I completely agree. I think at the moment as a community we are 
experimenting with the technology available to use to see what fits and 
makes life easier. How successful all our attempts are will be decided 
by the community, if people like things they will grow, if they don't 
then we'll know what doesn't work which is also a good thing. Sarah 
that's a very good point about backing up. To be honest it's not 
something I'd thought about and I'll now make sure as much of 'zoobook' 
is backed up as is possible.

Debs don't worry, I know you weren't unhappy with me personally. I 
completely understand your reservations about the site, and I agree it's 
very important to be wary about what personal information you give to 
internet sites. I myself do the same thing, either only using sites I 
trust, or giving false details. Regarding the location aspect this is 
only meant to be to country/region level, so members can for example 
search for other zooarchaeologists in a given country.

You point of making a website from scratch is an interesting one and 
something I may start to look into. It will of course take time, but 
then what doesn't. In case you're unhappy with having an account with 
Ning then I've pasted a link below in how to deactivate your account. I 
hope you'll give the site a try I know a lot of people have found it 
useful , but I completely understand if you feel you don't have the 
time. I sometime wish there were 27hrs in a day.

http://help.ning.com/cgi-bin/ning.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2698&p_sid=5nyC8kLj

best wishes

Jim

Sarah Whitcher Kansa wrote:
> Dear Deb and James,
>
> This is coming frighteningly close to looking like the birth of a task 
> force!
>
> Just to put in my two cents-- I think it's important to encourage the 
> different types of networks that are forming. Not all will succeed, 
> but there is unlikely to be a "one size fits all" answer, so all 
> attempts should be welcome and tried out. The fact that people are 
> trying to find ways to build community and share research is fabulous. 
> Deb's site is one example, the Zooarchaeology Network is another, 
> BoneCommons is another, etc. Eventually we will settle on what works 
> best for our community, but in the meantime we have to try these 
> various approaches and see which services work best for us. However, 
> in doing so, we should be sure these various services are backed up 
> and if they disappear, their content is transferred elsewhere or 
> remains discoverable. We don't want to lose any of the fruits of our 
> efforts, so we need to keep this in mind when experimenting with these 
> new ways of communicating.
>
> All the best,
> Sarah
>
>
>
> [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> James, I am not unhappy with you personally or with the speed with which
>> you are able to get back to people with confirmation that they have
>> permission to join your 'zooarchaeology' thing. What I meant about it
>> taking too much time is that it takes ANY EXTRA TIME AT ALL. I simply
>> don't want to have to keep track of multiple different places, or 
>> have to
>> go different places, because for numerous reasons I don't like to 
>> cruise.
>> As I previously mentioned, there are a certain, very few, places on the
>> Internet that I want to go to and consider it safe to go to, i.e. this
>> Zooarch list/Bone Commons, Library of Congress, the USDA "Plants" 
>> website,
>> the U.C. Davis online library catalog, and the like. "Social networking"
>> in any form would be about the last thing I'd ever want to do. I 
>> don't go
>> to bars, either, you see.
>>
>> I will also say that the whole business about DOB is actually worse 
>> after
>> your explanation. If I am reluctant to give my correct DOB to James
>> Morris, whom I have never met but who is at least a member of the 
>> Zooarch
>> list, why in the world would I consent to give it to some anonymous
>> company who could just as easily be in cahoots with spammers or other
>> criminals, no matter what they TELL you about their policies. I simply
>> don't believe that they are either safe or truthful, and I was happy to
>> hear Fiona say in reply to me that she also always gives false DOB and
>> location.
>>
>> As to location, I wonder if you've thought of this also: I'm not anybody
>> special within the zooarch community, but in my capacity of magazine
>> editor, feature columnist and seminarian, I am very well known in the
>> horse industry....it is therefore dangerous for me to reveal my 
>> location,
>> as over the years there has been more than one horse owner who has 
>> invited
>> me to come out back. Somebody who wants to torch your house or shoot you
>> will go to any amount of trouble to figure out where you are, so I 
>> see to
>> it that the correct information simply is not present on the Internet.
>>
>> The one and only consideration that justifies the existence of
>> "Zooarchaeology" so far as I can see is the legal wrinkle about sharing
