Tag: anthropology
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OM NOM NOM or Did I Really Use an Old, Bad Joke to Introduce a Post on Gnawing?
Hi, welcome back to the early to mid 2000’s where we still use jokes like “om nom nom” unironically! Just kidding, I won’t subject you to bad jokes like that for this entire post. Anyway, it’s come to my attention that for a blog called “Animal Archaeology”, I don’t really write that much about the…
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The Perfect Pokemon: A Brief Look at Selective Animal Breeding
Is there a “Perfect Pokemon”? Well, I guess technically there is the genetically engineered Mewtwo…but what about “naturally occurring” Pokemon? Can Trainers “breed” them for battle? A form of “Pokemon breeding” has been a vital part of the competitive scene for years. Players took advantage of hidden stats known as “Individual Values”, or “IV’s”, which…
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Big Game Collector: Collecting Animal Remains in Skyrim (and in Real Life!)
With the addition of Hearthfire as downloadable content, Skyrim allowed players to build and live in their own customisable homes. One of the options for buildable rooms included a “trophy room”, where players can erect trophy versions of some of the creatures that can be killed in-game. This ranges from real world game like bears…
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“Death Positivity” for Pets: Are We Changing Our Attitudes Towards the Death Of Animals?
Content Warning – Today’s blog post will talk at length about animal death and will have some photos of taxidermy animals. Please proceed with caution and feel free to skip the blog post entirely if this is too upsetting. The “Death Positivity” movement has truly become part of the mainstream discourse recently, ranging from a…
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Terror and Tradition Over Time: A Look at the Material Culture Of Halloween
Oddly enough, I didn’t really expect to run into that many significant cultural differences when I first moved from the United States to the United Kingdom. So I was actually a bit surprised when Halloween first came around. I expected there to be streets covered in decorations, but was surprised to see only a few pumpkins…
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Selfies with the Dead: ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’ and the Dehumanisation of Human Remains
Content Warning: Discussion of human remains in this blog post. No actual images of human remains are used, however there are images of digital human remains from the Shadow of the Tomb Raider video game, so please be advised. Recently, the third instalment of the rebooted Tomb Raider video game franchise was released. This game,…
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The Sadness Of Skin: Emotional Reactions to Remains
Content Warning: This post will be talking a lot about death and the emotional resonance of dead bodies, both human and non-human. No images of human remains will be shown, but there will be images of non-skeletal (mummified) dead animals, so if this may be upsetting, please skip this post. I was on Twitter the…
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An Exercise in Archaeological Analysis: Fandom, Fealty, and Funko Pops
The Funko Pop. Anyone who has had even a passing interest in pop culture will have come across these figures. Although they have a basic template (large, squared head with tiny bodies and beady eyes), these figures cover a huge range of franchises, from the most mainstream, popular series to niche, cult classics. Funko Pop…
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An Archaeology of Sudden Death: A Fallout Case Study
Content Warning: This post will discuss human remains and death from disasters and acts of mass violence. Although I will not be posting any actual images of real human remains, I will be using images of human remains from the video game Fallout 4. There may also be discussion of disasters and violence that may…
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Side Quest: Archaeology!
Inaccurate portrayals of archaeology in other media has been discussed before – whether it’s fact checking the Indiana Jones franchise, reiterating that Lara Croft is indeed a Tomb Raider, or correcting someone for the 100th time that no, sorry, we don’t dig up dinosaurs…it can be exhausting! But unfortunately, it will always be necessary so…