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Michael E Smith

@michaelesmith.bsky.social
1.3K followers 437 following 381 posts

Archaeologist, Arizona State Univ. Aztecs, Teotihuacan. Ancient & modern cities. Commoners in the past. Transdisciplinary, materialist, historical, occasionally musical. Kino the dog. - These days I'm working on urban persistence over long periods.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I just had to see this again.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Optimist: The cup is half full Pessimist: The cup is half empty Archaeologist: The cup is a polished redware Aztec-period (1300-1520 CE) cup from an offering at the site of Coatetelco, Morelos. Most likely used to drink chocolate.
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Welwyn Archaeological Society @welwynarchsoc.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
A tombstone from St Mary's churchyard in #Hitchin, #Hertfordshire for #SkullSaturday. It is so eroded the text is not readable and there are even holes right through the stone. @churchmonuments.bsky.social @graveyardarch.bsky.social
A detail of the top of the tombstone showing two skulls above two sets of crossed bones. The skulls look towards each other. The top of the stone is two semicircles. The stone is grey with some yellow and green lichen.A photo of the whole tombstone with the two skull-and-crossbones motif described in the previous photo.  In the background are the dark brown doors of the west entrance to the church.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time! Some uncomfortable discussion, and much insight. It puts into context professional developments that I was aware of, but hadn't put it all together. Smart, incisive, very readable. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu
We Have Never Been Woke
How a new “woke” elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status—without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged
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(Dr) Rena Maguire @justrena.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A senior archaeo mate sent this to me, dont know the source/artist to credit, but it's strangley accurate...
Understanding archaeology 101: Bullshit. A wee figure points to a hole, and says " this posthole may have been dug to hold a ritual post,probably taken from a sacred tree, cut down by individuals specially selected from the community, perhaps asa  rite of passage. We know that to these people, wood symbolised the life of the land, and by placing the post here, unifying sky and earth, it formed a bridge with the ancestors, helping to place the creators of this monument within their landscape and the wider universe". Sounds actually like a lot of papers Ive read in me day!
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
After a long delay, my paper on ancient urban resilience is finally out: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Cities, shocks, and persistence: new approaches to urban resilience in the past | Global Sustainability | Cambridge Core
Cities, shocks, and persistence: new approaches to urban resilience in the past - Volume 9
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
New blog post, about why it is NOT a good idea to support a new predatory journal in archaeology. publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2026/07/just...
publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com
Publishing Archaeology
Just What we DON’T Need: A New Predatory Journal in Archaeology I just got a notice about a new predatory journal, “ Archaeological Stud...
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
1st look: A new archaeology journal! Yay! Closer look: Hmmm, it’s MDPI. New look: A new PREDATORY archaeology journal. Boo! www.mdpi.com/journal/arch...
mdpi.com
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Kino wondering why folks put so much effort last night into making big noises that didn’t bother him at all. This lab is the most chill doggo we have ever had.
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Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 05/07/2026
In addition to hundreds of small-scale items linked to smuggling schemes, investigators have seized 120 objects worth between $20,000 and $26 million from The Met’s holdings since 2017.
hyperallergic.com
Value of Looted Objects at Met Museum Tops $95M After New Seizures
Several ancient sculptures and vessels acquired between 1971 and 2001 were among the objects extracted from The Met's collection this June.
