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qmackie.bsky.social
qmackie
@qmackie.bsky.social
280 followers 680 following 250 posts
Archaeologist (retd.), idiot looking for a village, used to run @uvicanthro on tw*tter, paleocoasts, dog!, yyj
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qmackie.bsky.social
An ongoing series by Shawn Gilmore . . . collecting all known appearances of “narrative string theory” (string walls, walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives, etc.). 🗣️🧵🌌

www.vaultofculture.com/nst
Screenshot of front page of the linked website with a massive collection of "Narrative String Theory" exemplars from TV and Movies.
November 6, 2025 at 1:21 AM
qmackie.bsky.social
No archaeologists.🏺
Large sign posted in a barren rocky part of Oklahoma stating "No Trespassing. No hunting. No arrowhead hunting. No firewood or post cutting. no park ranger or ex-park ranger. No Forrest Rangers. No Archaeologists. No Universities. No Birding. No Biologists. No Conservatists. No Rabid Enironmentalists." Spelling is per sign.
October 8, 2025 at 8:31 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
#unexpectedprimatology #downfall 🦍🦧🐒
Scene from the movie Downfall, in which Hitler says “and what applies to spies must definitely apply to humans”
September 19, 2025 at 2:01 AM
qmackie.bsky.social
Canadian geoscientists are planning to revise formal geological unit names to eliminate culturally insensitive or offensive terms. Open Access. cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.... 🏺⚒️
Screenshot of text from article, reading: Some geological units named in the past have, unfortunately, utilized toponyms that are now considered culturally offensive or otherwise inappropriate. Although the Code, in Articles 17–20, provides substantial guidance on the revision or abandonment of existing formal stratigraphic names, until recently it did not address the problem of offensive unit names. Despite what would now be considered inappropriate nomenclature, such units remain scientifically valid. For example, in northern New Brunswick the name “Squ*w Cap” had long been used for a mountain and a nearby community, and has also been applied to an intrusive unit of rock, the “Squ*w Cap Felsite”, which crops out in the area (e.g., Wilson et al. 2004). The word “squ*w” is now widely seen as a slur against Indigenous women and girls due to racialized, sexist, and denigrating connotations and ties to European colonization (Bright 2000; King 2003; U.S. Department of Interior 2022). Accordingly, official efforts have resulted in changes to the geographic names, as Meto'mqwijuig Mountain and the community of Evergreen (Cox 2023; Urquhart 2023). These welcome changes do not, however, affect the validity of the name of the felsite unit as the Code emphasizes (Article 7, Remark d) that the renaming of a geographic feature does not affect a formal geological unit that is named after it. The New Brunswick Geological Surveys Branch is, however, currently undertaking steps as outlined below to change the associated unit name (D. Dahn, personal communication, 2025).
September 2, 2025 at 6:45 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
The 1891 opening of Port Pirie / Broken Hill lead mine and Smelter in South Australia showed up almost immediately in Antarctic Ice. theconversation.com/lead-polluti... #anthropocene
Grap showing that 1891 opening of Port Pirie lead smelter in Australia almost immediately shows up as lead isotopes deposited in Antarctic ice cap.
September 2, 2025 at 1:23 AM
qmackie.bsky.social
Original article Fritz et al 2021 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (open access I think). Captions for the figures below are in the alt text. 🏺 🎵🐚 #archaeology
Fig. 1 Marine shell of Charonia lampas from Marsoulas cave (France). (A) Side view. (B) Front view and naming of the anatomical areas. (C) Vestiges of red pigment preserved on the columella (image enhanced with Dstretch-rgb0). (D) Tracing of red dots and lines visible on the enhanced photo. Very similar red dots, produced with the fingertips, are present on the walls of the cave. (5) Set of red dots forming a bison silhouette (length, 1.10 m). (6) Geometric sign formed by a double line of dots. [Photos (A to C, E, and F): C. Fritz; drawing (D): G. Tosello.] Fig. 2 The Charonia shell bears the traces of important modifications of human origin. (A) Elimination of the labrum (outer lip) by series of strokes. (B) Opening of the apex by destruction of the first six spires. (C) In top view, the chipped edge of the mouth indicates a summary work. (D) A deposit of brownish organic matter covers the fractured edge of the apex. [Photos (A to D): C. Fritz.] Fig. 3 The Charonia, wind instrument. (A) Sagittal section of the three-dimensional (3D) model of the shell that makes it possible to visualize the hole drilled at the level of the sixth