“Why, romance and adventure can be found everywhere — literally everywhere.  All you do is sort o’ kick ’em to life.”

Roy Crane/Captain Easy 1936

The Vela Spila Video

A video summary of Spry-Marques’ dissertation on the animal bones from an island in the Adriatic. Nice drawings!

Free access to historic newspapers

The Fulton History site is a great source for historic newspapers, mostly from New York. The home page is kind of busy and looks like it’s about ten years old itself. Based on the article, it probably is.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/05/amateur-beats-govt-at-digitizing-newspap

Archaeology journals and Continuing Education

This could potentially be very useful:

Over the next couple of months we will be rolling out quite a few small courses for people to take in the archaeology and heritage fields (full list at the bottom of this page).
It will take us a few months to get them all rolled out and in the mean time people will be able to access archaeology journals, probably for the cheapest price possible anywhere.“

Fossil Rodents in France

Like little Moroccan rodents and working in Paris? This is the job for you:

Post-doctoral position at the National Museum of Natural History UMR7205, Paris, France,

 Integrative approach of the 6^th extinction in Morocco: systematic and evolution of modern and fossil rodent biodiversity thanks to classic and geometric morphometrics

 Duration: 12 month

Salary: 46800 € around (tax included) / year

 The question of the 6^th extinction represents today a major problem at a global scale, and especially in coastal areas much vulnerable to strong human pressure. Since the emergence of the Neolithic culture associated with the increasing impact of humans on their environment, animals such as rodents have experienced extinctions, and numerous cases of invasions are encountered in this group. In order to better characterize the impact of climatic changes and anthropic pressure that induce the current loss of biodiversity, we need to study at a populational scale the past and present evolution of the species. The phylogeographic lineages have to be linked to the morphologic ones through an integrative approach. The Morroccan littoral sites are subjected to strong anthropic pressure and landscape modifications.They have yielded good palaeontological records through time (Upper Pleistocene – Holocene), in a good stratigraphic context, with numerous rodent remains. Based on the ANR-PEX04 MOHMIE project and the important modern and fossil material collected during recent field works, classic and geometric morphometrics analysis (teeth outlines, landmarks on skulls and mandibles) will be performed 1) on sequenced (mtDNA) and karyotyped specimens of Mus, Apodemus, Gerbillus (and perhaps Meriones), incorporating as much as possible holotypes and reference specimens in museum collections, and 2) on Upper Pleistocene and Holocene fossil specimens (caves of Témara, Morocco). Refinements of the methodology to follow the lineages and populations through time by combining morphometric data with genetic (DNA microsatellites) and (palaeo) environmental data will allow a better understanding of the history of the studied species and the impact of climate change and human pressure on them. A good experience in both Geometric morphometrics and North African small mammals represents a clear advantage.

 Contacts :

– Christiane DENYS, MNHN Département Systématique et Evolution – CNRS UMR 7205, Laboratoire de Zoologie Mammifères et Oiseaux – CP 51, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris. 

– Thomas CUCCHI, MNHN Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité – CNRS UMR 7209, Anatomie Comparée – CP 55, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris. 

– Roland NESPOULET, MNHN Département de Préhistoire – CNRS UMR 7194, Bâtiment de Géologie – CP 48, 43 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris.