The Fourth Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research: archeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology. Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Gigantosaurus is a poorly known sauropod dinosaur from England. The type species, Gigantosaurus megalonyx, was described by Seeley in 1869. The name “Gigantosaurus” later factored into the convoluted taxonomic history of the African dinosaur Barosaurus, Tornieria, and Janenschia. A discussion of this can be found in the main Tornieria article. A dinosaur with a similar name is Giganotosaurus, which was a massive theropod. Its name is often misspelled and/or pronounced Gigantosaurus.

Cameron from the lord geekington-blog wrote about the Gigantosaurus:

It is one of the more ridiculous I’ve seen, just look at those hind limbs! But hey, at least it isn’t wallowing in water. I’m not sure how long that locomotive is (I’ll have to ask my dad)* but if we assume the human is 1.8 m tall, the dinosaur’s head is 4 m long (13′), the length of the forefoot is 2.3 m (7.5′), the highest part of the body is 12 m (40′) off the ground and the total length is probably over 60 meters (200′).

Despite her lack of formal education, Mary Leakey stands out as one of the premiere archaeologists–let alone female archaeologists–of this century. Although Mary’s research is often talked about in conjunction with that of her archaeologist husband and sons, her major finds are more than enough to gain her personal acknowledgment. These finds include the first Proconsul Africanus skull in 1948, the discovery of Zinjanthropus Boise (Australopithecus Boise) in 1959, and the Laetoli hominid footprints in 1978. Until her recent death on December 9, 1996, at age 83, Mary spent most of her days in the fields of Africa in pursuit of such archaeological treasures, sorting through ancient stone tools, recording prehistoric rock paintings, and hunting for fossil clues that might help piece together the mystery of mankind’s evolution.

Read more about her in the post in her honor at the PALAEOBLOG .

Tarsiers are prosimian primates of the genus Tarsius, a monotypic genus in the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was once more widespread, all the species living today are found in the islands of Southeast Asia.

Tarsiers are small animals with enormous eyes and very long hind limbs. Their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, from which the animals get their name. The head and body range from 10 to 15 cm in length, but the hind limbs are about twice this long , and they also have a slender tail from 20 to 25 cm long.

See this funny post comparing the Tarsiers to other creatures.

“Scientists” tell us that the tarsier is the only member of its lonely family Tarsiidae, which itself is the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes… We here at Zooillogix think they might be more closely related to other species than zoologists think…

courtesy of poplinre

Crocodilia is an order of large reptiles that appeared about 84 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period. They are the closest living relatives of birds, the only known living dinosaurs, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. The correct vernacular term for this group is “crocodilians” and it includes the alligator, crocodile and gharial and caiman families. The term ‘crocodiles’ is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to alligators and caiman, or even their distant prehistoric relatives, “marine crocodiles”.

In the the latest post by Darren Naish he writes about the possibility that crocodilians may have fed their young.

As John described in a longer article (here), what appears to be feeding behaviour has been reported in other species, including the American alligator Alligator mississippiensis.

The post also features a video that show a female Siamese crocodile Crocodylus siamensis allows her babies to eat meat literally from her mouth.