spire (after opening the apex; see Fig. 2), probably to introduce a tube to facilitate the fitting of a mouthpiece. (B) Detail of the circular perforation drilled from the apex. The streaks on the edge are due to a skidding tool. (C) Top view of the 3D model showing the perforation. (D) Three-dimensional (3D) cross section at the level of the seventh spire. (E) The conch of Marsoulas in its Magdalenian context (hypothetical restitution). (F) Conch from Southeast Asia, the mouth of which is covered with a black coating, intended to protect the lips of the blower. (G and H) Conch from Syria and detail of its chipped mouth, close to that of Marsoulas. (I and J) Conch from New Zealand and its mouthpiece made of a decorated bone tube. [3D model captures (A to D): C. Fritz; drawing (E): G. Tosello; photos (F to J): Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac/E. Kasarhérou.]
August 28, 2025 at 8:17 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
So casual: "Stories of murders passed down by Yamatji elders confirmed by cipher hidden in 1850s journals of prominent Western Australian pastoralist Major Logue. Now descendants on both sides want to break the shame and silence." @b-thom.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Screenshot of the original diary showing how cursive writing turns into an angular rune-like code when murders are described. Text and encoded message describing murder of Aboriginal men in 1852, Western Australia. 4 April 1852 Started after breakfast and accompanied by Carsons we pushed in search of the natives who had taken the cattle saw smoke about 2 miles from Walkaway reached within a mile of it… proceeded from a native encampment tied up our horses in a thicket as the [ground] was very rough and crawled on our hands and knees within 200 yards when the natives saw us and scattered FIRED BOTH BARRELS OF MY GUN AND WOUNDED ONE FELLOW IN THE RUMP. THOMSON AND DICKY SHOT ONE DEAD There are 11 coded diary entries between 1851 and 1853 that describe shooting and killing people; witnessing others in his employ doing the shooting; going on a “campaign” to kill natives; and later riding over the “battlefield” and seeing the bodies of those he had killed lying dead or “hastily buried”. By his own account he was part of groups who shot and killed at least 19 Yamatji people around what is now called Ellendale, Walkaway and the Greenough River. Text and translated code of 1852 journal entry describing the murders: 4 April 1852 Started after breakfast and accompanied by Carsons we pushed in search of the natives who had taken the cattle saw smoke about 2 miles from Walkaway reached within a mile of it… proceeded from a native encampment tied up our horses in a thicket as the [ground] was very rough and crawled on our hands and knees within 200 yards when the natives saw us and scattered FIRED BOTH BARRELS OF MY GUN AND WOUNDED ONE FELLOW IN THE RUMP. THOMSON AND DICKY SHOT ONE DEAD There are 11 coded diary entries between 1851 and 1853 that describe shooting and killing people; witnessing others in his employ doing the shooting; going on a “campaign” to kill natives; and later riding over the “battlefield” and seeing the bodies of those he had killed lying dead or “hastily buried”. By his own account he was part of groups who shot and killed at least 19 Yamatji people around what is now called Ellendale, Walkaway and the Greenough River.
August 5, 2025 at 8:43 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Today in 🐟 typos:
Screenshot of someone correcting their typo, reading "Hassock!!! Not Haddock omg"
July 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
I’ve been around blue herons my whole life but I never knew they could (or wanted to) impale gophers through the brain 🧠 🦩
July 7, 2025 at 5:37 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Good review of current developments in US American Science policy and politics. Open Access.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Abstract of the article The Crisis in American Science, reading: The second regime of Donald J. Trump has decimated federal science and federally supported science to a greater degree than his first regime, unleashing an unprecedented crisis. The authors in this roundtable take a close look at the tortured landscape of science in America and, using historical scholarship and the tools of history, analyze and assess its plight. Topics include nuclear facilities, the role of Silicon Valley oligarchs, Executive Order 14168 on biological sex, climate change and the environmental sciences, science and ideology, responses to regime change, and resistance to the regime, especially by universities.
June 23, 2025 at 7:09 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Sapiens: The origins and obsolescence of an epithet -- a fun and wide-ranging essay on taxonomy of Homo sapiens by @hunterdukes.bsky.social

