Thursday, May 14, 2009
Mysterious prehistoric statuette
I wrote an article yesterday for Science NOW, the magazine's online news site, about a remarkably well-endowed figurine discovered in southwestern Germany. (This link disappears behind a pay wall in a month.) The headline (and the article, to be fair) make it sound more prurient than it may have been. I was spanked in the comment section by folks who say it could well have been a fertility charm.
The difficult thing about these debates is this art was made 35,000 years ago -- that's longer than most of us are capable of comprehending, frankly, and the gap in terms of culture is so vast as to be impossible to close. Whenever I talk to archaeologists (about almost anything) they start by saying "we can never know what object X was used for," and then proceed to offer all kinds of guesses. A nearly irresistible temptation.
The difficult thing about these debates is this art was made 35,000 years ago -- that's longer than most of us are capable of comprehending, frankly, and the gap in terms of culture is so vast as to be impossible to close. Whenever I talk to archaeologists (about almost anything) they start by saying "we can never know what object X was used for," and then proceed to offer all kinds of guesses. A nearly irresistible temptation.
Labels: breasts, conard, figurine, pornography, science, statuette, tuebingen
Nasca lines
Once again, catching up after a long delay, partly prompted by the conviction that Blogger isn't serving my needs. (Anyone know how to make an RSS feed work?) Last fall I went to Peru for several stories, including one on the Nasca lines that is in the current issue of Archaeology. You can read the abstract here.
Labels: Archaeology, dai, nasca, peru, reindel
Game night
Wildly tardy with this post, but the April issue of Wired featured an article I wrote on the growth of German board games in the US. German classics like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan are making waves in the US market, which is good for folks who find Monopoly dull, dull, dull.
Labels: board, catan, game, settlers, wired
