World Heritage List now includes inequality

The Onion brings us the latest news from UNESCO:

PARIS—At a press conference Tuesday, the World Heritage Committee officially recognized the Gap Between Rich and Poor as the "Eighth Wonder of the World," describing the global wealth divide as the "most colossal and enduring of mankind's creations."

"Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor," committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. "It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility."

The wealth gap, compared to some monuments (The Onion)

"And thanks to careful maintenance through the ages, this massive relic survives intact, instilling in each new generation a sense of awe," Jean- Baptiste added.

The vast chasm of wealth, which stretches across most of the inhabited world, attracts millions of stunned observers each year, many of whom have found its immensity too overwhelming even to contemplate. By far the largest man-made structure on Earth, it is readily visible from locations as far-flung as Eastern Europe, China, Africa, and Brazil, as well as all 50 U.S. states.

At first I was going to make a joke about how the wealth gap could be part of the Intangible Heritage list, which includes "traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors". Among which inequality is certainly one.

But although neoliberalism and postmodern urbanism have tried their best to make class differences literally intangible by making poverty invisible, the inability to see the wealth gap is a selective blindness, shared only by the rich. From the archaeological point of view, the unequal distribution of wealth in the 21st century will leave very tangible material traces, especially in the development contrasts between the global south and the global north. The wealth gap is indeed a 'structure' in the sense that it organizes people's ability to consume material things, where they can go, even the chemistry of their bodies. Archaeologists who find skeletons from our era will be able to infer class from the chemicals in our bones. A monument more visible (but hopefully not more permanent) than the great structures of the past.

Archaeopop is now on Twitter

As you can see on the right hand side of the blog over there, Archaeopop now has a Twitter stream: @archaeopop. I'll be sharing things I think are interesting/funny/awesome but don't have the time or inclination to blog on in detail. Follow along!

p.s. I'm stoked that the archaeopop stream will go straight to the Library of Congress. Immortality!!!!!!!!

A third archaic human population, and yes - we bonked them

The Denisova cave, Siberia (nsc.ru)

In the wake of recent news that a lot of us carry around Neanderthal genes, there's new evidence that a third species of modern human used to roam Eurasia. A couple small bones found in Russia's Denisova cave have mitochondrial DNA sequences that diverged from Neanderthals 640,000 years ago. Comparison to modern humans shows that Denisova people left a genetic legacy in the Melanesian people of Papua New Guinea - suggesting that they may have been a widespread population.

Where does that leave us? The big picture of recent decades—that modern humans evolved in Africa and spread from there, displacing all other populations—is still largely accurate. But the details are looking much more complex than they were just last year. Those other populations are suddenly seeming a lot more diverse, and they didn't go away without contributing a bit to the genetic diversity of the modern human population (Ars Technica).

That leaves us a recent family tree that looks something like this:

(Via Sciblogs)

The moral of the story? Sex. Modern humans got it on with Neanderthals and whatever other random types of humans they ran into on all those Palaeolithic wanderings across the steppes. Can we finally sweep the last remnants of racialist archaeology out the door now?!

Much more detailed analysis and updates at Discovery's The Loom blog.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams: a 3D documentary on Chauvet Cave by Werner Herzog

The Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave in France is one of humanity's oldest art galleries. Over 1,000 feet underground, the cave has hundreds of complex drawings of animals, monsters, and people from between 26,000 and 32,000 years ago - well into the Upper Palaeolithic.


Werner Herzog just finished a 3D film documenting the cave, and I'm wetting my pants with excitement. Check out the trailer:



3D is a brilliant choice for a documentary like this, for real. It even converted Herzog!

For Herzog, 3-D was the perfect tool to capture the drawings, since after all, the cave that held the drawings was akin to a modern-day theater or gallery where primitive people could view, by torchlight, this mysterious new form of art. "Once you see the cave with your own eyes, you realize it had to be filmed in 3-D," Herzog says. "I've never used the process in the 58 films I made before and I have no plans to do it ever again, but it was important to capture the intentions of the painters. Once you saw the crazy niches and bulges and rock pendants in the walls, it was obvious it had to be in 3-D."

Since the cave is not open to the public, this is an especially great service for all of us that would give an arm to get in there and see things like this:




The Chauvet website has reflections from the very limited number of people allowed to visit. Australian researcher George Chaloupka:

It is not surprising that every visitor to the Chauvet cave first comments on its dramatic setting and the great masterpieces of art within it. Although stylistically similar to Lascaux and other Magdalenian sites, the art of the Chauvet cave stands apart from others. Chauvet's complex compositions are executed over prepared rock surfaces, where pictorial depth is achieved through shading and the overlapping of subjects. The depicted animal species are drawn in firm, unfaltering lines, the charcoal having been worked into flat tints or skilled relief that provide a sense of depth.