"In 2023, Hern offered his own redefinition of humans as Homo ecophagus (the man who devours the ecosystem)"🏺

www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/69/du...
Text cut from article: In an era of collapsing biodiversity, deepening inequality, and other ills inflicted asymmetrically by humans, many of the names above (bar demens, perhaps) seem a little quaint. When I corresponded with Julian Cribb, author of the Nature letter, he corrected my lazy language: “There isn’t just a ‘climate catastrophe,’” he said. “There are ten intersecting megathreats.”66 As such, he offers ten new names for humankind: Homo suilaudans (The Self-Worshipper); Homo exterminans (The Terminator); Homo eversor (The Degrader); Homo carnifex (The Butcher); Homo pistor (The Baker); Homo veneficus (The Poisoner); Homo devorans (The Devourer); Homo urbanus (The Urbanite); Homo delusus (The Self-Deceiver); and Homo sapientior (The Getter of Wisdom).67 The Baker offers fleeting levity—a species that coheres by breaking bread—but we proof too hot, with greenhouse gas.68 Curiously, his list ends where Linnaeus began the definition of Homo sapiens: with the imperative Nosce te ipsum, know yourself. “Foresight is humanity’s ultimate skill. … The question the twenty-first century will answer is: do humans have it still?”69 Or did we too forget what we once knew? Title page from a 1760 edition of Carl Linnaeus’s Systema naturae. Linnaeus is depicted as Adam, diligently noting down the names for animals in a book. Is he inventing or merely transcribing? “What’s so sapiens about Homo sapiens?” A young activist protesting in the Berlin subway, 6 January 2024.
June 9, 2025 at 9:01 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
A really outstanding guide to the history of tectonic plates, continents, super-continents, and their influence on biological evolution. Put together by Angus Lo github.com/szupie #geology #evolution #teaching

