iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I was wondering if almost everyone was pegged to New Jersey, but my California/Illinois wife was classed as Colorado.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Kino and I also visited a windmill a few years ago - at a Danish heritage museum in Iowa, USA.

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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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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

(called a “book review,” although it does not conform to standard guidelines for scholarly book reviews). Wanna know what I think of the book? See my essay, “Early Cities in The Dawn of Everything: Shoddy Scholarship in Support of Pedestrian Conclusions.” doi.org/10.21237/C7c... 2.2

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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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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

2/2 the cancerous nodes are greatly reduced in size and avidity, any my oncologist is pleased with the progress. Five more rounds to go. Cindy, Kino and various writing projects keep me going. No trips to Mexico or to see the grandkids this summer.

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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 · 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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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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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 · 08/03/2026

Nice desert hikes with Kino last week and today

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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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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 · 17/01/2026

Showing our solidarity with Denmark and Greenland

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Found this old joke from pandemic times

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

We were at Tivoli in Copenhagen on opening day this fall, and heard a brass band playing Feliz Navidad. Didn’t manage to film the Spanish lyrics with Danish accents. K

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Should I sign up for the "Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC"? I can find 3 of my book (Univ. Arizona Press) included. Any suggestions? www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com?_gl=1*1v1xfk...

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Spent some time in Texas organizing the field notes and data of my in-laws, from decades of field research on cicadas and other critters. I hope we can get the University of Illinois to archive some of this stuff.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Kino is so famous that he has schools and pools named after him.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Kino is five years old today. He enjoyed his peanut butter birthday treat at Camp Bow Wow

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I'm not sure. Cosmogram means that the thing in question was constructed to be a spatial model of the cosmos. In some urban traditions (ancient China, Khmer), we have textual references stating that cities were laid out as cosmograms. Here are some images from China.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Now, THIS is a cosmogram (Aztec, Cdx Fej-Mayer). But I still maintain that there is no evidence - outside the minds of scholars - that ancient Mesoamericans built buildings or cities as cosmograms. Smith ME (2003) "Can We Read Cosmology in Ancient Maya City Plans? Comment on Ashmore and Sabloff" 4/6

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

.. to identify one." If you read my works on argumentation in archaeology, you will understand why the argument is weak (no formal definition of the key concept, no operationalization, and no testing). I published two critiques of claims for Maya cosmograms, 20 years ago 3/6

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Wow, Unforgotten is a 2025 Bronze Winner, Prix de la Photographie de Paris - UNFORGOTTEN: ANCIENT CITIES FROM A DISTANT PAST px3.fr/winners/px3/... Maybe this was because of my excellent essay. Ha ha, in my dreams. Bill Frej's photos of sites are gorgeous, well worth a look.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Went hiking in the woods near Pine, AZ, saw some javelinas, and had a birthday picnic at a state park. Home now and tired.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

The cactus is blooming this morning. I can’t seem to upload the video of bees having a good time in the flowers

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

I'm giving a zoom lecture on our excavations at Calixtlahuaca, for the Aztlander group. Monday, Sep 15, 8:00 pm Eastern time. Contact the Aztlander folks, or email me, if you want a link.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

Just for fun, here is an Aztec parrot head. I call it the Jimmy Buffett parrot head.

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

Lots of small ceramic figurines from Yautepec. For some reason, many authors insist that anything anthropomorphic must be a deity. But when they wanted to depict a deity, they included deity attributes so there was no doubt. See my paper on Aztec domestic ritual: www.academia.edu/13087249/_Do...

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Michael E Smith @michaelesmith.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

I am an archaeologist at Arizona State University. I am into premodern cities, comparisons with cities today, methodological rigor, Aztecs, and Kino the dog. I have found Bluesky to be boring, although there are a few feeds here I like to follow. But I post more at the other place.

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