Philobiblon

It is astonishing that anyone should even think that destroying a 5,000-year-old large and complex religious site to make gravel was an acceptable option – but the Thornborough Henges are still not definitively safe:

A full public inquiry is now likely over the fate of land surrounding Thornborough Henges, three giant discs encircled by earthen ramparts which have survived from a complex of eight erected around 5000BC in the Vale of York.
The quashing of the plan by North Yorkshire county council was welcomed by English Heritage and the British Council for Archaeology which have ranked the complex as a “northern Stonehenge”. Although short of dramatic stone relics, the area is rich in burial mounds, traces of settlements and an formal avenue which may have been used for ceremonial funerals.

Archaeology now can out of very faint evidence make a great deal, and imagine how much more could be done in 50 years’ time … there don’t need to be great lumps of stone lying around for a great deal to be learnt.
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Not in the news again: a 76-country study, the Global Media Monitoring Project, has found “women continue to be underrepresented, and sometimes outright ignored, as subjects of and sources for news“.

“From Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, we see the same patterns of under-representation and stereotyped portrayal of women in the news,” said Anna Turley, coordinator of the most recent monitoring effort. “The reason for these patterns is complicated. From the story angle and the choice of interview questions to the use of language and the choice of images; all these have a bearing on the messages that emerge in the news. These patterns are deeply rooted not only in professional practice, but in wider social assumptions about female and male attributes, roles and competencies.”

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Don’t know how I’ve missed it, but the Guardian has a cycling correspondent. This week was, apparently the start of the racing season – brrr, I shiver to think of it – and there’s also a complicated debate about how inflated your tyres should be when travelling in the cargo hold of an aircraft. For those who like trivia.