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Racton Man!

Dude looks like he’s fixing to give that spine a smooch, doesn’t he?

The skeleton is Racton Man, buried 4,000 years ago near Racton in West Sussex. Another win for the detectorists, who turned up his dagger and the rivets from its handle first. He was holding it in both hands in front of his face.

One article I read said the dagger was the oldest bronze object ever found in Britain, so high status guy. He was six foot tall, heavily built and over 45. He died with unhealed cuts on his upper arm bones, so probably in a fight.

He also had spinal degeneration (probably age-related), a chronic sinus infection and tooth decay. I wonder what he used to treat those things.

He was found in the Eighties, but they’ve only fairly recently got grant money to do the isotope analysis, etc. You’d be amazed how much of this stuff is dug up and stored in a local councils warehouse and only years or decades later do they scrape up enough funding to do the fun a part.

November 2, 2021 — 8:31 pm
Comments: 3

That hurt

No Man’s Sky is a space exploration game. You discover new planets, collect resources, identify wildlife, build bases and continually upgrade your equipment so you can do more of those things.

I’m enjoying it. It’s a good gin and tonic game – lazily floating round the galaxy mining asteroids with the occasional frisson of intergalactic adventure.

And then I read a review that said it’s basically an inventory management game and it broke my heart.

Because that’s exactly what it is. You need all kinds of different materials to make things and there isn’t enough room to keep them in any one base, ship or exosuit. So you ferry junk around until you have the chromatic metal and ferrite dust where you need them when you need them.

Sigh. I’ll never be a swashbuckler.

November 1, 2021 — 8:18 pm
Comments: 8