Big Edits, Stone Circles & Gender from Teeth

From My Fantasy Writing Desk

The highly enjoyable yard projects at my daughter’s house have come to a close. Gardens show their appreciation very directly when you give them attention–all very satisfying. An even better aspect of this covid-safe trip, my husband and I definitely enjoyed having company besides the two of us for conversation and interaction for a spell.

Now we’re back home. I’m really at my writing desk again. It’s time to focus all my energies on editing the third book in the Tesha series. While away, I worked through one of the three major areas that need changes. Now I’ll get going on the other two. Then the chapter by chapter changes that editors recommended. A few of those will have some significant challenges hidden inside that will expand upon consideration. This stage of editing is about character, plot, world-building, and theme. That is, the big stuff. Later down the road will come the ever so important, but smaller scale stuff like spelling and grammar.

Archaeology I Enjoyed

Standing Stones

Stone circles definitely grab our imaginations. All that extraordinary effort devoted to create them so far back in human history. What inspired such communal dedication? What mattered so much and how did standing stones accomplish that purpose? Castlerigg in England’s Lake District is one such inspirational spot. The stones have been moved enough in the modern period that it’s impossible to decipher a precise cosmological purpose through the positions. Also, unlike many of the later Bronze Age tone monuments that contain burials, Castlerigg has no human remains, so it didn’t serve that function.

But its placement gives some good clues. Much of the lower parts of the area were difficult to travel through because of standing water. Castlerigg sits on a ridgeline above the soggy lowlands and right on the main “highway” along which the people drove their herds from summer to winter pastures. So with a central, oft-visited location, it may have served as the community gathering spot with the highly visible stones.

“…the circle likely hosted a mix of community functions. ‘A helpful analogy is the medieval parish church, which was a religious center, but also often the site of social gathering and the marketplace,’ says archaeologist Tom Clare, emeritus of Liverpool John Moores University.

That’s a pragmatic explanation quite unlike the mystical suggestions often portrayed in fiction. It’s also a lot of effort to put up the giant stones and I suspect the stones had other purposes as well, whether cosmological or ritual. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Off the Grid”

Determining Gender of Skeletal Remains

A new method for estimating the biological sex of human remains based on reading protein sequences rather than DNA has been used to study an archaeological site in Northern California. The protein-based technique gave superior results to DNA analysis in studying 55 sets of human remains between 300 and 2,300 years old.

The method targets amelogenin, a protein found in tooth enamel

Anthropologists compared three methods for sex determination: the new proteomic method; DNA analysis; and osteology, or analysis of the size, shape and composition of the bones themselves. They applied these methods to remains from two ancestral Ohlone villages near Sunol, California. 

The researchers were able to determine the sex of all of the remains using the new protein method and all but five using DNA methods. Results from osteology and proteomics agreed in almost all cases, although examining bones themselves was only effective for about half the skeletons. The new technique is more sensitive and works for older skeletons with more DNA degradation. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Archaeologists Use Tooth Enamel Protein To Show Sex Of Human Remains”