.

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mrundkvist, to Archaeology
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

We think it's hard to understand Neolithic ceremonial sites. Well, good luck future colleagues in understanding the remains of 2020s installation art!

#archaeology #art

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist you are assuming that the city fathers will not have succeeded in eliminating all traces of it. (gender terms used advisedly)

mrundkvist, to academia
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

I once peer-reviewed a journal paper and asked for minor revisions, only to find that they had printed the manuscript completely unchanged except for the title. When I told the editors that they had wasted my time, they explained that this author, a woman of about 40, was extremely scary and would get super angry if they made any demands on her.

#academia #peerreview

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist so presumably it was not even peer review. You are not a woman and do not strike me as particularly scary. Ah well.

joeroe, (edited ) to Archaeology
@joeroe@archaeo.social avatar

Does anyone know of a paper or dataset that compiles the earliest known dates of agriculture in a given region? Globally, ideally, but I'd settle for a continent or two...

(I know there are several options for the European Neolithic, but beyond that?)

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@joeroe don't know if this helps
https://www.academia.edu/38947770/CalPal_HELP_Archaeological_Site_Mapping_Edition_2019_3_

mrundkvist, to Archaeology
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

When I was young I had a lot of disagreements with slightly older colleagues about what archaeological research should be like. I don't know who was right, but I do know that almost all of them have long since stopped publishing any research. 😁

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist I am nearly finished writing my last piece of solo research

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist garden work and reading novels.

ClintBarton, to random
@ClintBarton@progressivecafe.social avatar

Louisiana Lawmakers Move to Criminalize Possession of Abortion Pills ...

Louisiana legislators are proposing an amendment to criminalize the possession of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly used abortion pills. This unexpected addition to a bill initially focused on criminalizing "coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud" has surprised abortion advocates and OB-GYNs in the state.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/louisiana-criminalize-possession-abortion-pills-1235013039/#?utm_source=onesignal

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@ClintBarton what proportion of those law makers are younger women?

mathowie, to random
@mathowie@xoxo.zone avatar

it’s so weird how some kids peacefully sitting with signs suddenly turned into a warzone after we called in overly funded militarized cops, gosh it’s so mysterious how that always happens

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mathowie what I do not understand is how all police forces in so many places have reacted in the same way to peaceful protests. I get that the protesters have something to get the world to witness, but I do not get why militarized police react the same way in so many places.

mrundkvist, to random
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Having listened to a documentary about Salman Rushdie, I feel moved to express what I believe is the majority position in Scandinavia. To whit, that all gods and devils are fictional characters, there is no afterlife, and you might as well pray to Bilbo Baggins.

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist I think I heard the same interview on NPR. "My books are full of magical things, but I do not believe in them"

mrundkvist, to random
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Anybody feel like gyring and gimbling? In the wabe?

ArchaeoIain, (edited )
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist was brillig, and the slithy tove was over there near the blow hole.

gratefulwolf, to random
@gratefulwolf@archaeo.social avatar

Finger Fluting in Prehistoric Caves: A Critical Analysis of the Evidence for Children, Sexing and Tracing of Individuals [pdf 21pp] #FingerFluting #palaeolithic #Magdalenian #Neanderthals #CaveArt https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-024-09646-9

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@gratefulwolf this is a devastating critique of previous analyses of "finger flutings" in caves. Not surprised.

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@gratefulwolf it is the process of science to make a suggestion on available evidence, and then query the basis of the evidence.

mrundkvist, to languagelearning
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

It's 2004. Someone gives you a non-OCR:ed scan of an article in Polish that is highly relevant to your work. It's effectively a set of photocopies. You don't know any Polish. What do you do?

It's 2024. Someone gave me a non-OCR:ed scan of an article in Polish that is highly relevant to my work. It's effectively a set of photocopies. I just screenshotted it one column at a time and pasted it into Google Translate, and now I'm reading it in my native .

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist in a version of your native language.

mrundkvist, to Archaeology
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Does my paper about Viking skull manipulation include the section header "Talking Heads"? Of course it does.

#archaeology #vikings #rock

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist but have you got that in the headline?

joeroe, to random
@joeroe@archaeo.social avatar

Really interesting point from Pickering & Kgotleng (https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2024/17473) – is the preprint model right for all fields?

> [P]osting unreviewed research on a preprint server is not new or controversial [...] But palaeoanthropology is not a field that needs urgent research and rapid breakthroughs. Given the huge and wide public interest in human evolution and our origins, this research field benefits from much slower, measured, and careful research.

