The time has come to talk of many things: Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax– of the 54th edition of the Four Stone Hearth! the web’s most amazing (only?) anthropology-encompassing blog carnival. The last edition, as you might remember, was held over at Archaeoporn on election night. For those of you as enthralled with anthropology as I, and you know who you are, please consider hopping on over to 4SH and signing up for one of the future hosting vacancies. So, now that we have all of the administrative business taken care of let’s get to the anthropology, shall we?

Of soils: Give Archaeoastronamy a try. Alun asks “Growing Gods?” in reviewing an article from a recent edition of Antiquity. According to the article, in order to understand Greek temples you really need to get to know the dirt under the temples:

What you want from Hades site is a connection with the underworld, so rocky crevices which plunge into the bowels of the earth are just the sort of thing you’re looking for. As I recall there’s a Plutonium (another brilliant name) in Hierapolis, Turkey, built over a geological fault which emits noxious gases, so that seems perfectly sound. He also attributes Persephone to rock crevices, and this is something I’m a bit more wary of.

Maybe you have an opinion on the matter? I’m sure Alun would love to hear it.

Of girating hips: A recent 1.5 mya, practically complete, pelvis of early Homo is reviewed by the very well known anthropologist John Hawks in his recent post Mrs. Elvis, the Homo erectus pelvis. Included here is an image from the data supplement. According to Hawks, the real question about Simpson’s find is:

Is the new pelvis, BSN49/P27, an australopithecine? To be sure, it’s a lot bigger than the relatively complete female australopithecine pelves, like AL 288-1 (Lucy) and Sts 14. But its acetabular diameter does fit easily within the size range of australopithecines. Mayer and van Gerven (1978) provided an estimate for the vertical acetabular diameter of SK 50 (which was malformed by a probable dislocation) of 41 mm, the same as the new pelvis. SK 50 even has a large ilium, although probably not large enough to make a 288 mm bi-iliac breadth.

So, is Elvis an australopithecine? Click the link to find out.

Of vicio: A 4SH just wouldn’t be complete without some interesting neuroanthropology, am I right? In this issue Daniel Lende is giving us a great heaping dose of his addiction, sin. It appears Lende’s problem all along has been:

craving, that compulsive desire drug users can experience and which plays such a powerful role in relapse in excessive use and relapse. In both the popular accounts and scientific literature on addiction, dopamine often takes the blame for addiction.

Is this the right diagnosis? Is dopamine to blame? Once again, stop looking at me for all the answers: just click the link and see what anthropology has to say about addiction.

(Also, while you’re over there check out a recent post [bio] on a good friend)

Of… Danish stuff: I have to admit, Danish archaeology is not my forté. The good news is, the very sleek archaeoblog Henrikkarll.dk has us covered. Apparently there is a bit of contention as to the reason for the existence of certain burial goods in Danish graves, and this post just happens to give us an explanation. I don’t know about you, but I was looking everywhere for one! I’m not sure if you knew, but

it turns out that actually very few of the people buried in the Viking Age would get anything useful with them to the presumed afterlife. This, so the explanation goes, is because the differences in grave goods – or indeed grave furnishings – reflect similar differences in the stratified society that was Viking Age Denmark.

Of interesting figurines: Brian Hoffman over at Old Dirt – New Thoughts is making his debut return (?… Whatever… You know what I mean) by giving us all an insiders view on some artifacts made out of cancellous bone he dug up at Aniakchack:

The Aniakchack assemblage has strong paralleles to the contemporary Kachemak tradition artwork, particularly the assemblage from the Uyak site on Kodiak Island occupied around AD 1-1100. Both Uyak and Aniakchack have small, ivory maskettes, animal figurines (including whale and caribou imagery), and other decorative pieces.

Cute, eh?

Of an elderly Constantinople (Isanbul! not Constantinople!): Remote Central, a regular at the hearth has us covered this time around with some news on the surprisingly surprising contentious date of the first settlers of modern day Istanbul (Give me a break, I’m working on my fourth cup of coffee today…). Apparently, according to some cremation urns:

this particular area was settled by 8.500 years ago, some 6,000 years before previous estimates, and puts old Constantinople in a similar time-frame as 9,000 year-old Çatalhöyük and subsequent settlements of the Late Neolithic that have been documented across Anatolia.

Click for deatails!

Of pretty pictures: Of course, no 4SH would be complete without some extra pretty pictures. Thankfully, Aardvarchaeology and Testimony of the Spade have us covered!

and, did you know:

+

=

Sad I know.

Well, it has been good having you all! I hope to see you again in the future. For now, my fingers are beat, so one of you must take up the torch. If you’re interested in hosting the 4SH please click the link and shoot Martin an e-mail!