Carved stone balls are petrospheres dated from the late Neolithic to possibly as late as the Iron Age mainly found in Scotland, but also elsewhere in Britain and Ireland. They are usually round and rarely oval, and of fairly uniform size at around 2.75 inches or 7 cm across, with 3 to 160 protruding knobs on the surface. They range from having no ornamentation (apart from the knobs) to extensive and highly varied engraved patterns.[2] A wide range of theories have been produced to explain their use or significance, with none gaining very wide acceptance.
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A revolutionary new idea on the movement of big monument stones like those at Stonehenge has been put forward by an archaeology student. He discovered that many of the late Neolithic stone balls had a diameter within a millimeter of each other, which he felt indicated they would have been used together in some way rather than individually.
The Ground Stone Tools of Britain and Ireland: an Experimental Approach Andy's doctoral research explores the way ground stone tools are currently interpreted and examines the manufacture of a wide range of implements through experimental archaeology. His research contextualises the nature of ground stone tools with reference to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, analysing the trajectory of their development over time and the ways technological innovation may have driven certain morphological changes. He has developed a range of complimentary technical analyses which can be applied to experimental replication studies in order to better understand a wide range of tools. Interpretations are based on qualitative and quantitive data, whilst at the same time examine the ways a post-processual-linked phenomenological perspective might be a valid means of enquiry, with special emphasis on craft skills.
Jody Harrison (HeraldScotland)THEY are among the most mysterious artefacts ever discovered in Scotland, ornate relics whose purpose has long been lost to the mists of time.
I AM pleased that Jeff Nisbet has managed to do what I have tried in vain to do for the past two years which is to get media interest into what may well be the first examples of art in Scotland ("New theory sheds light on mysterious stone balls found across Scotland", The Herald, May 4) with the suggestion that the balls are, perhaps, apprenticeship pieces for entry into the profession of stone masonry.
Prehistoric Petrosphere – Carved Stone Spheres and Balls Prehistoric Petrosphere – Carved Stone Balls are spherical human-made objects made from stone. These ancient artifacts have been created by carving by up to up to 5200 years ago. These carved stone balls dating from the Late Neolithic to as late as the Iron Age, are mainly […]
Plotting the find sites on a map shows that these petrospheres were often located in the vicinity of Neolithic recumbent stone circles. ❧
Annotated on July 24, 2020 at 03:06PM
They are usually round of reasonably uniform size at around 2.75 inches or 7 cm across. They can have from 3 to 160 protruding knob shapes on the surface. These carved stone balls are nearly all have been found in north-east Scotland, the majority in Aberdeenshire. As portable objects, they are straightforward to transport and have been found on Iona, Skye, Harris, Uist, Lewis, Arran, Hawick, Wigtownshire, and fifteen from Orkney. A similar distribution to that of Pictish symbols led to the early suggestion that carved stone balls are Pictish artifacts. However, examples have been found in Ireland and England. ❧
Annotated on July 24, 2020 at 03:27PM
Gary (The WordPress.com Blog)Turn your recent Twitter thread into your next blog post.
I’m curious if they were following the recent functionality added by ThreadReaderApp using Micropub? I’m guessing the fact that they used the verb “unroll” means they were at least aware of it as a functionality.
Category theory is unmatched in its ability to organize and layer abstractions and to find commonalities between structures of all sorts. No longer the exclusive preserve of pure mathematicians, it is now proving itself to be a powerful tool in science, informatics, and industry. By facilitating communication between communities and building rigorous bridges between disparate worlds, applied category theory has the potential to be a major organizing force. This book offers a self-contained tour of applied category theory. Each chapter follows a single thread motivated by a real-world application and discussed with category-theoretic tools. We see data migration as an adjoint functor, electrical circuits in terms of monoidal categories and operads, and collaborative design via enriched profunctors. All the relevant category theory, from simple to sophisticated, is introduced in an accessible way with many examples and exercises, making this an ideal guide even for those without experience of university-level mathematics.
World Wide Web Consortium urged to get its governance act together
Earlier this week, 20 web advertising companies wrote to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Advisory Board to ask that the standards organization revise its governance process to prevent ad tech giants like Google from running roughshod over the concerns of others with an interest in the web.
Today on TV, the Deputy Director of the federal paramilitary force in #PDX discussed the infamous van video. He destbook example of an unconstitutional arrest. But... he doesn’t seem to know it. That is a BIG PROBLEM. Let’s unpa…
The web needs to take itself less seriously. It's barely out of its twenties and suddenly it's all like I can't make fansites for hippos anymore, I have businesses to run.
David Shanske (david.shanske.com)When I first started in the IndieWeb community, IndieAuth confused me. It confused me up until I built an IndieAuth endpoint for WordPress. It may confuse you as well. And that has been a problem in its adoption. The biggest confusion seems to be conflating IndieAuth and IndieAuth.com. IndieAuth.com...
Nathan DeGruchy (Verily)David Shanske is one of the authors of one of the core IndieWeb plugins for WordPress: IndieAuth. It looks like he is depricating the use of IndieAuth.com as a provider. Makes sense with WordPress as the idea is really to use the built-in authentication method in WordPress itself, not another provider.
So, going forward, I’ve decided that I’ll be disabling the code from the IndieWeb WordPress plugin that allows you to use IndieAuth.com in favor of the built-in solution. Those who want to use an external service will still be able to do so, but this will be an ‘expert’ feature. Because enabling a plugin and it just working is what most people want.
David Shanske on the future of the WordPress IndieAuth PluginHonestly, I didn’t even know you could use IndieAuth.com as a provider. I assumed when I set it up that the entire idea was to use your site as a sort of IAM or SSO provider. I guess this confirms that my assumption was correct.
Keep up the great work, guys!
As campuses reopen without adequate testing, universities fault young people for a lack of personal responsibility.
I love the attempt to reframe what is happening here. Administrations should be in a better place to see second and third order effects here, even if they don’t want to take responsibility for the costs themselves.
This looks intriguing.