It is my honor to host the 60th edition of Four Stone Hearth. The next edition will be hosted at The Moore Groups Blog, and they’re a pretty hard group to impress, so cowboy up and submit your best! Let’s get to it!
The Ideophone has a whole heap of gorgeous, thought-provoking photographs submitted to the AAA Photo contest. Y’know, I meant to submit my own photographs to this contest, but Mark’s photos are amazing and so well described that I’m fairly certain mine would not have made it to the top 20.
Speaking of gorgeous photography, Aardvarchaeology has some chilly images from snowy Wales. After checking out the photos of the Pillar of Eliseg, the Basingwerk Cistercian abbey, the sculpted ring cross of Maen Achwyfan, and Offa’s Dyke, I wanted a cup of hot chocolate and a nice peaty fire to warm my feet!
A more armchair-ish journey was conducted by the Testimony of the Spade, who uncovered the first Swedish work on archaeology, written in 1675. Sadly, Bruce Trigger is not around to update his brilliant A History of Archaeological Thought accordingly. Regardless, I truly love the old illustrations.
The Spittoon discusses two Science articles regarding bacterial genetics and the peopling of the Pacific. Got Helicobacter pylori?
The vaunted and sometimes daunting Neuroanthropology blog ponders marketing and desire through the lenses of Coke, American Girl, and Google. Put in your stock buys and hold on tight!
You should probably check out the comments of Babel’s Dawn and read the article in Current Anthropology before getting too worked up about the “Venus of Tan Tan.”
Remote Central visits the South of Spain, where Neanderthals apparently survived a bit longer due to the biodiversity in the region. I wouldn’t mind a bit of time on the Iberian peninsula right about now.
Zenobia: Empress of the East describes laser scanning of the Hung-e Axhdar rock relief. I’m a bit of a skeptic regarding laser scanning, but it was put to use in an interesting way here, and I hope that they’re able to use it to answer the questions raised about the relief. More interesting than the laser scanning was the descriptions of the decorative elements and the connections to depictions of the king of Elymais on various coins.
Some of the archaeologists have gotten together a little game called “Where on Google Earth” wherein you test your skills identifying archaeological sites on Google Earth. The latest site is on Rolled Up Sleeves. I haven’t had time to play, but I hope it keeps going!
Finally, Where in the Hell am I? brings us back to the stones and bones of contract archaeology in Texas, where a pipeline survey has uncovered a surprising array of archaeological sites. I wonder if I’ll be done with my dissertation in time to help dig the Presidio and Caddo sites!
Thank you for visiting Middle Savagery, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of Four Stone Hearth.
Colleen Morgan 
Wow, those artworks by Hirotoshi Itoh are absolutely amazing!