>> papers that the journal publishing company has a copyright interest 
>> in and
>> still cares about....and particularly for those of us who are not
>> currently institutionalized, it is a great service to be able to receive
>> PDF's of needed papers. For this I do thank you.
>>
>> I wonder, so far as the DOB and location objections go, whether you 
>> would
>> consider just setting up an ordinary website yourself, and skip the
>> nebulous 3rd-party company and their icky advertisements. If you go over
>> to www.equinestudies.org (yes, it's safe) you'll see how simple mine 
>> is; I
>> hated doing it, because I hate DreamWeaver and I hate the stupid, 
>> cumbrous
>> design limitations imposed by having to articulate with html 
>> language, but
>> I put the thing together myself. Ergo it is as simple as I could 
>> manage to
>> have it.
>>
>> You will see that it has a Forum (subcontracted to another 
>> company/another
>> server that can handle the volume), a 'knowledge base' section where 
>> they
>> can pick up PDF's for free, and 'membership' and 'bookstore' sections
>> where they can buy stuff. There ain't an advertisement, flashing light,
>> moving animation, or any other distraction anywhere on it.
>>
>> One of the things I have tried to get across to some of my buddies in
>> academia is that their departments could be making much-needed money if
>> they could only find the time themselves, or set it up so that their
>> graduate students had to find the time, to create PDF's intended for
>> PUBLIC education which could be sold to the general public on a
>> subscription basis. The idea is similar to a PDF version of 
>> 'Smithsonian'
>> or 'Archaeology', i.e. short articles with photos. It's not bad practice
>> for academicians to remember how to write directly to the public who,
>> after all, are the very people who pay our salaries (assuming we get a
>> salary at all, that is).
>>
>> Ahh, yes -- and you will tell me there isn't personnel and you can't 
>> do it
>> yourself, and so on, and so forth. My reply is that, being in the
>> archaeozoological way unsalaried, I manage to keep body and soul 
>> together
>> primarily by online sales of the back issues of my newsletter, "The 
>> Inner
>> Horseman", books, audiotapes, and DVD programs, which I SOMEHOW 
>> manage to
>> find the time to do.
>>
>> Cheers -- Dr. Deb
>>
>>
>>
>>  
>>> Dear Deb
>>>
>>> I'm sorry you didn't like the experience of using the zooarch social
>>> network. I just wanted to respond clarifying a number of aspects 
>>> about the
>>> network. I want to reiterate that it is not meant to be in competition
>>> with
>>> ZOOARCH or Bonecommons, but is aimed to work beside them. The main 
>>> purpose
>>> of the network is to allow members to share any relevant electronic
>>> document/file within a closed network, thus allowing people to post 
>>> items
>>> they may otherwise not be able to post openly on the internet. 
>>> However, I
>>> want to make it clear that when people have permission I feel they 
>>> should
>>> aim to post items on Bonecommons so it is open to all. The site is 
>>> aimed
>>> at
>>> working in partnership with ZOOARCH and Bonecommons which is why a 
>>> feed of
>>> ZOOARCH posts is on the main page and one of the Tabs leads to
>>> Bonecommons.
>>> One of the inspirations for the site was a survey of commercial
>>> zooarchaeologists in the United Kingdom (further details on this are 
>>> on my
>>> website). One of the points raised was the problem in sharing and
>>> accessing
>>> 'grey literature' and other electronic resources. Rather than just
>>> flagging
>>> the problem I thought it would also try to do something to try and help
>>>
>>> I am sorry that you felt frustrated in that it took awhile to join the
>>> site.
>>> In order for the site to remain members only I set up a system whereby
>>> requests to join and filtered through myself. This therefore 
>>> requires me
>>> to
>>> confirm the invitation. I aim to do this as soon as possible, but I 
>>> hope
>>> it
>>> is understandable that I cannot be by a computer 24hrs a day. The 
>>> longest
>>> anyone would have to wait is one day and I do not feel this is
>>> unreasonable.
>>> Many JISC mailing lists employ as similar strategy to keep at bay 
>>> unwanted
>>> spammers.
>>>
>>> When you sign up to the site it will ask for your date of birth, sex 
>>> and
>>> location. The location question I can remove but feel it is useful 
>>> as it
>>> allows you to search for members by county (the site currently has 
>>> members
>>> from 40+ countries)
>>>
>>> The site is hosted by a company called Ning and it is the company who
>>> requests the date of birth and sex information not myself, I have
>>> absolutely
>>> no access to this information. There are a number of reasons for this.
>>> Firstly it acts as a way for members to confirm their identity if they
>>> need
>>> to contact the company regarding a problem. Secondly Ning itself is