Looking at the pride of lions streaking nominally across the wall, I wondered what Pablo Picasso, that old shaman of an artist, could now add to his comment about the art of Lascaux when visiting the cave soon after its discovery. "We have discovered nothing", he said about modern art and artists, for the artists of the Lascaux and now those of the Chauvet cave were magicians of aesthetic creativity.

Herzog himself has been obsessed with cave art since he was a boy, apparently:

As it turns out, when Nelson approached Herzog about doing the film, he was preaching to the converted. As a boy in Germany, Herzog had been mesmerized by a book about cave paintings that he saw in a store window. Practically penniless, he got a job as a tennis ball boy to earn enough money to buy the book. "I'd sneak into the store every week to make sure no one had bought it," he explained. "After six months, I had enough money to pay for it. The deep amazement it inspired in me is with me to this day. I remember a shudder of awe possessing me as I opened its pages."

I'm glad we get to share the awesome.

Boy George Repatriates Looted Icon to Cyprus

The Greek Bishop of Brussels, and Boy George. Loltastic combination (BBC).

When Boy George learned his juicy 18th century icon of Christ had been looted from a church in Cyprus, he did the right thing, as the AP reported yesterday:

Boy George agreed to return the 18th century icon he bought from a London art dealer in 1985 after being presented with proof of its true origin, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Boy George, who said he was unaware of the icon's history when he bought it, personally handed the icon over to Bishop Porfyrios in London on Tuesday. In return, the bishop gave him a modern icon of Christ as a token of gratitude and "with the wish that others soon follow his example."

The leader of the Cyprus church, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, lauded the singer for doing the right thing.

"The moment he heard that the icon was stolen, I think that he did right to return it to the Church of Cyprus to which it belongs," the archbishop said. "We thank him and if he ever comes to Cyprus, we will certainly welcome him."

The church statement said Boy George expressed hope that the icon would soon be returned to the church of Saint Charalambos in the village of Neo Chorio Kythreas from where it was taken. The icon is now in Brussels and will return to the island later.

Good for George. The photo of this odd couple on either side of Jesus is fantastic!

Kythreas is in northern (Turkish) Cyprus, northeast of Nicosia. Since the 1974 military coup, Turkish invasion and civil war, the northern (Turkish) part of the island has seen systematic looting of its heritage, especially of Christian religious icons and frescos. Though even the Greek Cypriot government acknowledges that looting is problem on the whole island, the northern Cypriots should be ashamed that they've done such a poor job of protecting the Christian heritage of the region.

Boy George, of course, should also be ashamed of himself for buying looted art. London is one of the world's major centers for the trafficking of stolen art and antiquities, and even in 1985 there was enough information available for the savvy buyer to understand that most antiquities on the market were illicit. Nowadays, anyone who buys such a thing is simply colluding in the theft.

Music to dig by: Delia Darbyshire, 'Tutankhamun's Egypt'

This spooky electronic number evokes the trumpeters of the Middle Kingdom.

Delia Darbyshire, 'Tutankhamun's Egypt'

Delia sets the mood with a sample of the 1939 BBC recording of one of Tutankhamun's trumpets being played, and then delves into her own take on the sound of the time. Great stuff. The great website dedicated to Delia notes that they're not quite sure how this recording came to be, but that it's probably from 1971.

Delia Darbyshire (1937-2001) was an electronic music pioneer, longtime staff of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and acquaintance or collaborator of artists including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pink Floyd, Brian Jones, Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson. She's most famous for her recording of the original Dr. Who theme! If you're an electronic music fan like I am you should check out the work of the Radiophonic Workshop and the Delia Darbyshire tribute site: super coolness.

I had never heard about Tutankhamun's trumpets. (There were two, one silver and one bronze.) Apparently a British Army trumpeter named Tappern was recruited to play the silver one for a 1939 BBC recording, fitted with a modern mouthpiece. The trumpet immediately split and had to be patched, but Tappern got at least a minute of sound out of it. The bronze trumpet was played in 1939 and 1941 and survived a bit better. Here's the 1939 recording:



Pretty rad if you ask me, though the idea of the thing shattering makes me wince. Strangely, the links to this story take you deep into dead webpages from the mid-1990s, so I couldn't really verify these details. This short documentary tells the story in full if you're craving more:

Rice Krispie Stonehenge

Looks delicious. By Laser Bread, from the Boing Boing Flickr pool.