Christian Thomas

“the manosphere generates its own untested and speculative evolutionary hypotheses, or “just-so stories”, about men, women, and society…

..we reflect on implications for evolutionary scholars and for the field as a whole, in terms of ethics and public image”

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Maybe this is a time to have a roundtable or panel discussion about threats to archaeology/gists in Canada, drawing folks accross Canada from Parks, CRM, academia, etc. to talk about identifying different types of threats and suggestions on how best to document and address them 🤔
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An historic black & white image of the box excavations at Maiden Castle during Sir Mortimer Wheeler's excavations in 1937. Image Rights: Society of Antiquaries (held at Historic England Archive)

There's something quite beautiful about Sir Mortimer Wheeler's box-system excavations at Maiden Castle. Such a fantastic photograph!

Image Rights: Society of Antiquaries (held at Historic England Archive)

#archaeology 🏺 #photography

Finished up the yard work in what has been a beautiful sunny week. However, by deciding to put the tools away ‘tomorrow’ I have called down the wrath of the gods. #yukon #whitehorse. Sorry.

#whitehorse

Parks Canada warns against unauthorized digs at parks along N.B.-N.S. border | CBC News Parks Canada is raising the alarm over unauthorized archaeological activities at Fort Beauséjour–Fort Cumberland National Historic Site and Beaubassin and Fort Lawrence National Historic Sites.

"...they are finding about 30 new holes in the ground each day... the activity has drastically increased over the past couple of weeks."

Hmmmm, this is concerning 🤔

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www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Prehistoric camel art pointed to precious water sources in the Arabian Desert Hunter-gatherers may have used the engravings to find water 12,000 years ago

New research finds that 12,000-year-old camel art in Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert once marked ancient water sources.

Hunter-gatherers may have used the ephemeral water bodies to penetrate deeper into the barren landscape.

#RockArt #Archaeology

New for @science.org 🧪🏺

To this day I have no idea what my parents were thinking when they brought me (6), never mind themselves, to this movie.

#ESHE2025
Sarah Pederzani ‘ Tracing cold-climate adaptations in early Homo sapiens in Europe …Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria’
How did humans disperse to all climate zones?
🔥! mysterious bone sand 😳?
Exciting results from plant/animal LIPID BIOMARKERS- evidence of animal bone fat extraction !

‼️📣Extremely proud to see this great collaborative work out!

Oldest Shell Ornament Workshop in Western Europe at Saint-Césaire: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1...

#Prehistory #Archaeology #Chatelperronian #Shells #Beads #Homosapiens #Neandertal #Ornament

Details of discovery & implications ⏬ 🧵 1/20

@hrougier.bsky.social @umr5608traces.bsky.social @univrouen.bsky.social @univ-amu.fr @mnhn.fr #MuséeNationalPréhistoire @cerege.bsky.social @archeosciences-bordeaux.fr @rennesuniv.bsky.social @ubmontaigne.bsky.social @ull.es @trentuniversity.bsky.social

🧹 📈 Spatial stats tested associations among artefacts, fauna, shells & pigments.
▶️ Shells + pigments + Châtelperronian cluster together;
▶️ Bison links with Mousterian

‼️First evidence of shell beads with Châtelperronian artefacts ‼️

(13/20)

Wordle 1,557 2/6

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Soooo close. Rats!

I am happy to announce we have created a new Master's program in Cultural Heritage and Environmental Resource Management (CHERM)! 🥳🥳 This is a blended program of Archaeology + Geography & Environmental Studies focused on public & private sector careers 🏺 anthropology.uccs.edu/cherm

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It gives me much pleasure to be able to announce that, on my suggestion, the Working Group on Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the IAU announced yesterday the naming of asteroid:

(732272) Langejans

...after TU Delft scientist Geeske Langejans.

World's oldest mummies were smoke-dried 10,000 years ago in China and Southeast Asia, researchers find The world's oldest evidence for purposeful human mummification comes from Southeast Asia, where people smoke-dried their ancestors' corpses 10,000 years ago.

