Uncategorized – Sticks and Stones

Rethinking Evidence for Early Wooden Weapons at Boxgrove

When I first began my PhD, I set out to understand early wooden weapons—not just what they looked like, but what they could do. Wooden spears rarely survive in the archaeological record, and discoveries of them have challenged our assumptions about the technological and hunting abilities of early humans. When I started my research journey,ContinueContinue reading “Rethinking Evidence for Early Wooden Weapons at Boxgrove”

Finding a balance with ethnoarchaeology?

I’m finally attempting to informally put into words some of my musings, misgivings, methods and mistakes around ethnoarchaeology. Clever colleagues of mine have already articulated very well the many pitfalls on the subject of making use of ethnographic data in archaeological research. Here I will try to summarise some of my own thoughts and researchContinueContinue reading “Finding a balance with ethnoarchaeology?”

Wikipedia editing (and gender bias)

Wikimedia Commons: MaxxL and Wikijunkie: [[File:WomanEdit Logo Entwurf.svg|WomanEdit_Logo_Entwurf]] I read sometime ago about the gender bias of Wikipedia pages. We also know that the work of women researchers is cited less, both because others cite them less, and also because they self-cite less than men. Although I have never edited anything on Wikipedia before, IContinueContinue reading “Wikipedia editing (and gender bias)”

Documentary: The Real Neanderthal

I’m really excited that I was asked to be a part of this CBC documentary, as part of The Nature of Things series. It comes out (in Canada…) this Friday. While I haven’t seen it in its entirety yet, there’s a nice clip here of Harry Hughes throwing a replica of Schöningen Spear II. YouContinueContinue reading “Documentary: The Real Neanderthal”

Two Sticks: What a new find from Schöningen tells us about Pleistocene hominins

Yesterday the discovery of a second short wooden stick from the site of Schöningen 13 II-4 (Germany) was published in Nature: Ecology and Evolution. Schöningen 13 II-4 dates to around 300,000 years ago and is best known for its collection of complete and nearly complete wooden spears and the remains of a large quantity ofContinueContinue reading “Two Sticks: What a new find from Schöningen tells us about Pleistocene hominins”