Hello this is the blogger antimonite. Ive decided to start blogging on geology in English again. But not here, since blogsome screws up so much. You can fins my new blog at sandbian.wordpress.com - Its newly started and will be about mostly geology from Sweden. Hope to see old and new readers!

/Daniel

Im not sure what the correct English term is for it, but this is what I do for my final paper on bachelor level in geology. A petrological and mineralogical study av so called Battle axes (also know as Boat axes or axes from Corded ware culture, around 2900-2300 BC). The geological value of this is of study is limited to me learning a lot of methods for mineral and petrological identification - on a level usually more often found on a masters degree. The archaeological value of this study is to helt determine possible connections between different parts of the neolithical Europe based on what type of rock these axes are made of.I wanna learn all there is to know about petrological and mineralogical studies, so this is as good as anything else + the cool archaeological part.

Most typical axes of this type are made of diabase or basalt, found in many places in Sweden. But the ones Im going to examine (with thin sections and so on) are made of dacite, a dacite not found here. So if theres anyone out there with knowledge of European dacite locations, please let me know.

One typical battle axe, made of diabase (I think - the white spots seems to be dusty/eroded dents and cavities, difficult to say for sure). And no, of course we dont do thin sections of nice whole samples like this, but rather of broken up parts.

Well, I didnt get around writing much yet about Swedish geology, and now there is that lovely Swedish version of the pagan ritual of midsummers eve coming up this Friday where Im probably going to get ridiculusly drunk and go of killing christians like a good old viking. But when I get back I will write some about my bachelor-project. Its to do with doing a petrographic study of a boat axe from the neolithic stone age. Stay cool and stay tuned! Happy midsummer - Glad midsommar!

A little bit of topic - but at least it "almost" sounds the same as geology - a question on genealogy - 

Can anyone recommend any good American webpages with open records of immigrants to the USA. Im doing a litte bit of genealogy and every tip would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Yesterday I was on a fieldtrip to the south eastern regions of Scania (which is the most southern Province of Sweden, where I live). It took me among many things to a very small village by the ocean called Simrislund. This place is interesting geological-wise since its one of few places where Cambrian quartzite is very abundat at the surface as bedrock. Most of the bedrock is smooth and grinded flat by the last iceage. Sprinkled all over the landscape and the shoreline is oilshale since this used to cover the cambrian rock but nowdays is eroded away. Further inland the shale is still intact as bedrock. The shale is also full of fossils like brachiopods and trilobites.

One other interesting aspect of the Cambrian quartzite is the human impact on it. At Simrislund there are many rocks with carvings on it from the Scandinavian bronzeage over 3000 years ago. This makes this place both culturally and geologically worth a visit.

In my collection of “things and stuff” I got one really nice object that usually makes people envious. It’s a shaft hole axe from Uppland in Sweden. It was my grandfather who in his youth found it on a field. The archaeological dating sets this axe to the middle or late Neolithic. Around 3000 BC perhaps. But I’m not sure on that, it’s been a while since I took archaeology and the making of shaft hole axes streches some time.

Geology-wise this axe is made of, what I think at least, some form of ordinary diabase. The weight, the archaeological practise of using diabase, it all tells me this at least. There’s no volcanoes in or near Uppland (which basically is mostly old igneous bedrock, granites at about 1800 Ma), so I dont think its basalt, but rather diabase. It could be imported/transported of course. But theres a lot of shaft hole axes found in Uppland so I dont think so.

At first, the axe was all nice and shiny black in colour, with some hints of olivine green even. But then I decided to wash it and under a thick layer of like 70 years of handling and showing to people (sounds better than 70 years of deposited human dirts and fats) and that revealed a more grayish dull stone with a hint of green tones. Theres also some redish spots that came out from under the filth which looks like rust almost. I’m not so sure any more of what this stone is made of in detail since no crystalline structure is visible because of the grinding and smoothing of the axe. Any suggestions? My guess is diabase and that the small cracks and holes are the result of erosion of more fragile plagioclase in a resistant matrix of augite and olivine.

Anyhow, depending how you look at it, its an 5000 year old axe or a 1800 million year old pice of rock. And its all mine, my sweet precious shaft hole axe… 

The "missing - walking - link" between primates and homonoids is mathematically solved according to National Geographic. If you (the primate that is) stand on two legs when foraging for foods in higher bushes, its more energy efficient to remain on two legs and walk the distance to the next nearby bush than it is to drop to all four before walking. But only if its 9-16 meters. Longer than that distance and four legs is better.

