Brian Hoffman
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buzzhoffman.bsky.social
Brian Hoffman
@buzzhoffman.bsky.social
College professor and archaeologist
American White Pelicans waking up #OnTheEdge in a southwestern #Minnesota pond. My contribution to today’s #BirdOfTheDay #birds #naturephotography
November 26, 2025 at 2:14 PM
My contributions to #birdoftheday and #birdonawire are a Brewer’s Blackbird and a Field Sparrow. Both seen at #KeystonewoodsWMA. It was a beautiful early summer day with lots of bugs for the #birds. I likewise had over 70 wood ticks by the end. #worthit.
November 22, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange.
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange
An ancient band of thousands of precisely aligned small pits stretching 1.5 kilometres across the Pisco Valley in Peru has baffled experts for almost a century.
theconversation.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
I moved to Minnesota in June 2023 during a day when the air smelled like a campfire. When I’ve asked longtime Minnesotans about the increasingly severe smoke during our summers, they all say it was never a problem until a few years ago. And wow, this graph has got the receipts.
November 14, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
"The businesses north of University didn’t wait for permission. They saw opportunities in underutilized buildings and took them. They built for their neighbors rather than theoretical suburban customers."

streets.mn/2025/11/12/n...
North of University: The Midway’s Accidental Success Story
North of University represents everything the south side is not — adaptive, tight-knit, walkable — despite being Midway’s less organized, less polished side.
streets.mn
November 13, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
Happy Exploding Whale Day for those who celebrate :)
55 years ago today, the Oregon State Highway Division had a whale of a problem on its hands. How it solved it is the stuff of legends.

In other words: Happy Exploding Whale Day!
The Exploding Whale: An infamous moment in Oregon history creates a strangely beloved icon
YouTube video by KATU News
youtu.be
November 12, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Northern Lights!!!!
November 12, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
"We live in a moment of confrontation over an attempt to hold onto the largest accumulation of the proceeds of crime. Stolen land, stolen labour, stolen lives, stolen histories, stolen time, stolen knowledges."
In this post, I reflect on the museumification of human relations, reminding us that repatriation is not only essential but that it is also about the return of intangible and unquantifiable things. "The museum is not just those buildings..."

folukeafrica.com/reflections-...
Reflections on Decolonising the Museum
…and why the museum is not just the building
folukeafrica.com
November 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
After collecting examples since 2006 (!) today I decided to finally create the Museum of Dead Digital Museum Displays:

middlesavagery.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/m...

Pathetic fallacy?

Digital doom?

The pained wails of curators everywhere?

Yep.

🏺
Museum of Dead Digital Museum Displays
It truly was born from pathos. The first photograph I took was of an apple imac, on a stand, relegated to the corner next to a traditional museum sideboard. It was 2006 at the Hagia Sophia, and I w…
middlesavagery.wordpress.com
October 29, 2025 at 4:28 PM
I know a few 😃
Heyyyy we desperately need more archaeologists to volunteer to answer questions from students via video chat through @skypeascientist.bsky.social.

We have 80 unmatched teams. We’ve already matched 650 😵‍💫

If you know any archaeologists, please send them here www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html
Sign Up
Skype a Scientist gives you the opportunity to connect with students and the public around the world. ​
www.skypeascientist.com
October 24, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Got out to #CrexMeadows in western Wisconsin on Sunday to watch the #SandhillCranes flying in at sunset. So impressive. Probably a couple thousand arrivals in a little over an hour. Took over 1000 pictures! #birds #wildlifephotography
October 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
A 30,000-year-old toolkit from a Gravettian hunter in today’s Czech Republic reveals a life of mobility, recycling & memory. Stone tools tell stories of survival & connection. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #Paleolithic #Anthropology
Inside a Hunter’s Pouch: What a 30,000-Year-Old Toolkit Reveals about Gravettian Life
Stone, Memory, and Movement on the Ice Age Plains
www.anthropology.net
September 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
Author (that's me) hopes ‘deep map’ of the St. Croix River watershed will inspire others www.twincities.com/2025/09/14/s...
Author hopes ‘deep map’ of the St. Croix River watershed will inspire others
Greg Seitz is working on it as an artist-in-residence at the historic Pine Needles cabin on the St. Croix River.
www.twincities.com
September 15, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
Beginning with beach cleanups in the 1980s, @elsadevienne.bsky.social shows in this Environmental History paper how #data-collection methods & data itself have “shaped public understandings of who is to blame for major global environmental problems such as the #plastic crisis” doi.org/10.1086/737351
September 15, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Got a glamorous and not so glamorous photo of this Double-crested Cormorant today. Love those gorgeous blue eyes. Surprised by the flying stream of bird poop in the next photo. #birds #nature #photography
September 14, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci
Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’
Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage
www.science.org
August 13, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Had a great time at the #MinnesotaStateFair. Ate all my favorite foods including cream puffs, poutine, and corn dogs. Visited the DNR fish pond, the fine arts center, and the always fun animal barns.
August 31, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
A website that lets you select a country or state and move it around a Mercator projection map to yield better size comparisons.

thetruesize.com, created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice
August 30, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
This should be headline news - the implications are horrifying …
Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds
Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
www.theguardian.com
August 29, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by Brian Hoffman
hey do you need your own personal mousepad inspector? you should adopt Winsor! he is a purrmaster. www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ljx...
August 28, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Warblers are on the move here in Minnesota. A great time to be out #birding. #birds #warblers #migration
August 24, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Heard a raptor cry while out birding in the Rice Creek Preserve. Started taking photos to help ID. Unexpectedly I caught this interaction between an osprey & eagle. Too far for a good shot but still exciting to catch. The osprey was likely defending its nearby nest. #bird #nature #talons 🪶
August 5, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Hiking through our nearby woods I came across a family of noisy House Wrens. I watched as the young birds chased each other around until an adult showed up with a bug in its beak. I got some nice photos as the birds positioned themselves and the lucky one got to eat. Fun. #birds #nature #wildlife
July 31, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Traveling (and birding) through the Netherlands and Denmark. Lots of little birds this morning including this sweet Lesser Whitethroat near Skagen.
July 21, 2025 at 7:51 AM