SEAA News Blog

The Indiana Jones Syndrome

The following is the English translation of a Danish article by Peter Harmsen, first published in Weekendavisen 

On the border of the desert, near the Great Wall of China, lies the 4000-year-old ancient city of Shimao. Here, in recent years, archaeologists have made one important discovery after another, and along the way, they have been forced to revise their assumptions about how civilization originated in what is now called China.

"A team of researchers from Zhengzhou University, the Modern Analysis and Computer Center of Zhengzhou University and Peking University, all in China, has found evidence of what appears to be the oldest coin-minting operation ever uncovered. In their paper published in the Cambridge University journal Antiquity, the group describes their discovery and study of coins and minting molds found at a dig site in Henan Province, China, and what they have learned about it."

Sika deer in Bronze Age Guanzhong: sustainable wildlife exploitation in ancient China?

Authors: Yue Li, Chengrui Zhang, Honghai Chen, Zhen Wang and Yaopeng Qian 

The spatio-temporal structure of the Lateglacial to early Holocene transition reconstructed from the pollen record of Lake Suigetsu and its precise correlation with other key global archives: Implications for palaeoclimatology and archaeology

Save Ancient Studies Alliance (SASA) and Digital Hammurabi will be hosting a free public virtual conference on August 15 and 16, 2021. The conference is titled “Opening the Ancient World: Religion, History, and Culture” and focuses on the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa 

Authors: Guangpeng Ren, Xu Zhang, Ying Li, Kate Ridout, Martha L. Serrano-Serrano, Yongzhi Yang, Ai Liu, Gudasalamani Ravikanth, Muhammad Ali Nawaz, Abdul Samad Mumtaz, Nicolas Salamin, and Luca Fumagall

Population dynamics in the Japanese Archipelago since the Pleistocene revealed by the complete mitochondrial genome sequences

Authors: Fuzuki Mizuno, Jun Gojobori, Masahiko Kumagai, Hisao Baba, Yasuhiro Taniguchi, Osamu Kondo, Masami Matsushita, Takayuki Matsushita, Fumihiko Matsuda, Koichiro Higasa,  Michiko Hayashi, Li Wang, Kunihiko Kurosaki and Shintaroh Ueda

SEAA is pleased to announce Prof. Peter Bellwood from Australian National University has been awarded the 28th International Cosmos Prize for his contributions to developing our understanding of past human societies, and especially his research on the early farming dispersal hypothesis in Southeast Asia. For more information see the following links:

https://www.expo-cosmos.or.jp/english/news/the-winner-of-the-202128th-international-cosmos-prize.html

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-archaeologist-awarded-top-honour-for-lifes-work--

What is the DRH? 

The DRH is a massive, standardized, searchable encyclopedia of the current best scholarly opinion on historical religious traditions and the historical record more generally.

It allows users to instantly gain an overview of the state of scholarly opinion and access powerful, built-in analytic and data visualization tools.

Want to contribute? 

If you are a historian or religious studies expert, you can help make the DRH better. It is a great chance to contribute to an important academic resource. The DRH is actively recruiting experts to fill out entries on East Asian religion. Entries may be written in Chinese OR English.

Benefits of Writing an Entry: Contribute to an international database on world history; Receive a publication credit; Honorarium available while funds last for complete entries finished within 60 days. 

Entry Requirements: Introductory paragraph (approx. 400 words); All quantitative questions answered; As many qualitative comments as possible (no set word count); Approximately 20-40 pdf pages (number will vary based on topic).

Contact Editor: Matthew Hamm (mattjhamm@gmail.com)

Editor, Archaeological East Asia: Katrinka Reinhart (reinhart@stanford.edu)

https://religiondatabase.org/landing/get-involved 

Introductory video: https://youtu.be/X7V0WNe2PrA

Academic position as Associate Professor in Heritage Studies. 

Associate Professor in Heritage Studies, Grade 9, Full-time, UCL Institute of Archaeology , UCL Jobs Ref: 1877496

Role description: 

The UCL Institute of Archaeology is renowned as one of the world's leading centres of expertise for research and teaching in the fields of Museum Studies, Conservation, Cultural Heritage Studies and Public Archaeology. Staff and student's working in these areas comprise the Institute's Heritage Studies section.

The Associate Professor in Heritage Studies will be a member of staff at the UCL Institute of Archaeology but will also join the team delivering the new BA Heritage, a flagship multidisciplinary programme for UCL's new campus at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park. UCL East will incorporate 12 academic entities with a range of new research and teaching programmes and collaborations with the other East Bank partners, including the V&A, the Smithsonian, Sadlers Wells and the BBC. One of these entities is the School for the Creative and Cultural Industries, within which the BA Heritage is situated.