Author Archives: dgm

Hot on the heels of news of discoveries that suggest that Macassar traders were sourcing beads from Dutch and other European spice traders to trade with the Yolngu of Arnhem Land for sea cucumbers, comes news of the discovery of … Continue reading →

Some time ago I started a thread about Vikings and cats. I’ve just come across an interestinf student thesis on the role of cats in viking beliefs. I’ll be the first to admit that I havn’t yet read the thesis … Continue reading →

Over on my other blog, I’ve been writing about how postal services, or more accurately, the letter handling service, is in terminal decline. The universal letter service was one of the great nineteenth century inventions, and in the case of … Continue reading →

I’ve previously written about coins as evidence of contact. The ABC today has an interesting report on the use of beads by Maccassar fishermen to buy access to trepang beds of the coast of Arnhem land from the local population. … Continue reading →

I went to Sydney yesterday – it was a work thing – a meeting about the state of play about data citation. It was valuable, not in the least because of the opportunity to network – one problem about being … Continue reading →

Like many people, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – I even had a poster of them on my wall as a student many years ago. I loved the vividness of … Continue reading →

A friend recently commented on my post on Cosmas Indicopleusetes to the effect that the coin evidence suggested that the contacts between Byzantium and India were slight. My own view about these things is rather more nuanced these days. There … Continue reading →

One of the things I find quite fascinating about my trying to graph the relationships among the movers and shakers of the mid seventeenth century is the degree of happenstance and coincidence. For example, Thomas Herbert, who was appointed by … Continue reading →

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been spending a little time with the English Civil Wars to teach myself some social network analysis. While I was researching something else entirely I came across such an example of the term Ranter being … Continue reading →

I’ve written before about fox sighting in the Canberra suburbs, but this morning’s was a beauty, near Inkster Street a young dog fox legging it across Sulwood Drive and off into the Mount Taylor nature reserve. The interesting thing is … Continue reading →