Long thread at the other place on how Karl Polanyi distorted evidence from early economies in order to support an erroneous view of pre-capitalist economics. Too much effort to post in both places. x.com/MichaelESmit...

Kino’s hike this morning

Showing our solidarity with Denmark and Greenland

🧵The cosmogram crowd are at it again. Sigh. Cool new site, Aguada Fenix, is interpreted by Takeshi Inomata et al as a big cosmogram. The article is here: science.org/doi/10.1126/..., with a journalism article in LiveScience here: livescience.com/archaeology/.... What's wrong with that? 1/6

RIP, Bob Weir

Found this old joke from pandemic times

Kino having fun this new year

Go Illini!

Kino at sunset

We were at Tivoli in Copenhagen on opening day this fall, and heard a brass band playing Feliz Navidad. Didn’t manage to film the Spanish lyrics with Danish accents. K

Should I sign up for the "Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC"? I can find 3 of my book (Univ. Arizona Press) included. Any suggestions? www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com?_gl=1*1v1xfk...

Sad death of CBS News as actual journalism And a reminder that CECOT is a human rights travesty, and everyone up and down the Trump admin involved in illegally sending people there belong in The Hague.

Here's our reporting on the proposed dismantling of the jewel of US atmospheric science, @ncar-ucar.bsky.social. The plan is to break NCAR apart and disburse some parts to other locations (like the research aircraft fleet) and eliminate others. www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪 #AGU25 #climate

Spent some time in Texas organizing the field notes and data of my in-laws, from decades of field research on cicadas and other critters. I hope we can get the University of Illinois to archive some of this stuff.

Kino is so famous that he has schools and pools named after him.

"Editors of Journal of Philosophical Logic published open letter announcing that they will leave, no longer work with Springer Nature... launching new journal called Philosophical Logic at Open Library of Humanities... [due to] commercialisation of publishing process" dailynous.com/2025/12/10/e...

My year-end book roundup and gift recommendations: 29 books familyinequality.wordpress.com/2025/12/14/y...

My talk on urban relocation in the past from the MR2025 conference. Its at 1:55 to 17:10. youtu.be/xHlVwwzCq2o?...

Kino is five years old today. He enjoyed his peanut butter birthday treat at Camp Bow Wow

youtube.com/watch?v=ns3y.... Incredible duet, Rufus Wainwright and Sara Bareilles.

See my feature on "Best books on the Aztecs" on @five_books . I went with some oldies but goodies. fivebooks.com/best-books/a...

🧵The cosmogram crowd are at it again. Sigh. Cool new site, Aguada Fenix, is interpreted by Takeshi Inomata et al as a big cosmogram. The article is here: science.org/doi/10.1126/..., with a journalism article in LiveScience here: livescience.com/archaeology/.... What's wrong with that? 1/6

This sounds like a good rationale for the tremendous success of cities, all over the world, for the past 6,000 years. "Cities are cool and lots of people enjoy living in them". Yes, indeed.

MDPI, not only predatory, but clueless. "Dear Dr. Smith - We contacted you 31 Oct, regarding a Special Issue, "Inositol Phosphates in Health & Disease, 2nd Ed." in the "Biomolecules". Based on your expertise in this field, we think you could make an excellent contribution."

#joselobo on ipcc, policy advise, and history grounded urban science #mpigea

Indiana University has fired the staff director of the student newspaper, after disputes in which university leadership tried to pressure him to prevent students from publishing news.

My Aztlander zoom lecture on Calixtlahuaca is now on YouTube: youtu.be/ROBc5t2QZGo?...

Kino in the afternoon sun

Nap in the sun

Wow, Unforgotten is a 2025 Bronze Winner, Prix de la Photographie de Paris - UNFORGOTTEN: ANCIENT CITIES FROM A DISTANT PAST px3.fr/winners/px3/... Maybe this was because of my excellent essay. Ha ha, in my dreams. Bill Frej's photos of sites are gorgeous, well worth a look.

Went hiking in the woods near Pine, AZ, saw some javelinas, and had a birthday picnic at a state park. Home now and tired.

The cactus is blooming this morning. I can’t seem to upload the video of bees having a good time in the flowers

I'm giving a zoom lecture on our excavations at Calixtlahuaca, for the Aztlander group. Monday, Sep 15, 8:00 pm Eastern time. Contact the Aztlander folks, or email me, if you want a link.

Lots of small ceramic figurines from Yautepec. For some reason, many authors insist that anything anthropomorphic must be a deity. But when they wanted to depict a deity, they included deity attributes so there was no doubt. See my paper on Aztec domestic ritual: www.academia.edu/13087249/_Do...

I am an archaeologist at Arizona State University. I am into premodern cities, comparisons with cities today, methodological rigor, Aztecs, and Kino the dog. I have found Bluesky to be boring, although there are a few feeds here I like to follow. But I post more at the other place.

New paper, me and a zillion coauthors, Alissa Ruth is the lead and organizer, "Online student engagement in social science research laboratories: Expert advice on the opportunities and challenges." I guess I am one of the experts. www.cur.org/journal-arti...

Some images of the Calixtlahuaca bird. The city was originally called Matlatzinco, but the conquering Mexica gave it the name Calixtlahuaca. The bird may signal the name of the ruling dynasty.

Is there a term for making up fake hypotheses to make one's work sound scientific? These authors make up three bogus hypotheses about Aztec whistles - hypotheses that no one has ever proposed, & suggest they are important research issues. 10.1038/s44271-024-00157-7 Weird. Photo is Yautepec whistles.

After Kino swims in the pool, we keep him off the bed. But he finds another soft place to snooze after dinner.

Me and Kino, out for a walk.

Afternoon sunbathing

Some doggie friends from our time in Cuernavaca. The girls would carry these guys around in a market bag.

#internationaldogday. Kino is all in.

"Because of the symbiotic relationship between academic institutions and the scholarly publishing industry, the context surrounding scholarly publishing both defines and limits what it must be, therefore constraining change to incremental steps that never result in substantive alteration."