Meike van Lit
meikevanlit.bsky.social
Meike van Lit
@meikevanlit.bsky.social
Christian. Archaeologist. PhD @ University of Glasgow.
Doing something very different this week… looking at (reused?) standing stones with @fordeviot.bsky.social !
July 29, 2025 at 10:13 AM
#Radiocarbon funding application #rejected, but such useful and clear #feedback! Really looking forward to improving it next few months 😁
July 4, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Meike van Lit
An ancient DNA study of 395 individuals who lived between 8000 and 5800 BCE in Çatalhöyük (#Turkey) suggests that #kinship patterns change dover time, but that individuals in the same houses related primarily through maternal lines.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#Archaeogenetics
#Archaeology
July 1, 2025 at 7:21 AM
And from fieldwork into labwork… bulk density, here we go!
June 24, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Several ticks later (I definitely took one for the team here), we have all returned home tanned, covered in soil, and exhausted. But it was a very successful week - and have you really had fun if you don’t have dirt under your nails?
June 21, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Reposted by Meike van Lit
June 18, 2025 at 12:43 PM
What #archaeological conclusions would you draw if a field has hut circles, clearance cairns, and the testpit has (from top to bottom) a bleached layer; an iron pan; and a humic, organic-rich layer just on top a gravelly floodplain deposit?

I can tell you what I think…
June 19, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Two days done and the tick score so far is 1. Could’ve been worse!
Apart from that, our walkover survey revealed three (possible) archaeological structures that are not recorded on any historical maps. So that’s exciting!
June 18, 2025 at 6:44 AM
And fieldwork season 2 has started today! Topsoil samples, testpit samples and archaeological walkover surveys. Here we go!
June 16, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Happy to report that I’ve started my pollen extraction 😁
May 28, 2025 at 10:57 AM
I do so love my job. Was out on a recce yesterday in the sun! Saw some interesting features, but the images below might not do them justice!
May 6, 2025 at 5:10 AM
We had great fun yesterday! My talk went briefly into the #theory of integrating #soilscience and #archaeology before diving into a thought experiment: based on what we know of past #landuse, what might we expect to see in the soil in terms of compaction, pH, and #nutrient availability?
Happy to be starting the #EnvironmentalHumanities seminar series at St Andrews on Thursday!
May 2, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Happy to be starting the #EnvironmentalHumanities seminar series at St Andrews on Thursday!
April 28, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Meike van Lit
The 18 hectare Eildon Hill overlooks the important Roman Fort of Newstead. It has multiple phases of ramparts set around a dense settlement, some of which have produced Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age dates and artefacts. Was this an active indigenous town when the Romans invaded!? #HillfortsWednesday
February 26, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Glad to be on the program for the Geoarchaeology in Vienna conference! Even if my presense is only prerecorded & online 😁
February 11, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Meike van Lit
Cultural heritage is on here. This is censorship
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
February 4, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Meike van Lit
There is an interesting talk coming up on 13th February for anyone north of the border (and also available #online for everyone else). Ian Ralston will be talking all things #Hillforts: from the #Pentland Firth to the western #Mediterranean. Details here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hillforts-....
Hillforts: from the Pentland Firth to the western Mediterranean
This talk will be presented by Abercromby Emeritus Professor Ian Ralston OBE MA PhD DLitt FRSE MAE FSA FSAScot, University of Edinburgh.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
February 4, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Officially replacing X with BlueSky on my professional branding/powerpoints 😅
February 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM