Blog

APRil 2013 issue of the CSA Newsletter online

Andrea — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:46:29 GMT

Once again I published a website review in the CSA Newsletter. Readers are welcome to browse all articles. My review is about the Penn Museum website, and it is larger than usual.

"Website Review: Penn Museum"

An enormous website with more pluses than minuses. -- Andrea Vianello

http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring13/nls1303.html

Enjoy reading!

Andrea

On the usefulness of Archaeology

Andrea — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:17:59 GMT

One of the most recurring questions about archaeology is what is about. I tried to address the question of what is archaeology in my student days, and perhaps I shall update my position, with particular regard to an emphasis on the scientific approach to the discipline. However, archaeology still is the study of the human past, and ultimately of who we are. An extension of that particular perspective would easily enable to address where we are heading. The roots of archaeology are within social sciences, and given its square focus on humanity, there is no escape from that classification. I have commented a few times on this blog about the recent challenge to all social sciences, especially from politicians, who see in social sciences a useless enterprise that would be better cut in face of an increasingly tougher economic situation (most recently as I write this, the NSF funding debate in the American Congress). In a way, humans studying what humans are, as archaeologists and... Read the rest of this entry »

Crazy about Technology

Andrea — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:32:16 GMT

Once upon a time, people saw new technology with diffidence. Today, the mobile phone and to some extent the Apple iPad (specifically that brand and group of models) have become status symbols and most people believe it is one of the most important and used accessories in their life. Status symbols, material or immaterial, have existed in all human societies at least since the Neolithic. Figurines of Venuses suggest that fertile women we appreciated even before, so that having many healthy children could be considered as a sign of status. In fact, status symbols are anything that can be difficult to attain (because expensive in economic value in modern times, or because valuable according to different scales of value in earlier times, such as healthy kids in the Palaeolithic, when they were scarce). The link between mobile devices and status symbols is hardly new. Yet, I suggest some reflections here, that are hopefully original or at least less common. My main observation is that the... Read the rest of this entry »

Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum

Andrea — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:37:58 GMT

I have been fortunate to visit the exhibition Ice Age Art at the British Museum in London. It is a splendid exhibition, one that matches the travelling Tutankhamun exhibition (in Berlin in its latest version as I write). These two exhibitions are the best ones ever that I have seen, and will appeal to anyone with some interest on culture and archaeology. The only flaw that the exhibition has is its deliberate focus on "art" and in that it goes too far, in my opinion, by showcasing some of the earliest evidence of symbolic thought and abstract thinking along with modern art. It is not that the modern art present was of low artistic value, but it seemed out of place at first, was distracting for a while, and then it was ignored as much as possible, though sometimes it appeared next to ancient artefacts and was confusing. The modern art was selected among "primitive" art, or at least art inspired by very old or indigenous artefacts, though the key difference is that the ancient artefacts ... Read the rest of this entry »

CSA Newsletter January 2013 published

Andrea — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:43:00 GMT

In the latest issue of the CSA Newsletter (January 2013) there is a short article that I authored. The topic is blogs, and more specifically academic blogs. Apart from the usual issue of retention of anything published not formally and on the Web, it is time for scholars to understand and decide what to do with such modern tools and implement them properly. In general, the Internet facilitates reaching broader audiences and the general public. Informing the latter at some point should be made a condition for any serious research: a lot of people wants to know what is happening in the world of research, and most will understand research of all kinds if explained to them. Blogs can provide an excellent opportunity for quick publication of simpler articles. The adoption of technologies such as RSS makes them suitable for irregular dispatches: readers will be alerted when something is published and need not to visit themselves the blog regularly. Blogs are however less suitable for... Read the rest of this entry »

New paper out

Andrea — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 13:24:00 GMT

I announce a new paper that has been published in Skyllis.

Vianello, A. (2012). Late Bronze Age long-distance maritime trade as cultural agency: The case of non-palatial contexts. Skyllis, Journal for Underwater Archaeology, 2011 (2), pp. 40-48.

The same issue of Skyllis is of particular interest to specialists interested in Mediterranean Bronze Age.

In the 2012 issues of the European Journal of Archaeology there are also reviews of my work, and in particular the December issue reviews some of my work regarding the current relationship between art and archaeology.

Andrea

Humanities postgraduates have a future, says Google

Andrea — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:31:00 GMT

Dr Damon Horowitz (Google) made the first positive comment on the employability of postgraduate PhDs in humanities (any track) in a long while. Given that he is in one of the leading world companies, this hopefully will help re-shape the job market, providing new confidence to many people. It has always been known to the interested ones that technical skills alone cannot drive growth and support creativity and new ideas. Moore's laws of microprocessors is very mathematical and it has supported so far the general idea of growth in current world economy (growth only by further technological advances or more generally keeping going forward without any change), but as natural resources are limited and technological advances in one area cannot continue forever at the same pace, change is also important. Change means creativity as well as understanding of humans beyond the immediate, and humanities postgraduates can be very successful in those areas. Finally, somebody linked to IT and... Read the rest of this entry »