Its funny how much can be solved simply through maths. Or perhaps its only me and my math-allergic brain that get amused by such things.

I’ve heard this type of complaint a million times before from a million archaeologists when I studied archaeology back in the days. 

I think that it is a prime example of professional archaeologists not realizing the great importance of popular culture on the very survival of the field and that archaeology just wouldn’t receive the same funds without fiction portraying history as "an adventure". They bitch and they moan about how inaccurate archaeology is portrayed in the movies about Indiana Jones. "Archaeology reduced to a treasure hunt".

It isn’t how it is in reality you say? No shit Sherlock. Show me ONE academical profession not portrayed “wrong” in movies and television. One.

Come on, what SINGLE phenomena do they think is the very reason that MILLIONS of young people across the world got the firsts seeds of interest in archaeology?

Oh yes, Indy. Just like “ER” makes new students of medicine. Just like “twister” probably made new students of meteorology. And so on. All of them popular, without being correct representations of how the professions actually work in reality.

So shut the F up and start worship the very reason you probably have a career in archaeology today. If not the personal reason for you smart ass – at least most likely a reason for someone out there writing some part of your paycheck.

Is fiction bad for reality? Not in this case. The very opposite. 

I’m a little bit academically annoyed actually. Annoyed with the field of Palynology.

As a fresh student of geology, but a very seasoned student of archaeology I’ve already noticed several topics where the two fields have somewhat different opinions on the same matter. One of those topics is the Neolithic process (the introduction of a farming society which finally came to the nordic cultures with the Funnelbeaker culture around 4000-4500 BC). As a former archaeologist I could never have expected that there actually were scientists in a different field also looking at the same process. Or actually, of course I knew that geologists worked with facts that was used among archaeologists, but I always thought that they simply provided the archaeologists with facts, not that they in turn produced their own theories about the Neolithic process. I now know from speaking with some of my teachers that I was wrong.

There are several geologists at my University that study the palynology of the Holocene period. And it’s not always that their final theories match the final theories of the archaeologists. For instance, the archaeological theory about Sweden’s first farmers point out that the use of grain predates the actual growth of it in Sweden. Meaning simply that you cannot use only palynology data (pollen) about the introduction of grains to get the full image of when we started to use farming produce. We have pottery (or rather marks and traces of grain in the pottery) that shows the use of grains several hundred of years before we can see pollen from actual growth of grains in Sweden.

It bothers me some that geologists seem to think that the pollen data being based in natural science is a better proof of the introduction of farming than pottery marks or other archaeological finds. Meaning that they consider themselves of being in better understanding of the Neolithical process than the archaeologists (!)

First I would say that both of these things (pollen and pottery) are just as good proof, but that they show different aspects of the Neolithic process. Secondly I must point out that palynology facts are good instruments for archaeologists to use, and they always use these facts in their theories as far as I know. There is definitly more consideration for palynology among archaeologists than there is consideration for grain marks in pottery among geologists. And I must say, the Neolithic process should be considered a field where the archaeologists should know more and have the last saying when it comes to the bigger theories. Professional archaeologists that study the Neolithical process know more in general about the Neolithic process than what geologists do, it is that simple. 

The archaeologists look at so many more aspects of it all than a paleobotanist does - and they use the palynology in their theories. There is no reason for the paleobotanist to invade the domains of archaeology like I’ve noticed that they unfortunately do. The academical conflict is one sided since its only the geologists that doesn’t accept the archaeological facts and not the other way around.

Got a new camera. Nothing fancy, a "Canon digital Ixus 950 is". But it had a nice macro-function so i took som new photos just for fun.

Picture below is a garnet crystal inside of a amfibolitic rock. Hornblende to be precise. Picked it up on an excursion.

Picture below is of a olivine crystal (or a couple of them of course) inside a basalt rock from a small dead "vulcano" in the middle of Scania. Age about 145 Ma. Picked it up on an excursion.

Picture below is of an ordinary sandstone heavily oxidized with iron found in an Jurassic-Trias-deposit of sand. Its composed of several layers of differently oxidized and dense sediments. Looks more strange than it is. 

The picture below is not totaly geological but still quite nice. A piece of iron slag from Uppåkra (Uppakra) Iron age settlement outside Lund (roughly 700 AD perhaps). Since I started my career with archaeology I also have some archaeological things in my possesions. Some of them I actually found myself on field training exercises like this slag and the piece of pottery below.

The picture below is of a piece of Iron age pottery from the same settlement/village.