🌎🦕🦈🦤🐴🏺

szupie.github.io/supercontine...
Reconstruction of continents at 456 million years ago, showing almost no land in the northern hemisphere and smallish continents around the equator as viewed looking down onto the prime meridian (present day London UK). At this time land animals and land plants are known. Reconstruction of continents at 121 million years ago, South America and Africa joined, no Mediterranean Sea, and Spain and Scandanavia are Islands. At this time flowers become known. Reconstruction of continents at 533 million years ago, the view is straight down onto the south pole showing the Amazon and West Africa fused and inside the Antarctic Circle. Diversification of marine animals is known from this period.
May 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Gus Grissom's Mercury spacecraft "Liberty Bell" sank shortly after splashdown in 2800 fathoms of water, 1961. Photos taken when recovery of craft was accomplished in 1999. 3rd pic shows the painted "crack" emulating the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. @drspacejunk.bsky.social #spacejunk
Close up of a shuttle-cock shaped spacecraft painted with "Liberty Bell 7" photographed on the abyssal ocean plain. The craft is encrusted with corals and other marine life, inside and out. Another more distant view of the other side of Mercury spacecraft, with painted with "United States" in white, photographed on the abyssal ocean plain. The craft is encrusted with corals and other marine life and is partially embedded in soft sediments. Another view of "Liberty Bell" spacecraft, showing dangling ropes, sea life encrustation, and the pincers of a recovery remote operated vehicle hovering nearby, photographed on the abyssal ocean plain.
May 14, 2025 at 11:12 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
A cool “Insect Hotel” in an urban micro-park in Montreal 🐝🏨
A small closet-sized enclosure in an outdoor park labeled in French as “An Insect Hotel”. The shelves are filled with different kind of branches and wood many with holes drilled in them suitable for mason bees.
April 24, 2025 at 1:18 AM
qmackie.bsky.social
actually it's in North Saanich miles from Sidney, which is merely a tiny enclave of suburbanism
Map showing the diminutive town of Sidney surrounded by a looming North Saanich in a manner reminiscent of Berlin, April 1945
April 11, 2025 at 7:42 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Three-dimensional model of Canada - USA - Mexico
A photograph of three houses in a row, the middle one has fallen off stilts and sits at a sharp angle leaning on both houses to the sides.
April 4, 2025 at 10:59 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Broken link for me, this worked: www.timesofisrael.com/major-archae... 🏺
The Israel Exploration Society announced Wednesday that it was postponing its annual conference that was scheduled for Thursday due to political interference from Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu. “Due to the interference of political representatives and the situation it created, we have no choice but to postpone the conference that was supposed to take place tomorrow, April 3, 2025,” read a message posted on the society’s website. “Additional updates and details will be sent out as soon as possible.” Dozens of Israeli archaeologists from all major universities and research centers in the field of archaeology were scheduled to speak at the event, which was supposed to be hosted at the headquarters of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in Jerusalem. Eliyahu, however, objected to the participation of Tel Aviv University archaeologist Raphael Greenberg, who also serves as the chairman of the board of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli organization that describes its mission as “protecting ancient sites as public assets that belong to members of all communities, faiths and peoples.” “I will not let the wild weeds in academia who are working to promote boycotts of their fellow archaeologists spit into the well of the heritage of the people of Israel where they drink,” Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, wrote on X. “I have instructed the Israel Antiquities Authority to cancel Prof. Rafi Greenberg’s participation in an important conference due to his activities. I welcome the diversity of opinions but will not allow boycott and harm to the state with state funding or participation.” The Israel Exploration Society announced Wednesday that it was postponing its annual conference that was scheduled for Thursday due to political interference from Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu. “Due to the interference of political representatives and the situation it created, we have no choice but to postpone the conference that was supposed to take place tomorrow,…
April 3, 2025 at 6:49 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
An evergreen Steve Bell cartoon on US foreign policy
Cartoon showing George W Bush on left in Oval Office saying "This Means War..." and on the right he is dressed as Darth Vader and continuing the sentence as "...With Abroad"
April 3, 2025 at 6:43 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
This credit card limits its cash-back bonus to a mere $100^10, or $100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quintillion dollars). I mean, that's Canadian dollars, but I still feel like an undervalued potential customer. #personalfinance 💰💳
Screenshot of an bank ad for a mastercard offering 10% cash back up to 100 quintillion dollars.
March 18, 2025 at 6:39 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Not Neanderthalist #notallneanderthals 🏺🛞♣️🗽
Cartoon of two "cavemen" working on an incomplete wheel while other cavemen with clubs watch from the middle distance. One of the foreground cavement says "We'll have to stop research now that the Neanderthals are back in charge", referring to the club-wielders.
March 14, 2025 at 6:39 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Little bit of space travel ephemera 🚀👩‍🚀
Novelty space flight ticket reservation "holder is not obliged to take the flight" from 1960s
March 11, 2025 at 7:54 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Good to have a metric on how much plagiarism is ok....
Text from an unsolicited email for a junk journal reading: "Dear Professor, Scientist, or Scholar, We cordially invite you to share your valuable research with our journal. We acknowledge that your expertise and knowledge are crucial to advancing the field, and we would be delighted to receive your submissions through our Article Submission System, which is accessible on the journal’s website. Please visit the journals consortium to select the appropriate journal according to your expertise and knowledge. To maintain the integrity of our journal, we would like to emphasise the importance of producing original and results-oriented articles with a maximum of 15% plagiarism, including references. We kindly request that you adhere to the scope of our journal and ensure that your hard work is protected. For more information on our submission guidelines, please visit our website’s “Guidelines for Authors” section. We appreciate your dedication and commitment to research, and we look forward to receiving your submissions. "
March 9, 2025 at 4:31 AM
qmackie.bsky.social
It's great you didn't reproduce this image when posting it to Social Media.

(BTW if you add an image to a post, then the image from the article URL will not be shown automatically, unless someone clicks through)
Partial screenshot showing the image of a mummy in a post decrying circulation of images of said mummy.
March 3, 2025 at 8:46 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
According to this page, would be ~top 10 in size since 2000

www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/recent/2025/...
Table of top 11 earthquakes by magnitude in last 25 years in NE BC.
February 14, 2025 at 9:28 PM
qmackie.bsky.social
Interesting that NRC lists those two earthquakes in NE BC each mag 4 or greater as "Industry-Related" presumably fracking? But did not see any other info on this at their site. www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/index-en.php
February 14, 2025 at 9:25 PM