Archaeologists may have found the world's oldest mummies: 10,000 years ago, groups smoke-dried their ancestors to preserve them. 🧪🏺

Our latest newletter was just sent out, with some scholar updates and upcoming events we'll be participating in! Interested in getting our quarterly newsletter delivered to your inbox? You can sign up here: 🏺
www.ualberta.ca/en/prairie-i...

Aerial archaeology people - I want opinions...

Natural paleochannels, or some kind of enclosure. Around 180m across, and sitting one field south of Cumbria's 3rd largest standing stone... 🤔🤔

#archaeology #LiDAR #prehistory #history 🏺

Plan of Mala'e Vakapuna mound and the surrounding area, highlighting smaller mounds around the site.

Mala'e Vakapuna mound is Tonga's oldest known earth mound, dating to around AD 500. Large monuments are a key indicator of centralisation, suggesting that political complexity developed much earlier than previously believed.

🔗 from 2024 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Cave dig expands to learn more about hunter-gatherers Humans inhabited Malta 1,000 years earlier than previously thought

Nice coverage of our ongoing research timesofmalta.com/article/cave...

Pawnee Star Chart: A precontact elk-skin map used by Indigenous priests to tell an origin story The unique map depicts patterns of stars in the night sky, but its meaning is debated.

This week’s astonishing artifact is an Indigenous map of the heavens that tells the story of the Skiri Pawnee. 🏺🧪

Decrease in glacial area

Always challenging to see the waining of majestic glaciers but clearly the Stubaier, like many glaciers around the world, is on the way out. The challenge is on how we deal with this new space, the greater water (in the short term) and the rapidly changing landscape @mtnresearchmri.bsky.social

Hand wearing a blue latex glove, holding a small piece of worked stone.

Despite being only 80km from the Arctic Circle, stone tools have been found at the c. 6,500-year-old cemetery of Tainiaro, Finland, suggesting it was also a (probably very chilly 🥶) Stone Age settlement.

🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

It’s north of Haines Junction. There are smaller sites like this all over the southern lakes and ruby ranges.

Bagged ice blocks in University of Alberta Ice Core -25c working space

Band sawing ice for sub-sampling.

Lab cloths

First Yukon ice patch legacy sample for ice core library. Carson Hedberg (Brown University) pictured.

That trailer then moved it to Edmonton where received it and began the accessioning and sampling process. Going from too hot on a Yukon mountain top to -35c in and Edmonton lab! We’re sun burnt, frost bitten but generally happy it all worked out!

Coolers full of ancient ice loaded on a refrigerated trailer prepped for drive down Alaska Highway.

Phase 2 was getting the ice to the University of Alberta ice core lab intact. Extremely warm fall conditions gave us 20 c days at 6500 feet asl so we had to get the ice into a refrigerator trailer daily.

Repelling down the ice face. Sample holes visible in ice.

Two people on ropes sawing ice from ice wall

Ground up view of ice wall

View west from the top of Gladstone. Caribou and sheep dung pellets visible melting out of ice.

Well it’s been a long two weeks. Our objective was to collect legacy ice from a 10 Kya #Yukon Ice patch for both future research and a caribou diet study. Week one was chainsawing ice out of the face of ancient ice at the Gladstone #archaeology site.

#art #illustration

Maybe to attach something that is functional in situations other than combat?

Photo of three bronze elongated leaf-shaped spear heads. Each has two lunate 'gaps' symmetrically placed along its long axis. Image from: Molloy, B. 2017. Hunting Warriors: The Transformation of Weapons, Combat Practices and Society during the Bronze Age in Ireland. European Journal of Archaeology. Vol 20 (issue 2): pages 280-316.

Photograph of shiny bronze lunate spearhead, similar form as in image 1, but longer lunates and with added detailing on the spear body. Image from Met Museum website: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/470329

🏺 Has anyone done functionality experiments on Bronze Age lunate spears?
The holes appear to be assumed decorative (or perhaps reducing weight), but would they add anything to lethality, e.g. affecting internal tissue damage?
Pics for attention (and also bc these are just gorgeous objects)