Chronological revisions

Andrea — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:22:00 GMT

In my 2005 book Late Bronze Age Mycenaean and Italic Products in the West Mediterranean I published on page 104 a tentative chronology centred on the Aegean materials found west of the Peloponnese. With very few C14 dates and the debate on the Thera eruption still on-going, it was very difficult to produce even something so approximate. This year Gianmarco Alberti is publishing on the Journal of Archaeological Science a new research article that has applied a Bayesian model to define better the chronology of the Aeolian Islands, especially phases Capo Graziano I - II and Milazzese. The study has benefited from some absolute dates also from Greece (Aegina). For those interested, I publish here a revised version of my chronology (Fig. 1) including, among the several possibilities, Alberti's latest chronology (marked in red). Figure 1: Updated chronological table. The chronologies have been produced from multiple sources. The orange chronology for Aegean-type materials is ... Read the rest of this entry »

The debate on human origins - an update

Andrea — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 11:59:09 GMT

I have been prompted to write this after reading the nice review of a few recent books that has appeared in the latest issue of SemiotiX. Paul Bouissac has bundled together some different perspectives with his choice of volumes. I knew about Homo symbolicus, which is a good edited volume essentially repeating current research. It is more a summary of similar perspectives and a certain field of research than any ground-breaking publication. The Human Condition by Bednarik instead attracted my attention. I have known Bednarik for some years now, and followed some of his research, and I am fully aware that he is disillusioned with some of current research. He has been for too long the underdog in the study of human origins, and although his research has been published, his ideas do not circulate as much as they should. I am not new to publish blog posts on current research focusing on human origins, partly because of my personal interests and partly because there is no paucity of news... Read the rest of this entry »

Dictionary of Archaeological Terms published

Andrea — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:19:03 GMT

It is with great pleasure that I announce the publication of my third book: The Dictionary of Archaeological Terms English - Italian / Italian - English, published by Archaeopress in their dictionary series. Some additional details: ISBN 9781905739493. £9.99. 124 pages; paperback; it can be purchased in any bookshop or through the publisher directly. Although it is truly a pocket book, it contains the translation of 5170 terms and took a significant effort to produce. It aims to be useful to all archaeologists, and it is a good complement to a general dictionary. Inside you will not find any help to master the language (be it English or Italian), nor a complete set of words that may be used by archaeologists (Latin and Greek words for instance will be similar or the same between the two languages in most cases). The dictionary encompasses instead all words that I could think of that may be encountered in any branch of archaeology (field archaeology, scientific archaeology, theoretical ... Read the rest of this entry »

New issue of the CSA newsletter (April 2012)

Andrea — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:48:33 GMT

Announcing that the April, 2012, issue - Volume XXV, No. 1 - of the _CSA Newsletter_ is now available at http://csanet.org/newsletter/#winter12 "Changing Web Standards and Long-Term Web Access" Can we really use the web for important text? -- Harrison Eiteljorg, II http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring12/nls1201.html "Website Review: Glassway, Glass from the antiquities to the contemporary age" An older website that can serve as an exemplar. -- Andrea Vianello http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring12/nls1202.html "Website Review: The Acropolis Virtual Tour" Spectacular imagery in search of a rationale. -- Harrison Eiteljorg, II http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring12/nls1203.html "Project Publication on the Web -- Addendum II The importance of multiple languages for websites. -- Andrea Vianello http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring12/nls1204.html "Digital Data in Archaeology" Where do digital data fit? -- Harrison Eiteljorg, II http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring12/nls1205.html Comments on any ... Read the rest of this entry »

CSA Newsletter, January 2012

Andrea — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:11:16 GMT

The January 2012 edition of the CSA newsletter is now online. Readers may be interested in my review of the website of Dikili Tash and an addendum to a project on publishing field projects on the Web that I am running together with the editor of the newsletter, Harrison Eiteljorg, II. It will be very interesting also to read "Websites as Stable Resources", which is a sombre article on how much volatile academic websites are and "Evolving Web Standards: a Blessing and a Curse", where PDF is identified as best format to archive contents (I agree, but would prefer something designed specifically for the purpose). The forum opened for our project is still available. There are many visitors, but no one so far has taken the plunge and participated. I understand that websites rank low among the priorities of project directors, and yet they offer a cost-effective mean to publish (at least some data) and propagate information to a broader audience. I have reviewed very recent websites in the... Read the rest of this entry »

Web publishing for archaeologists

Andrea — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:20:50 GMT

Harrison Eiteljorg II and I have launched a forum to discuss our project on web publishing aimed squarely at archaeologists. We have published in the CSA newsletter four articles on the subjects, and we presented our project in front of a sizeable audience in Oslo, at the 17th EAA annual meeting. There was much discussion about it there. I summarise here a few points: it was suggested that purpose-built websites based may help archaeologists reaching the Web. In particular, could provide a good framework to start publishing data. It was emphasised the necessity for linking to social media. --My personal stance on this is that each team should publish their data as best as possible, with websites following standards and guidelines, but adapted to the necessities coming from individual projects. Each project is unique. I also do not believe in social media to publish data. These sites are great to communicate, and it is easy to set up personal or project-wide pages on the social media ... Read the rest of this entry »

