Poisons in the Palaeolithic?

I've taken this post down for the time being whilst some of the content is under review for publication. Sorry! 

UPDATE

This piece was published in PNAS and can be viewed for free there:

Link to Evans: Arrow Poisons in the Palaeolithic? PNAS

It was quite nice to get it published. Since it was a critique of some questionable work the authors of that original work had the opportunity to reply. This reply can be found here. The conversation really stops there since I have decided not to reply - their reply speaks for itself in many ways.

I can't help but put in the most basic terms how I would respond to their reply if I could see that it doesn't really need it - I think academics reading the reply can see it for what it is but that doesn't stop me continuing to write about it here. In essence they don't accept the criticism and maintain their interpretation. The deflect by questioning my arbitrary line of ethnographic evidence saying that the tribe I cited was from a different region. This doesn't matter since the point was that castor oil can and has been used in different ways that are not poison. The also challenge medicinal use of castor oil which, given that there is strong evidence for this, and it is sold in pharmacies today, is puzzling. They then bang on about my comment on heating and change how there were discussing this originally and note that it could be post-depositional - I agree but this was kind of what I was getting at before since they used the possible evidence for heating as something special.

At this point the only line of "solid" evidence they have for it being a poison applicator is that it looks like one. Literally, this is it.

I'm glad that's sorted out. I'm off on my search for the oldest cricket ball. Plenty of round rocks out there so I should be publishing in PNAS about that any day now.

First kicks

So tonight Lou asked for my hand and places it on her belly. One kick, two kicks. Big smile on my face, I leaned over and said 'hello' - ANOTHER KICK!

I'm aware that I don't want to be 'that guy' who keeps going on about his upcoming baby and posting stuff continually about it - but it's hard to not do that! You quickly recognise that those people who do that are just super pleased and happy and can't help it. And it isn't that they don't have anything else going on in their lives that's interesting - it's just that it really does feel like a top trump.

It isn't that special I know. But this is really special to me. I don't want to keep bleating on about it. There's a little man kicking around in my wife's belly and although that's totally normal (as in the 7 billion people on the planet were all once in that same situation), it's impossible to just brush off as passe.

Now I have to start reading to a belly.

Update

I've spent a great deal of time in Italy recently, and I've got to say - I've had a great time! For a while I was pretty indifferent to staying out there and often outright miserable. I got used to a style of living that worked well once my wife figured out how to get skype working well so we could chat frequently. It also helped that on my last trip to Italy, which lasted over a month I decided to take my bicycle. I have been cycling a lot.

This is me in Tuscany with my bike

Having the bike was a huge amount of fun until this happened:

The worst part was that the bike shop took three weeks to fix it. So for most of my last stay in Italy I didn't actually have it. A good excuse to go back I think. Unfortunately that project is now pretty much finished. Upwards and onwards. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I have been granted some funding from the AHRC for an early career fellowship; looking forward to getting that up and running.