>>> designed
>>> to allow people to set up their own social networks, therefore it has
>>> features similar to facebook with members birthdays being flagged (I
>>> didn't
>>> think this was something we would be interested in so I disabled it 
>>> from
>>> zoobook). Thirdly and probably most important for the Ning company 
>>> is that
>>> it allows them to ascertain the demographic of each social Network 
>>> (last
>>> time I checked they host about 40,000). This information is used to 
>>> alter
>>> the adverts present in the google adds bar in the right-hand corner 
>>> of the
>>> site. Now I would prefer the site to be free of advertising, but to 
>>> do so
>>> would require me to make a monthly payment. Therefore for the site to
>>> remain
>>> free unfortunately the advertising needs to stay, but I don't feel 
>>> it is
>>> too
>>> intrusive.
>>>
>>> Finally one of the things I  would like to reassure you about, is 
>>> that it
>>> is
>>> very clear in Nings terms and conditions that they will not sell on 
>>> user
>>> information (so date of birth, sex, email address) to third parties, 
>>> they
>>> only make their money through advertising.
>>>
>>> I hope this address your concerns. If you or anyone else has any 
>>> further
>>> questions then please feel free to contact me.
>>>
>>> Best wishes
>>> Jim
>>>
>>> Dr James Morris
>>> Zooarchaeologist
>>> Museum of London Archaeology
>>> Mortimer Wheeler House
>>> 46 Eagle Wharf Road
>>> London
>>> N1 7ED
>>> Tel:020 7566 9332
>>> Fax:020 7410 2201
>>>
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> www.animalbones.org
>>> www.museumoflondon.org/archaeology
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: 22 October 2009 22:49
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] pathological specimens
>>>
>>> Fiona, it took me some time to get back to you due to having to muck
>>> around with the Facebook-like "Zooarchaeology" site that you posted the
>>> images in. This is not your fault, but for my part, I wish there would
>>> just be this Zooarch list and Bone Commons and nothing
>>> else...."Zooarchaeology" is just time consuming for no discernable
>>> benefit, and of the two things I have the least of, vis., money and 
>>> time,
>>> time is the more precious. Plus I intensely dislike all the nosy
>>> questions, such as about my date of birth .... it's not that I'm 
>>> ashamed
>>> of my age, but this is a security issue so naturally when such 
>>> questions
>>> are asked, I always supply a false birthdate. There is simply zero 
>>> basis
>>> for trusting anyone on the Internet OTHER than a few small groups, 
>>> such as
>>> this list which is well-patrolled by Umberto and others. Why would 
>>> anybody
>>> need to know my DOB? We note that Umberto has never asked for 
>>> anything of
>>> the sort.
>>>
>>> So the one and only reason I went through all this rigamarole with 
>>> signing
>>> up for "Zooarchaeology" was because I really wanted to see your 
>>> images of
>>> the horse teeth, and it looked like that would be the only way.
>>>
>>> Enough of my rant. On to your question.
>>>
>>> 'Hypoplasia' is a blanket term that just means 'failure to develop' or
>>> even 'underdevelopment'. It's an intellectual-sounding polysyllabic to
>>> bandy about -- very popular among veterinarians or doctors when 
>>> speaking
>>> to clients whom they hope will not ask too many more questions -- 
>>> but in
>>> fact it tells you zero about what the 'dent' in the crown of the tooth
>>> means.
>>>
>>> What has to be kept in mind -- and that is difficult to do because 
>>> what we
>>> have before us is always the palpably three-dimensional tooth -- is 
>>> that
>>> teeth themselves are artifacts. They are 'living tissue' only 
>>> because, and
>>> only so long as, they are invested by living cells, i.e. 
>>> odontoblasts and
>>> blood cells and connective tissue cells in the pulp and so forth.
>>>
>>> The shape of the fully-formed tooth is the result of the shape of the
>>> dental sac/enamel organ. Where it has wrinkles, the tooth will have
>>> wrinkles. Where it has a salient, the tooth will have a re-entrant. 
>>> So the
>>> high degree of complexity we see, for example, in the enamel pattern of
>>> Equus vs. Pliohippus or Cormohipparion vs. Neohipparion, is merely a
>>> reflection of what natural selection was actually working on, i.e. the
>>> exact shape of the dental sac/enamel organ.
>>>
>>> What we see in your tooth is the result, not of natural selection, 
>>> but of
>>> one of two events that occurred during the time when the tooth was 
>>> still
>>> unerupted and the dental sac unbroken. The two possibilities are either
>>> (1) a blow to the jaw, with resultant trauma to the dental sac, i.e.
>>> bruising which inhibited or cut off blood supply to one part of the sac
>>> for a limited period of time; or (2) a drop in nutrient supply, i.e. 
>>> hard
>>> winter or spring season and/or loss of the foal's dam/milk supply (i.e.