EAA 2011

Andrea — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:47:20 GMT

I have attended the 17th EAA annual meeting in Oslo last September. The conference has provided o... Read the rest of this entry »

A footnote on my discussion of 3D

Andrea — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:17:00 GMT

In a previous post I reviewed Cave of Forgotten Dreams. In doing so, I also presented some thoughts about 3D and its uses. My current thinking remains unaltered: 3D can be useful to produce quality materials and films. Its use, however, is being abused, and conversions, unnecessary or forced deployment (including in gadgets such as mobile phones and laptops) make it a controversial topic. Depending on personal experience or material considered, the impressions about the technology can be wildly different. I am not convinced that "3D is here to stay" in the sense that it transpires from the entertainment industry. In fact, 3D has always been with us, and recent (3D Blu-Ray players and 3D professional videocameras) and near technology (3D TV sets without glasses) advances will undoubtedly make 3D productions more regular, and a staple of what will be available. 3D is not suitable for all situations however, and the same is true for sound and colour. I found a nice picture outlining the... Read the rest of this entry »

Internet for archaeology (VTS)

Andrea — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:43:20 GMT

I am pleased to announce that my virtual training suite (VTS), an electronic module aimed at students unfamiliar with key electronic resources for archaeology, is now available for download. I hope to be able to update that short course in the near future. I would add to the list of useful resources the The Ancient World Online blog, especially for its list of (mostly) free e-journals. The VTS remains still useful and fairly updated for now, so please have a look if you do not know it already. The guide is suitable for students from FE to postgraduate level, and staff may find useful too.

Andrea

A few more thoughts on science and how people perceives it

Andrea — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:20:09 GMT

Just a few days ago, in my previous post, I discussed how people (including those who need to take public decisions) can have personal ideas of what science is. This was prompted by my own observations of recent archaeological news that I discussed in this blog and the publication of the BBC Science coverage report that criticised the current state of affairs. One of the points that I tried to make was that science very rarely comes to definitive conclusions or achieves understandings that need not any further work. This is not a criticism of science, I fault those thinking of science as a belief, that cannot be challenged or modified. Science is more like a collective baggage of knowledge, which is constantly revised, improved and expanded as new data, models, theories and discoveries are made. There are things that are now known very well, but our explanations have also moved forward to more complex situations, and what is known is never satisfactory for researchers. If it was,... Read the rest of this entry »

Review of BBC Science Coverage

Andrea — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:56:00 GMT

I have briefly discussed in a few posts now that the reporting of science (and archaeology) has been concerned too much with headline-grabbing piece of news rather than meditated news, as it should be done by journalists. Evidence of this comes from the reporting of climate-change (reports about ancient climates) and human evolution that I have discussed multiple times. I commented several news, pointing out that whilst the research behind the news is serious and laudable, the actual news generalise or oversimplify matters to a point where contradictory news can make the round of mass media the same week (e.g. whether Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans ever met). The result is confusion for the general public and ridicule to solid science. The general public cannot be told different things without explanation, as this appears as if scientists do not know, or are bickering unprofessionally. I generally use the BBC as primary source for scientific news, since it is the... Read the rest of this entry »

Earliest Europeans yet

Andrea — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:07:22 GMT

Another important paper on human evolution has been published, this time in PlosONE, using evidence from the archaeological site of Buran-Kaya III located in Crimea (Ukraine). In a twist that simply reinforces my feeling that research in human evolution is still too cutting-edge to actually prove anything one way or another, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans did coexist in Europe according to this latest study. I wrote less than two months ago about the possibility that they did not coexist, according to the latest study then. I did express some caution then on some headlines ("preliminary results"; "not that important"). I am not against any of the studies: each advances our understanding and is valuable, but it is frankly ridiculous what is being deduced or inferred from such regional studies on much larger scales. Researchers in the field do not do that, but just about everyone else does it given the interest on the topic. The final result will be, as usual, that many... Read the rest of this entry »

On writing

Andrea — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:00:00 GMT

It is recent news that the American state of Indiana will no longer require schoolchildren to learn handwriting. This news has been discussed in America at length and I do not wish to outline pros and cons of such a move. Instead, I present here some reflections prompted by the news. I think that prioritising typewriting is a good choice: today computers and electronic equipment rule. Even if I have used exclusively handwriting in my school days, I can say that the vast majority of my written communication is typewritten, and so it has been for long. There are times that I pick up a pen and find myself at loss on how to use it. Yet, I still use a pen on occasion. I can understand that schools should concentrate on core skills, and the curricula are always expanding, pressuring teachers on balancing what can be done in a class and what must be excluded. In the UK there have been recent calls from politicians to teach how to be a good citizen and other basic skills in Higher... Read the rest of this entry »