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How can we use material traces of past lives to understand sex and gender in the past?
Bone deep: sex and the skeleton
I have been waiting to see how long it would take the mainstream press to make the obvious joke about news the New York Times recently reported, that a protein called osteocalcin, which is produced by bone-forming cells called osteoblasts, binds to a specific receptor on cells of the testes. Male mice that were unable […]
Dead babies still are bad evidence for a Roman brothel
August 9, 2011
Last year I asked the rhetorical question “Are dead babies good evidence for a Roman brothel?” My post rehearsed a number of reasons to be skeptical of the widely reported story about a Roman British site being described as a brothel. Centrally, I objected to the claim that Roman women had “little or no access […]
Neanderthal/sapiens: a stormy love affair?
August 7, 2011
I have spent a lot of time reading about new findings about Neanderthals over the past year. Recently, I wrote about the coincidence of two studies published in July: one demonstrating genetic overlap between modern humans and Neanderthals (resulting from sexual relationships), the other proposing that Neanderthals were pushed out of their territory by an […]
Body Histories: “Expressive muscles” and women’s fatigue
July 8, 2011
“Any doctor who saw how even experienced female athletes collapsed and were lying on the ground after the race could not support this kind of athletic competition for women.” Norwegian historian Kerstin Bornholdt cites this statement, by a German doctor, H. Franzmeyer, reacting to what he saw as the unsuitable participation by women in the […]
“I want a caveman, I want a brave man”
June 2, 2011
Oh. My. God. Wild Men? The First Fred Flintstones Were Left Holding the Baby yells the Daily Express. Not much better, when you discount the popular culture reference, is the US News & World Report: Even Ancient Men Seemed to Like their Man Caves. Urk. I cannot believe I just typed the words “man cave”. […]
Evolution as Fight Club
May 21, 2011
This just in: ancestral humans adopted bipedal posture so that males could fight with the strength of their forelimbs, making their punches more dangerous. OK. I actually thought I knew the range of arguments for bipedalism. I guess I appreciate having something novel to think about? The research described in news reports I read was […]
Making a Mark: From Graffiti by Coptic Nuns to Blogging
April 23, 2011
Every scholar knows that professional conferences are where new research is first reported. By the time most research makes it into print, it is old news to us. Stories in the media can sometimes cut the time lag, either because a project circulates a press release, or there is a press center for the organization […]
August 27, 2011
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