Contagions Round-up 18: A Load of Links

Over the last week or so I haven’t got a chance to blog as much as I would like. Meanwhile, my reader has been filling up with a load of great links worth sharing.

Ancient and Medieval Life

Tim Clarkson of Senchus asks Where’s the beef? in early Edinburgh.

I wrote about new information on the Staffordshire hoard of gold scrap on Heavenfield.

Guy Halsall of Historian on the Edge shares his latest writing project on the Genesis of the Frankish Aristocracy  in four parts. It would have been helpful to provide links to the other three parts! (part 2, part 3, part 4)

Krystal D’Costa of Anthropology in Practice writes about the use of cock’s crow to keep time in the Middle Ages.

Bamburgh Research Project has posted a report of their re-excavation of Brian Hope-Taylor’s trench at Bamburgh including finding old archaeology placement tags and new finds in the enlarged trench. They were able to confirm occupation of Bamburgh Rock back to neolithic times (5000 years before present).

Jonathan Jarrett of A Corner of Tenth Century Europe has been busy updating us on his trips and conferences, and sometimes a combination thereof like his recent post on Lastingham. He also reviewed Richard Hodges’ Goodbye to the Vikings?

Magistra et Mater wrote an interesting post on slavery viking style.

Thinking of ancient warfare, Adrienne Mayor of the group blog Wonders & Marvels writes of the first chemical agents as ancient crowd control.

William Eamon of the Labrynth of Nature writes about Renaissance astrology and the black pepper markets. Reminds me how my favorite 8th century monk had a pouch of pepper among his meager possessions to pass on to his students at his death.

Book Reviewer extraordinaire Curt Emanuel, the Medieval History Geek, has been blogging up a storm lately. My recent favorite post is The Almanni: A Roman Myth and his latest book review is of The Rhetoric of Power in Late Antiquity.

Kristina Killgrove’s Roman DNA Project has released a post with the project’s goals. And at her blog Powered by Osteons, she writes about differentiating cranial vault deformation from aliens. How about something a little closer to your usual time period? I’d like to know more about cranial vault modification among those pointy headed Huns.

Katy Meyers of Bones Do Not Lie has been busy writing with posts on the practice of Os Resectum, the New World-Old World debate on syphilis, and on using historical texts to retrospectively diagnose disease.

A Contagious Landscape

Marri Lynn on the group blog Wonders & Marvels of the Leper’s Legendary Decay.

I wrote about the evidence (or lack of it) that India and China experienced the Black Death here at Contagions.

Elizabeth Lehfeldt of the group blog Wonders & Marvels writes of female confessors during the Black Death.

Lindsey Fitzharris of the group blog Wonders & Marvels tells us about the use of  “corpse medicine” in early modern England. On her own blog The Chirurigeon’s Apprentice Lindsey writes about bloodletting, leeching and cupping and concepts of what lies beyond the grave in early modern England.

Tara Smith of Aetiology discusses the risks of castrating lambs with your teeth!

Michael Walsh of Infection Landscapes brings us a profile of rotavirus. At his Germscape microblog, he discusses maps of a recent E. coli outbreak and the global spread of hepatitis B and the global spread of chronic hepatitis C.

Flu season is upon us in the northern hemisphere again, so influenza is back in the news. Vincent Racaniello of the Virology Blog writes about a much hyped discovery and experimentation with the lethal avian H5N1 flu virus in ferrets.

Connor Bamford of the Rule of 6ix has also been writing about influenza, wondering where influenza hides in the summer and about dendritic cells acting as Trojan horses for viruses. Connor also hosted the latest edition of the MolBio Carnival.

Finalists for Open Lab 2011 have been announced. Check out some of the best posts of 2011. This list of 51 posts was chosen from over 700 nominated posts for this year.

Whew! This should be enough to keep you reading for a while. Enjoy!