Or maybe archaeology is just being used to distract attention from other research disliked even more by the Republican majority, which passed a bill adding burdens to the National Science Foundation while doing nothing to improve public understanding of the science done with federal support. According to Lamar Smith (a Republican Congress member representing the … Continue reading »
Maya
Maya presence
Now that the world hasn’t ended, it’s fine to return to ignoring the conditions of millions of Maya people living in Mexico and Central America. That has to be the conclusion drawn from the deafening silence of the majority of the English-language media, obsessed almost a week ago about a non-story about the “end of … Continue reading »
Art, authenticity, and the market in Precolumbian antiquities
Probably unnoticed by most readers of this blog, this week a major international incident exploded, pitting prestigious Mexican institutions against a French gallery, and causing social media linking archaeologists to light up. As summarized by Art Daily, the story begins with the sale of a private collection of Mexican antiquities in Paris. Primarily from the … Continue reading »
Bitter chocolate news
Cacao beans, the natural source of chocolate, famously were used as a form of money among the Aztecs. Not that everyone wandered the markets in Tenochtitlan with bags of them ready to pay for other goods: consumption, and probably ownership, of cacao was restricted to the nobility. Instead, cacao beans were a valuable, scarce luxury, … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s role in a legal decision with “huge” implications
One of the striking things anyone who routinely lives outside the US discovers is what a narrow slice of the world we are informed about by the US media. I am sure that the explanation by cable news executives and newspaper editors is that US readers just aren’t interested in the rest of the world. … Continue reading »