4 ms·

This week's archaeological news: Underground stone circles and ancient trade

jamesofthedrum 4y ago
Hi all, I'll just nip this in the bud: Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Hoping to provide value now that I've decided to stop lurking. I'm curating archaeological news for a project and figured I'd share.
- ggm 4y ago
  Good stuff! Keep it up
  - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
    Thanks!
- downsidesabound 4y ago
  Love the format, love the writing style. Inline images would also be helpful, though I could understand wanting to keep a more minimal presentation.
  - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
    Really appreciate the feedback, thanks! Yeah, I've been debating images for a while now...
- metadaemon 4y ago
  This is amazing! I've been looking for something just like this for a while.
  - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
    Thanks! Really glad you like it
bennyp101 4y ago
Oh cool, my wife and her family are super into archaeological stuff - I'll send it their way :) Weirdly, we were just planning our route to Minehead and added Stone Henge and Avebury as points (me and the kids have never been) and then this popped up!
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Thanks Benny, I appreciate you sharing it! Have an awesome time at Stone Henge and Avebury - I'm pretty jealous right now
  - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
    Interesting tidbit about Avebury that I covered a few weeks back, in case you (or our wife) are interested: Non-descript stones found at Avebury Henge were carried by humans from 280 miles away. Interestingly, these specific stones have only been found at one site. Why the people of this time would take pebbles on their journey is a mystery. Perhaps they simply wanted to bring a piece of home with them, but regardless of why, this discovery speaks to interconnectedness and the amount of travel taking place in ancient times. Summarized from source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxcY28W3F6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxcY28W3F6M
    - bennyp101 4y ago
      Thats cool! Not gonna lie though, I was a little disappointed that it isn't about rocks from Krypton ;) The whole area seems to be some sort of ancient "thing" that I guess is pretty much lost to time now - definitely interesting!
      - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
        Haha, yeah me too. And I think calling the area an ancient "thing" is about right. We don't understand it. But it's something.
personlurking 4y ago
It'd be great if there was an entire network of these kinds of services, so as to skim what's going on in any field. I've long been interested in summaries + news curation and worked for many years doing just that but I've also had some tiny personal projects (years ago) where I tried doing something similar to Ancient Beat but on niche topics. Another thought: There could also be a differentiation between news article curation and research curation, though I understand they'd intersect at times. Often, looking at the research as it's published gives you good lead time on any news articles that will be published about said research, though it requires a lot of reading. In the professional news curation I did, a "lead time" approach I used for the industry we dealt with was to locate and skim non-English news and publish summaries on what's happening worldwide, which put us ahead of the pack (ie, English-language news sites picking it up) by at least a few days, if not a week.
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Whoa, those are super interesting suggestions, thanks for the feedback! Never considered getting a head start with non-English curation, good thinking. Re the research, I've actually been toying the idea of doing a paid version of the newsletter that analyzes/summarizes the latest scholarly research (most of which is behind a paywall).
- flenserboy 4y ago
  Not a network, but this site has been my go-to for decades for recent archaeological news — https://www.archaeologica.org/news https://www.archaeologica.org/news.
  - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
    Hadn't heard of that one before - thanks! I'll keep an eye on it.
- vishnugupta 4y ago
  Adam Tooze does this for economics: https://adamtooze.substack.com/s/chartbook-top-links https://adamtooze.substack.com/s/chartbook-top-links It is paid however. He also has a unpaid one-topic-per-week Substack: https://adamtooze.substack.com https://adamtooze.substack.com Chartbook is free, deep dive and Chartbook Top Links is paid and a weekly summarised econ news.

Hi all, I'll just nip this in the bud: Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Hoping to provide value now that I've decided to stop lurking. I'm curating archaeological news for a project and figured I'd share.

ggm 4y ago
Good stuff! Keep it up
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Thanks!
downsidesabound 4y ago
Love the format, love the writing style. Inline images would also be helpful, though I could understand wanting to keep a more minimal presentation.
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Really appreciate the feedback, thanks! Yeah, I've been debating images for a while now...
metadaemon 4y ago
This is amazing! I've been looking for something just like this for a while.
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Thanks! Really glad you like it

bennyp101 4y ago

Oh cool, my wife and her family are super into archaeological stuff - I'll send it their way :) Weirdly, we were just planning our route to Minehead and added Stone Henge and Avebury as points (me and the kids have never been) and then this popped up!

jamesofthedrum 4y ago
Thanks Benny, I appreciate you sharing it! Have an awesome time at Stone Henge and Avebury - I'm pretty jealous right now
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Interesting tidbit about Avebury that I covered a few weeks back, in case you (or our wife) are interested: Non-descript stones found at Avebury Henge were carried by humans from 280 miles away. Interestingly, these specific stones have only been found at one site. Why the people of this time would take pebbles on their journey is a mystery. Perhaps they simply wanted to bring a piece of home with them, but regardless of why, this discovery speaks to interconnectedness and the amount of travel taking place in ancient times. Summarized from source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxcY28W3F6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxcY28W3F6M
  - bennyp101 4y ago
    Thats cool! Not gonna lie though, I was a little disappointed that it isn't about rocks from Krypton ;) The whole area seems to be some sort of ancient "thing" that I guess is pretty much lost to time now - definitely interesting!
    - jamesofthedrum 4y ago
      Haha, yeah me too. And I think calling the area an ancient "thing" is about right. We don't understand it. But it's something.

personlurking 4y ago

It'd be great if there was an entire network of these kinds of services, so as to skim what's going on in any field. I've long been interested in summaries + news curation and worked for many years doing just that but I've also had some tiny personal projects (years ago) where I tried doing something similar to Ancient Beat but on niche topics. Another thought: There could also be a differentiation between news article curation and research curation, though I understand they'd intersect at times. Often, looking at the research as it's published gives you good lead time on any news articles that will be published about said research, though it requires a lot of reading. In the professional news curation I did, a "lead time" approach I used for the industry we dealt with was to locate and skim non-English news and publish summaries on what's happening worldwide, which put us ahead of the pack (ie, English-language news sites picking it up) by at least a few days, if not a week.

jamesofthedrum 4y ago
Whoa, those are super interesting suggestions, thanks for the feedback! Never considered getting a head start with non-English curation, good thinking. Re the research, I've actually been toying the idea of doing a paid version of the newsletter that analyzes/summarizes the latest scholarly research (most of which is behind a paywall).
flenserboy 4y ago
Not a network, but this site has been my go-to for decades for recent archaeological news — https://www.archaeologica.org/news https://www.archaeologica.org/news.
- jamesofthedrum 4y ago
  Hadn't heard of that one before - thanks! I'll keep an eye on it.
vishnugupta 4y ago
Adam Tooze does this for economics: https://adamtooze.substack.com/s/chartbook-top-links https://adamtooze.substack.com/s/chartbook-top-links It is paid however. He also has a unpaid one-topic-per-week Substack: https://adamtooze.substack.com https://adamtooze.substack.com Chartbook is free, deep dive and Chartbook Top Links is paid and a weekly summarised econ news.