Dr. Abigail Desmond
@abigaildesmond
Archaeologist. Technologist. Harvard researcher.
Archaeologists are often the first people to hold artifacts after their makers. In this case, there are around 47,000 years between me and the human beings who expertly carved these tools. Made by Homo sapiens just leaving Africa, the time between us collapses as I hold their technology in my hand.
15,000 years ago, in one of the the earliest settled communities in the world, a child collected fine clay from the slow-moving river by her home. She then committed an act familiar to all inveterate play-doh enthusiasts; rolling and and pinching the squishy clay into tiny round balls.
This gigantic net, made of human hair (!) was used to corral and catch rabbits by the Hokoham people around 1250 AD. At 165 feet long, we have a physical manifestation of advanced materials engineering, technical skill, and countless hours’ craft. And a new meaning to putting yourself in your work.
Friends, countrymen, lend me your algos! My public Instagram is a go, please join me over there for Stone Age insights, musings, and pretty pictures. www.instagram.com/dr_abigail_d...
James K. Polk in a feather boa? Chester A. Arthur in silk hot pants? Or; why must men dress in drab black suits to appear serious? It was a real pleasure to attend @sexandstatus.bsky.social’s book talk about the history of the suit - an embodied history of masculinity and democracy. And silk velvet.
Last student reflection, last class, last term. @harvard.edu
What better way to start my lecture on the evolution of language? Thanks Joan. @harvard.edu
I’m seeing a lot less AI in students’ writing this year. They’re using their own voices, thinking creatively, putting in the work. It’s more heartening than I can describe.
Why don’t all animals use tools? Does tool use = intelligence? From twigtechnology@bsky.social and my new paper: “Instead of asking what rare and essential gifts allow only certain animals to use tools, we ask: why don’t they all?” static1.squarespace.com/static/5f620...
There are few greater joys than being employed to read stuff like this
Always a pleasure to see hominin graffiti. Tbilisi, Georgia.
Laughed out loud reading archaeologists characterized - by a physical anthropologist - as “… the senile playboys of science rooting in the rubbish heaps of antiquity.” Subtitle: If Earnest Hooton is insulting you, you must be cool. From Trigger’s “A History of Archaeological Thought”.
Leslie White (1942) on human tool use. Simply breathtaking.
Honored to announce I’m writing a book! We understand the importance of stone tools in the Stone Age. But what about socks? Rope? Water bottles? Boats? How did we go from knocking rocks together to the Saturn V rocket? This work takes a long view perspective on how the things we make, make us.
A marble rendering of AL 288-1, better known as Lucy the Australopith. Very possibly our collective 10^5 great-grandmother. “Santa Lucia,” by Gabriel Vinas.
Sound on for the Carnyx! This is what Romans would have heard going into battle against the Celts, who fought naked with severed enemy heads hanging from their saddles.
c. 12,000-year-old engraving of human figures, maybe pregnant women. Early Mesolithic period, Denmark.
Archaeologists -by definition- only find things that survive. Usually that means durable materials; stone, bone, ceramics, glass and the like. This 3,500-year-old Egyptian axe shows how the stone head -often the only surviving component- once articulated with a wooden haft and leather bindings.
Sometimes archaeological sites yield truly exceptional finds. For example, this 3,000-year-old ball of yarn, bobbin, and woven fabric. Made from nettle or flax in the Bronze Age; Must Farm, Cambridgeshire, England.
One of my favorite rock art panels from Tassili n’Ajjer, SE Algeria; “The Great God of Sefar.” 8,000ish bp.
2025 fashion icons/street style goals: The Lepinski Vir statuettes, c 9,000 bp from modern Serbia. Via Wikipedia, an “Impressive…embodiment of the female principle of the fishlike beings.” “Canonical, symmetrical, and rigid.” “Mysterious and lonely,” complete with “eyebags.” “Essential.”