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@joeroe that is so true. I have always wondered about it and thought that preprints were unnecessary for us. As I write my last thing, I cannot imagine a world in which people need to have advance sight of it before publication.

generalising, to ChatGPT
@generalising@mastodon.flooey.org avatar

I have a preprint out estimating how many scholarly papers are written using chatGPT etc? I estimate upwards of 60k articles (>1% of global output) published in 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16887

How can we identify this? Simple: there are certain words that LLMs love, and they suddenly start showing up a lot last year. Twice as many papers call something "intricate", big rises for "commendable" and "meticulous".

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@generalising but if LLMs derive their models from papers that are already published, how can there be massive increases in such words? I like the idea, but this sounds strange.

mrundkvist, to linguistics
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Yes, #language changes constantly. No, you can't use this fact to argue that the particular errors you make when writing are OK and everybody will write that way 20 years from now.

#writing

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist "less" and "fewer" is one sort of difference that seems to be disappearing. And then there are spelling differences where the noun has "-ce" and the verb"-se" in some brands of English. It came as a revelation to me that the preferred American ending "-or" is the original English English spelling, but it was the English who changed to "-our" for some reason--probably so they could get annoyed about Americans.

mrundkvist, to random
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

It drives me absolutely nuts... When people end every single sentence in a paragraph with three periods... Or even four periods.... Or bizarrely with a row of colons ::::: Makes me want to shake them by the shoulders and shout GET A GRIP ON YOURSELF YOU LANGUID INDECISIVE STONER...

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist I confess I have taken to using the ... ellipsis. It really helps in the current political situation where there are things better left unsaid for fear of hatred meted out by ...

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

The colleges that ditch liberal arts are the colleges that will produce ignorant students incapable of recognizing threats to their freedom and autonomy.

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@StillIRise1963 if anyone (who? oil CEOs, climate deniers?? accountants?) wants to diminish liberal arts then it shows more than ever the need for people such as them to have a liberal arts education.

Forest_Jungle_Collective, to random
@Forest_Jungle_Collective@archaeo.social avatar

#SaxonSunday with the Beeley Cross, c10 now cited in the church yard of All Saints, Bakewell

#SundayStonework

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@Forest_Jungle_Collective of course it is from the "Dark Ages"

mrundkvist, to history
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Many Swedish noble families went extinct only one or two generations after they were ennobled. Sometimes because of high infant mortality, sometimes because men were ennobled late in life. Nobility was only inherited along the male line.

#history

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist I am sure that nobility was not inherited. The title maybe, but not the act that caused someone to get the damn thing.

mrundkvist, to academia
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Crimson Publishers: still going strong, still scamming. This came out of the blue.

Dear Dr. Martin Rundkvist ,

Can I expect your article towards publication in our Journal of AAOA?

Well, we are in deficit of one article to accomplish the current issue. Can you help us with your Research or Review or Mini Review Submission by 15thMarch?

I am sure you're quite busy, but I would appreciate if you could provide youracknowledgement within 24hrs.

Await your hopeful response.

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist I'm glad you get them too. I also love to conjure with Crimson coming out of the Blue.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via David Cay Johnston

& Co. intend to force a despite our Constitution expressly forbidding any establishment of religion.

Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, and actual Christians should be horrified by words below from a retired general who has shown his disloyalty to America..πŸ‘‡πŸΌ

Trump’s former (& future?) nat sec adviser Mike Flynn: β€œIf we are going to have one nation under God which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God”

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@GottaLaff bearing in mind that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same imaginary being.

faustosterling, to random
@faustosterling@mastodon.world avatar

This is totally horrifying to me. What is wrong with us as a culture?

Stop sending human remains to the Moon

The Peregrine lander was due to deposit several people’s ashes on the Moon. The Navajo Nation is calling for broader discussion.

#moon #humanremains

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00106-8

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@faustosterling Just as a suggestion, but how about we stop all missions to the moon. It would be obscene to mine it. It is absurd to keep sending things to it. Space tourism would be a way to kill a few billionaires, but I cannot think of any other good reason to continue it.

mrundkvist, to books
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist it is an interesting question whether you CAN see anyone reading. She is certainly not, unless there is an autocue somewhere above the book.

mrundkvist, to music
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

A quarter century ago, The Soundtrack of Our Lives were a young band that sounded like an extremely good reunion of a 60s band. Now they are on a reunion tour sounding like an even better reunion of a 60s band. The original 60s bands, meanwhile, are mostly too old to tour anymore. β™₯️

#music #rock #gig

ArchaeoIain,
@ArchaeoIain@archaeo.social avatar

@mrundkvist Yes, I have seen them in gardens in the UK

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