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Rachel Hope Cleves @rachelcleves.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
An open letter, to readers, about Charity and Sylvia. I am very pained to feel the need to write this. #queerhistory #pride
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 24/06/2026
If you care about climate science, here's a great new site to bookmark:
nytimes.com
Former NOAA Employees Revive Climate Site Shut by Trump Administration
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Publishing Archaeology: How to give a bad conference talk! publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to…. (from 2011)
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Very strange; the journal Reviews in Anthropology has now published two (count ‘em, 2) low-quality reviews of Graeber and Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything. They published a superficial review article in 2022, and now they have published a 3-page description of the book (called ... 1/2
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Duck of Minerva @duckofminerva.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Rest Well, Raul Pacheco-Vega Our community lost the inimitable Raúl Pacheco-Vega this week. Someone who knew him better than me should write a more definitive remembrance and maybe they have in some other corner of the internet. But, I haven’t seen a longer treatment yet (here is a terrific one!),…
duckofminerva.com
Rest Well, Raul Pacheco-Vega
Our community lost the inimitable Raúl Pacheco-Vega this week. Someone who knew him better than me should write a more definitive remembrance and maybe they have in some other corner of the internet. But, I haven’t seen a longer treatment yet (here is a terrific one!), so I thought I’d have a go at a remembrance. Raúl lived his life…
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Wow, Willian Frej's photo book (Unforgotten: Ancient cities from a distant past) has won another book award! www.forewordreviews.com/awards/books... Email me if you want a pdf of my chapter, "Late Lessons from Early Cities." He is an incredible photographer, and this was a fun project for me
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
I was diagnosed with cancer 10 weeks ago (diffuse large B-cell lymphoma non-Hodgkins, in my abdomen). I have had 3 rounds of chemotherapy at Mayo Clinic. Here I am at the start of treatment (I still had my hair then). A PET scan yesterday shows that the chemo is working; 1/2
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Kino likes the megalithic bench.
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 30/05/2026
I’m a climate scientist. Let me fix this headline. “Nearly a century ago, scientists showed that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. Today, we know human emissions account for over 100% of the warming. Yet dark money and disinformation still work to keep Americans addicted to fossil fuels.”
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Manisha Sinha @profmsinha.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
“Please stop. I don’t want an AI summary of my Google search. I don’t want an AI summary of the text message from my friend at work. I don’t want an AI summary of the email I’m about to read. Please just stop.” 💯
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
A few cactus flowers are out this morning. I can’t get videos to post to Bsky, so I can’t show the bees at work. These spectacular flowers bloom in the middle of the night, and by mid-morning they are gone. The bees don’t seem to find them before dawn.
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SlenderSherbet @slendersherbet.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
When assembling your dog, please make sure that you follow the instructions carefully.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
ASU professor (me), former research lab director retires after 20 years news.asu.edu/b/20260519-a... Well, its 43 years of teaching: Loyola University of Chicago, then SUNY-Albany, and finally, ASU.
news.asu.edu
ASU professor, former research lab director retires after 20 years | ASU News
When Michael Smith, professor at Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change, read a book the summer after his freshman year of college at Brandeis University about the stor...
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Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda @alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 12/05/2026
It is publication day for The Organism-Environment Pairing (@mitpress.bsky.social)! This 📗 has been deeply formative for me as a scholar, and it owes so much to so many wonderful people. I truly hope it finds many readers! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #booksky #philsci #histsci #philsky #evosky
Photograph of the book The Organism–Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Reappraisal (MIT Press, 2026) displayed on a small wooden easel. The green cover features multicolored title text and an image of a monarch butterfly resting on pink milkweed flowers, layered over a larger pale-green butterfly silhouette. The spine, visible at an angle, repeats the title and author’s name, Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda. Softly blurred purple-and-white flowers appear in the background.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Rooting for Mike Smith on So Happy
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
I’m eating peanuts and reading a senior honors thesis on the patio, listening to Bach partitas (keyboard), and Keno is keeping the yard free of cats.
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
This is a FRAUDULENT paper, AI-generated. My name was used as an author and I had nothing to do with it, never saw it until today e-pubmed.co.uk/journals/dig... The "Editors" Angelo Rossi Mori, David Mensah, and Zarnie Khadjesari and this "Journal" should be reported.
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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Congratulations to @stephenking.bsky.social for this well-deserved honor!👍 (Novels/Novellas: Approximately 65 to 67 Non-fiction books: 5 books. Short Stories: Over 200 Pseudonyms: 7 novels were published as Richard Bachman. Frequency: He has published at least one book almost every year since 1974)
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Forty-seven years ago, Cindy and I were newlyweds excavating at Copan, Honduras (central Mexicanist grad students, slumming in Mayaland). During Semana Santa we took a trip to Tikal (Guatemala), and tonight our tickets from April 10, 1979 fell out of one of my books on Tikal (writing a paper).
