Archaeology
Four Lost Cities
I love books in which the author sets out on a personal quest to understand a historical question and lets the reader tag along. Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by science journalist and science fiction novelist Annalee Newitz is such a book. Even better from my perspective, their quest is…
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Kindred
These days, Neanderthals are hot, and not just in academic circles. Big discoveries about Neanderthals make the news in mainstream media and major science journals alike. In Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes demonstrates that more is happening in the world of Neanderthal studies than what she terms “Neander-news”. Sykes…
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New Discoveries of Ancient Women Warriors, or Old Bones Revisited
Earlier this week, a news item about the discovery of an ancient woman warrior appeared in my news feed.* Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://bit.ly/2N25WHJ. The story will sound familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention to this kind of thing in recent years: Russian archaeologists discovered the remains in what is now Siberia…
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