Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, New Zealand Archaeology Week 2022 is underway! New Zealand Archaeology Week, now into its sixth 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. Events are run by a range of amazing individuals and organizations and coordinated by the New Zealand Archaeological Association (NZAA). Over the last couple of years New Zealand Archaeology Week has been forced to adapt to the present pandemic world. In 2020 it was forced entirely online as New Zealand experienced its highest level of COVID-19 related restrictions. Thanks to the success of those earlier restrictions, New Zealand was enjoying a pre-Delta variant respite this time last year and New Zealand Archaeology Week 2021 saw the return of several in-person events alongside original online content from the NZAA and various content partners. With the Omicron variant now widesprea...

Kia ora, For this post I've decided to focus on our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals , who have been mentioned a few times in recent posts. Please note: this post contains a picture of a modern human skull. This has been included to visually illustrate the morphological differences from Neanderthals.   The first hominin fossils recognised as something distinct from  Homo sapiens (the scientific classification of all extant humans) were recovered in 1856 during quarrying of Feldhofer Cave in what was at the time the Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany). The location of the cave - the Neander 'thal' (valley) - would lend its name to a new scientific species classification, Homo neanderthalensis - referred to colloquially as Neanderthals or, alternatively, Neandertals . Why are there the two different spellings? In the early twentieth century German spelling was regularised to be more consistent with pronunciation and 'thal' became 'tal' (in German the wor...