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
The bird is sometimes shown on a warrior shield. Colonial documents say that the dynasty of Calixtlahuaca was called chimalli, which is the Nahuatl word for shield. They also say the Spanish friars forcibly moved the population of Calixtlahuaca into Toluca to provide labor to build a church.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Illini Breakfast Club. Go Illinois!
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Wet Kino.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Democracy isn't a modern luxury—it's a political strategy with deep roots. In our new study for Science Advances, we analyse 40 different societies and develop a framework for measuring human governance along a collective-autocratic axis. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time
Democratic practice in the premodern world was not the exclusive domain of Greece and Rome.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Ha ha, the NY Post plagiarized parts of an unpublished report of mine on the "Roman" figurine from Calixtlahuaca, but ignored the logical conclusions and added bogus info to produce a sensationalized account. nypost.com/2026/03/19/s... My account is here: www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/tv...
nypost.com
2,000-year-old artifact may be evidence that Romans found New World — a thousand years before Columbus
Was there a New World order we didn’t know about?
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Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍 @devoevomed.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
This is just racketeering, #preprint and be done with it already…
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Nice desert hikes with Kino last week and today
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
youtube.com/watch?v=APVw.... Truly awful video filmed at Teotihuacan, with Raquel Welch.
youtube.com
Raquel Welch - Aquarius & Let The Sunshine In
YouTube video by MothraBlues
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Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍 @devoevomed.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Apropos the obvious... substack.com/@devoevomed/...
substack.com
The Extinction of Truth
Or, a Colossal Pile of Bullshit
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Just accepted for the journal Global Sustainability: "Cities, Shocks, and Persistence: New Approaches to Urban Resilience in the Past."
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Time to read Robertson Davies again. I’ll start with the Deptford Trilogy.
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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
​I don’t think using large language models is unethical. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to use a nail gun as a toothbrush, even if the nail gun company runs late night television ads that say “makes a great toothbrush!”
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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
We (@johnmcbride4lyf.bsky.social, @yutoozaki.bsky.social, @mhoeschele.bsky.social, Alex Ruf, Raphaël Powis, @musiccognition.bsky.social & I) wrote this up into a formal critique of the Science paper claiming to demonstrate beat synchronization in macaques: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Fig. S1. Direct comparison of human and macaque data from [1] show that macaques do not synchronize to a beat. Human data are copied from Fig. S4 in [1], while macaque data are copied from Fig. 1F in [1]. Dashed arrows have been superimposed to show the predicted pattern for perfect synchronization to the original stimulus (O, in red) and to the phase-shifted stimulus (π, in grey). Human data closely match the synchronized pattern, while macaque data do not.

Figure S2. Reproductions of key experimental data demonstrating beat synchronization in non-human animals. Left: Fig. 2 from [6] showing Snowball the sulphur-crested cockatoo. Right: Fig. 4 from Cook et al. (2013) showing Ronan the sea lion (subset of experiments reported in [7]).
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Michelle Bruton @michellebruton.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
This GOOD BOY ran onto the course during the Women’s Cross-Country Skiing Team Sprint event, crossing the finish line and being automatically recorded by OMEGA’s photofinish camera 😆
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Here is some essential reading on bulllshit publishing technologies, featuring a couple quotes from me. www.wired.com/story/why-ge...
wired.com
Why Generative AI Won’t Disrupt Books
Every new technology from the internet to virtual reality has tried to upend book culture. There's a reason they've all failed—and always will.
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Long thread at the other place on how Karl Polanyi distorted evidence from early economies in order to support an erroneous view of pre-capitalist economics. Too much effort to post in both places. x.com/MichaelESmit...
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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Kino’s hike this morning
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