AlunSalt

Heritage Key have unleashed their second Bloggers’ Challenge. This time they’d like to know what the most important site in London is. Once again I’m not entering because of Rule 19, but it’s still an interesting question. This time around it won’t go live till after the event. I think I’ve gone for an obvious [...]

Note: Giulio Magli was one of the examiners of my thesis, so his book is hardly likely to get a bad review.
This review rounds off a trilogy to go with Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings and People and the Sky. Like the other two books this could be said to be part of a World Archaeoastronomy [...]

I had a slight worry earlier today. I have an idea that I think has cross-over relevance between SETI and Ancient History about ancient speculations on extraterrestrial life. I was slightly alarmed when I read Jean Schneider’s new pre-print on arXiv, The Extraterrestrial Life debate in different cultures. In it Schneider argues that arguments about [...]

Heritage Key are holding a competition, asking for blog posts about “Which invaders have had the biggest impact on London?” I can’t enter for various reasons, but it’s an interesting question. In the spirit of creatively coming up with the wrong answer, I’m going to go for:
Yersinia pestis
Y. pestis is without doubt the invader who [...]

I’ve been rummaging through the depths of my hard-drive and found a few things I’d forgotten about. Here’s one of them, from 2006 I see, a presentation on the contemporary archaeology of Mars.
The reason I’ve pulled it up is I might want to go back and think this over again. I’m not happy with [...]

A couple of years ago I came across the Long Now Foundation on the web. I was planning to blog on it, particularly some of the bets, but haven’t so far. If there’s one subject which shouldn’t be affected by a delay of a few years it’s the Long Now Foundation. I remembered, because I [...]

I missed this, the ESA put out the video on their YouTube channel before Christmas, but if I keep quiet about that maybe no one will notice. Ariane is now 30 years old.

ESA celebrates 30 years of Ariane.

The first Ariane launched from Kourou in French Guiana on Christmas Eve 1979. The Kourou site sounds like [...]

I don’t know about you but I’ve been absolutely riveted by the recent release of records from a break-in at the White Star line. No really, it’s not just a stream of bilge from people who may not be experts but reckon something. Frankly I can’t get enough of hearing about the same claim that [...]

At the start I should make clear that I am not an expert and I can’t say for certain exactly what Impact is. The reason I’m writing this is that sadly no one else can say what Impact is either, though HEFCE has a go. That’s a problem, because it’s going to play a big [...]

I’m not planning to blog a lot on the Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples as is openly accessible. Your comments are going to carry a lot more weight there than here. But I’ll try and keep track of what other people are saying elsewhere. I’m expecting this to be the first paper of a [...]