>>> assuming he wasn't weaned until after his first birthday, which is 
>>> often
>>> the case in the wild).
>>>
>>> I'm inclined to think that the best choice is (2), because of the minor
>>> nature of the lesion, which is analogous to the 'feed change rings' you
>>> get in hoof keratin for the same reason. Also, this pathology is not at
>>> all infrequent in the fossil record right across all horse taxa. Surely
>>> not so many foals would get kicked in the jaw, but I could believe that
>>> quite a few might have barely made it through their second winter.
>>>
>>> By the way, of somewhat more interest with this tooth is the fairly 
>>> high
>>> transverse ridging. This is something I associate with the animals
>>> receiving processed feed (i.e. hay or grain) vs. natural graze. 
>>> Would this
>>> be a possibility given the context in which the tooth was found, and do
>>> you have more teeth from the same jaw? It would be better to see 
>>> more of
>>> the toothrow.
>>>
>>> Hope this is helpful. -- Dr. Deb
>>>
>>>    
>>>> Hello Zooarchers,
>>>> I have three interesting pathological specimens that I would 
>>>> welcome any
>>>> comments on.  See the palaeopathology section of the zooarchaeology
>>>> network as bone commons are having problems with attachments at the
>>>> moment.
>>>>
>>>> The first is two ribs from a medium sized mammal that have become 
>>>> fused
>>>> together by two large oval shapedgrowths of bone that look to me as
>>>> though
>>>> they are some form of abscess.  They measure 37.6 x 19.3mm and 38
>>>> (not complete) x 20mm on the inner surface of the rib cage and are
>>>> visible
>>>> as a depressed area with a raised lip all the way round.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/patholo 
>>>
>>> gical-ribs
>>>    
>>>> The second is a pig mandible.  In this case a lip of bone extended on
>>>> both
>>>> the
>>>> buccal and lingual side of the third molar to a height of  8-9mm above
>>>> the
>>>> main body of the mandible.  There was a cavity 23 x 14 x 17mm deep
>>>> immediately behind the third molar, and the cavity for the canine 
>>>> tooth
>>>> measures 23 x 18mm and extends under
>>>> the third molar so that it is very long.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/pig-man 
>>>
>>> dible
>>>    
>>>> The third is a horse molar with a kinked in a concave line along
>>>> the length of the tooth on the lingual side 35mm above the rootand a
>>>> corresponding convex surface on the buccal side.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/horse-t 
>>>
>>> ooth
>>>    
>>>> Any comments or suggestions on these are gratefully received.  All are
>>>> from medieval and post-medieval contexts from an Irish urban site.
>>>>
>>>> All the best and thank you in advance.
>>>>
>>>> Fiona
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    
>>>> Hello Zooarchers,
>>>> I have three interesting pathological specimens that I would 
>>>> welcome any
>>>> comments on.  See the palaeopathology section of the zooarchaeology
>>>> network as bone commons are having problems with attachments at the
>>>> moment.
>>>>
>>>> The first is two ribs from a medium sized mammal that have become 
>>>> fused
>>>> together by two large oval shapedgrowths of bone that look to me as
>>>> though
>>>> they are some form of abscess.  They measure 37.6 x 19.3mm and 38
>>>> (not complete) x 20mm on the inner surface of the rib cage and are
>>>> visible
>>>> as a depressed area with a raised lip all the way round.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/patholo 
>>>
>>> gical-ribs
>>>    
>>>> The second is a pig mandible.  In this case a lip of bone extended on
>>>> both
>>>> the
>>>> buccal and lingual side of the third molar to a height of  8-9mm above
>>>> the
>>>> main body of the mandible.  There was a cavity 23 x 14 x 17mm deep
>>>> immediately behind the third molar, and the cavity for the canine 
>>>> tooth
>>>> measures 23 x 18mm and extends under
>>>> the third molar so that it is very long.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/pig-man 
>>>
>>> dible
>>>    
>>>> The third is a horse molar with a kinked in a concave line along
>>>> the length of the tooth on the lingual side 35mm above the rootand a
>>>> corresponding convex surface on the buccal side.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> http://zooarchaeology.ning.com/group/zoopalaeopathology/forum/topics/horse-t 
>>>
>>> ooth
>>>    
>>>> Any comments or suggestions on these are gratefully received.  All are
>>>> from medieval and post-medieval contexts from an Irish urban site.
>>>>
>>>> All the best and thank you in advance.
>>>>
>>>> Fiona
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>
>>>
>>>     
>>
>>
>>   
>

-- 
Dr James Morris
Zooarchaeologist
Museum of London Archaeology
Mortimer Wheeler House
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London
N1 7ED
Tel:020 7566 9332
Fax:020 7410 2201

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