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Social history (including human origins and later prehistory), Page 4

Clive Gamble and others at ‘Question time; The Brain and Society’ at #MDRWeek

More than 120 people attended ‘Question Time: The Brain & Society’, (incl. 40 6th Formers) during this year's fabulous Multidisciplinary Research Week. Really fascinating series of short talks followed by debate. Including contributions by Professor Alex Neill, Professor Hazel Biggs, Professor Tom Lynch, Professor Paul Roderick, Professor Clive Gamble and Dr Cheryl Hawkes. Continue reading →

The death of prehistory

I know this will upset many archaeologists but let’s admit it, prehistory is dead. Adding a pre- to history no longer makes any sense. Pre-history rightly belongs to the Jurassic’s dinosaurs and the wriggling worms of the Cambrian explosion; those shaley superstars Opabinia and Wiwaxia that Stephen Jay Gould trumpeted so loudly in Wonderful Life. Human prehistory deserves better than being lumped with big lizards and creatures with less neurons than an Arctic midge. Continue reading →

Forthcoming international conference Creativity: An Exploration Through the Bronze Age and Contemporary Responses to the Bronze Age

Members of the HERA-funded project Creativity and Craft Production in Middle and Late Bronze Age Europe (CinBA) (www.cinba.net) co-ordinated by myself are getting ready for the forthcoming international conference Creativity: An Exploration Through the Bronze Age and Contemporary Responses to the Bronze Age to be held on 10th-11th April 2013 at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK. There is a fantastic line up of speakers drawn from all across Europe (www.cinba.net/conference). Continue reading →

Alasdair Whittle’s “Times of their Lives” project in Seville

I have just spent an intense but immensely rewarding few days with the Alasdair Whittle’s “Times of their Lives” project in Seville, Andalucia, where a new dating programme for the fantastic Copper Age site of Valencina de la Conception is starting to take shape. Valencina is a site I’ve been interested in for some time with my long term collaborator and friend Leo Garcia (Seville University) and it’s an exceptional site in many ways. Continue reading →

Ice Age Art and the question of sex

There are many old friends in the British Museum’s must-see Ice Age Art exhibition. As a research student in the early 1970s I worked for several months in the Ulmer Museum in southern Germany. Every day on my way into the storerooms to measure more Palaeolithic reindeer teeth I passed the ivory statuette of the Löwenmensch, the Lion-headed-man. There was less of him in those days. His muzzle had not yet been handed in and big chunks of his back were missing. Continue reading →

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8th March Dr. Rob Hosfield University of Reading, UK       “Walking in a winter wonderland? Mid-latitude seasonal mobility options in the Lower Palaeolithic”    Abstract: Any occupation of northern Europe by Lower Palaeolithic hominins (H. heidelbergensis/proto-Neanderthals, and H. erectus and/or antecessor?) must have addressed the challenges of marked seasonality and cold winters, primarily during ‘interglacial’ MIS. Continue reading →