. (Yes, Milloy is not above criticism, but his reviews were frequently endorsed by John Brignell, which is good enough for me.)
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First the link to this week's complete list as HTML and as PDF.
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Pargeter & Hampson ask an important question about the precocious Howison's Poort microlithics: Was it not size and use that determined their choice but the symbolic value of their raw material?
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I’d normally have jumped right over a political commentary like Goldman & Dominici in a scientific review like this. In light of Williams et al. (2019-03-22) and Lelieveld et al. (2019-03-14) I've taken it up with comments by Steven Milloy . (Yes, Milloy is not above criticism, but his reviews were frequently endorsed by John Brignell, which is good enough for me.)
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Kuang et al.'s title is of course deliberately misleading. Their process is electricity- not solar-driven. The fact that electricity can be produced by external solar panels is trivial and has nothing whatsoever to do with the process they describe.
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Sass & Finkelstein securely place their new-found shard and its writing at the transition to Megiddo's phase VA-IVB, thereby refining the development of writing in terms of the relative pottery chronology. They then go on to ascribe that phase to an absolute date and a historical dynasty. That part is not a well accepted fact, as they imply, but rather the object of ongoing contention. This is all the more disappointing, as it's usually Finkelstein himself who most strongly points out the pitfalls of this circular reasoning.
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In my 2016 review (axel.berger-odenthal.de/work/Referat/) of the Thera eruption I mostly relied on Baillie’s (2013) synchronization of ice-core chronologies taking GISP2 to be essentially correct and on Manning’s (1998) identification of GISP2's 1623 layer with tephra from Santorini. This was in line with the 1627 tree ring anomaly and with Friedrich’s (2006) olive branch date. Should McAneny & Baillie's new synchronization turn out to be correct, all that needs to be thrown out and reconsidered.
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Fay et al. claim to contradict conventional wisdom. As far as I can tell they do no such thing. All their experiment proves, is the necessity for specialization and vocational schooling. What population size does, is supply a sufficient choice of suitable candidates to ensure and sustain the tradition.
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Islam and Communism are said only to be tolerant and amenable to peaceful coexistence as long as they are in the minority and to become intolerably suppressive once they reach a position of power. The same relationship can be seen for Christianity since the enlightenment, though moving in the opposite direction.
In her well-researched study Catherine Nixey points out the appaling parallels between Early Christianity in the Roman Empire and current atrocities committed by Daesh. Required reading, especially for all those, who tend to view individual religions as either all good or all bad.
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