Archaeology Actually

Kia ora,   New Zealand Archaeology Week 2021 (April 24 - May 2) is underway!  New Zealand Archaeology Week, now into its fifth year, is an  annual week of nation-wide public talks, exhibits, and other events aimed at increasing public awareness and appreciation of archaeology and of New Zealand's own archaeological record. These events are run by a range of amazing individuals and organizations  and coordinated by the New Zealand Archaeological Association  (NZAA).   As I have noted on more than one occasion on this blog,  the archaeological record in New Zealand is something that people in New Zealand are often either not aware of, or tend to dismiss as not important.  "Real" archaeology is often perceived as something done overseas and not here in our little country in the corner of the South Pacific. Well, needless to say, New Zealand's archaeological record is as real as the archaeological record of anywhere else in the world. Of course,...

Kia ora, This past weekend I took advantage of a quiet Saturday and headed along to ' Our Evolutionary Past: Branches through Time ', a new temporary exhibit that had just opened at the local Otago Museum.  ( Note: In this blog post I have included a number of hyperlinks that you can follow for more information, including links to original research papers. Unfortunately, however, many of the research papers I refer to are behind paywalls! ) This free exhibit, scheduled to run until June 10 2021,  focuses on some key themes in human evolution, such as the emergence of uniquely human traits like obligate bipedalism (walking on two legs as our primary method of getting around) and manual dexterity (the ability to use our hands to preform extremely fine movements such as writing or threading a needle by precisely grasping and manipulating objects). Highly accessible educational content combined with some great artwork by Dunedin artist Bruce Mahalski is showcased on massive floor-...