Wednesday Rojak #40

On this week’s rojak, we feature hobbit commentaries from last week’s criticism of the Palau hobbits was published, as well as posts about Singapore and Cambodia.
National Archives of Singapore

• Science journalist and writer Francis Sedgemore comments on the recent use of hyperbole in scientific literature in Hobbits? What hobbits?
• While in Anthropology.net, the take home message about the Palau hobbits is “don’t rush to publish and know the previous literature and samples by heart when you tread on someone else’s turf“.
• But back to the Flores hobbits here; Cryptomundo highlights a Japanese journal article that agrees that the morphology of the Flores bones are more similar to homo erectus than modern homo sapiens
• Does the collapse of Angkor have any parallels with modern corruption in Cambodia? The Road Less Travelled features a documentary by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation investigating The Double Mystery of Angkor
• CNEIL uncovers a shop in his neighbourhood in Singapore that sells gems and cave artefacts in the form of stalactites and stalagmites – given the strict conservation laws of his home state Missouri, there’s a question about the provenance of the store inventory. (Thanks to Liz for this link)
• One of Singapore’s national treasures is the Singapore Stone, an ancient inscribed stone that was unfortunately blown up during the colonial period. Read about the Singapore Stone in Mohd. Hisham’s Blog, featuring the inaugural episode of Heritage TV (HTV) by the National Heritage Board about the stone.

In this series of weekly rojaks (published on Wednesdays) I’ll feature other sites in the blogosphere that are of related to archaeology in Southeast Asia or archaeology in general. Got a recommendation for the next Wednesday rojak? Email me!