I visited Stonehenge this morning to watch the winter solstice sunrise. English Heritage opened the monument for a couple of hours, and a few hundred people came up to celebrate, wander, and absorb the atmosphere. It was a bit foggy, and it wasn’t until about 20 minutes or so after sunrise that we first got a glimpse of the sun, shrouded in cloud. All in all, it was a very relaxed experience compared with summer solstice, when tens of thousands gather for sunrise.
Of course, Stonehenge has some interesting solar alignments. But as far as I know, winter solstice sunrise isn’t one of them! It’s winter solstice sunset that is interesting. Head over to Alun’s archaeoastronomy site to find out more about solar alignments at Stonehenge.
A picture, as it is said, can say a thousand words. My “Winter Solstice at Stonehenge” set is now up on Flickr.
Technorati Tags: archaeology, wintersolstice, solstice, stoneage, stonehenge, winter solstice
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The latest edition of Archaeocast, the archaeology podcast from Wessex Archaeology, features Phil Harding, an archaeologist famous for his role on Channel 4’s “Time Team” TV archaeology programme. Phil is an archaeologist for Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury when he’s not filming for Time Team.
With a growing presence of computer use in archaeology, Phil agreed to explain to the masses the importance of technology in prehistory. The people of the ’stone age’ (circa 500,000BC to 2400BC) have often been depicted as primitives, dwelling in caves, pulling their women-folk about by the hair etc - the usual stereotypes pushed by the press over the last couple of centuries. The reality is that we will seem like a primitive people in half a million years - it’s all relative.
Phil makes the point (’scuse the pun) that if you look at closely at stone tool technology, and if you begin to make them yourself, you can start to see how advanced it became. The complexities and subtleties of stone tools are incredible, let alone the knowledge of how to find and select your raw materials. Some of those tools were made by “grand prix” flint knappers, making tiny flakes of razor sharp flint to tip wooden arrows with. Polished stone axes would have had to have been made with extreme care, and could be highly effective as well as beautiful to look at. They evolved into objects that weren’t just functional “problem solving” objects - they could have been seen as desirable objects in their own right (gadgets, anyone?).
Have a listen to the podcast and have a glimpse into the past…
Technorati Tags: ancienttechnology, archaeocast, archaeology, flint, philharding, podcast, stoneage, technology, timeteam
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Worth1000 are running a Photoshop competition entitled “Archaeology Anomolies“.
In this contest you will create a hoax archaeological discovery (i.e. Atlantis, a 2,000 year-old Coca-Cola can or a giant’s skull). Be open minded, there are many mysteries buried beneath the earth.
The rules of this game are thus:
You are to create an archaeological hoax. Your job is to show a picture of an archaeological discovery that looks so real, had it not appeared at Worth1000, people might have done a double take. As always, quality is a must. We will remove poor entries no matter how much we like you. You’ll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submission count.
As an archaeologist with a surreal sense of humour, this really appeals to me!
[UPDATE] One of my photos of a beaker from the grave of the Boscombe Bowmen has been used in the competition, adorned with Mickey Mouse. Not entirely original, but not a bad Photoshop job…
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I have just found out about Podzinger, a new service that utilises voice recognition technologies to index the actual audio content of podcasts. It essentially transcribes your podcast, which is amazing. Their search interface is simple and uncluttered, and search results allow you to listen to the podcast right on the page.
They are even offering a service where people can search your podcast from your website.
Podzinger’s speech recognition software is powered by BBN Technologies, who have apparently been in the game for 30 years.
PODZINGER looks inside podcasts, not just the metadata, letting you search podcasts in the same way that you search for anything else on the web.
I’ve just added the Archaeocast feed to Podzinger to see how well it copes with speech that has background noise. But from a quick scoot about searching for random things in random podcasts, it looks most promising.
Technorati Tags: blogging, podcasting, podzinger, voicerecognition, search
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