The earliest currently agreed-upon date for human migration to the New World is in the Clovis period, about 13,500 years before present (BP). For decades there has been research to push the date back, to put the migration from Asia in what is called a “Pre-Clovis” period. A number of sites in North and South …
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Tamarisk Removal
Chas has some new information on this subject, something I posted on back in August. I was stunned by this: “Today, the tamarisk are consuming about 58,600 acre-feet of water – 19 billion gallons – annually, but the number will grow to nearly 130,000 acre-feet annually – one-fifth of the water in the river in …
Heritage Turkeys
More turkeys in the news. We’ve gone from terrorist turkeys in Massachusetts to a NY Times piece on an effort in Kansas to preserve traditional breeds of domesticated turkeys. Here’s a little something from the article about what most of us will be putting on our table in a couple of weeks: “Virtually all of …
A Book I Won’t be Buying
Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to PoliticsY. Hamilakis and P. Duke, eds. Pointing to the disciplines’s history of advancing imperialist, colonialist, and racist objectives, contributors insist that archaeology must rethink its muted professional stance and become more active agents of change.
Bourdain’s New Book
Time Magazine has 10 questions for Anthony Bourdain on the occasion of the release of his new book Without Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach. Question Number 1: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten? Fermented shark in Iceland. They celebrate their hardy Viking roots by eating shark that has essentially rotted and …
Rattlers
A Texas man spent 45 minutes in a tub with 87 rattlesnakes to set a world record. Oh, and he wasn’t bitten. The article says he set another record last year by holding 10 rattlesnakes by their tails in his mouth. What a fun hobby.
All I Want for Christmas
….is a pair of remote-controlled tarantulas. Leg span of seven inches – batteries not included.
Newly Visible Comet
I just stumbled across this news that Comet 17P/Holmes is now visible to the unaided eye: “The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter. The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can …
Tutankhamun’s Mummy
The mummy of boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun has been moved from its sarcophagus in his tomb and placed on public display for the first time in a climate controlled glass case. Not being an Egyptologist, I was somewhat surprised to learn that this mummy has been kept in the tomb all along. That seemed a little …
Hunting Ban Makes Hunting More Popular
News from the United Kingdom is that the hunting ban enacted there in 2005 has actually increased the popularity of hunting: “Against expectations, hunting has been able to continue, legally for the most part, with little difference in style. As Simon Hart, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, puts it, ‘most people would find this …