Howdy Folks. I know that this is about the 15th time that I have claimed to be getting back on the blog horse, but this time I mean it. I finished my prelims in December, found out that I passed (sigh of relief), had a nice holiday and am now back in A2 getting focused. I’ve got an interesting semester lined up which will hopefully provide some nice topic fodder for the blog. I’m taking a Human Osteology course, a biological anthropology/anthropological archaeology seminar on modern human origins and the Neanderthal debate (in which we will be covering recent genetic work, paleontological work, and, of course, the archaeology!), and lastly a directed readings course on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in the the classic South Western France. Exciting no? I am also a teaching assistant for an interesting class called “Frauds and Fantastic claims in Archaeology”, which is a course designed to teach undergraduates critical thinking as we review such wonderful topics as Bigfoot, Atlantis, Von Daniken and his Ancient Astronauts, and other fun but fringe topics that are prone to glamourization and Discovery channel specials.
So that’s what’s up. I will now be able to explore things more related to my future research interests and fumble my way through the next semester or two looking for pre-doc paper, and of course, dissertation topics. While I had trouble believing it last semester apparently there is life after prelims.
Anyway, that’s all for now. We discussed the relatively recent Neanderthal genome paper (Green et al. 2010) this week in my modern human origins seminar and people had some pretty interesting things to say – something I will likely bring up in the next post, which will actually come soon.
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