Doing something very different this week… looking at (reused?) standing stones with @fordeviot.bsky.social !

#Radiocarbon funding application #rejected, but such useful and clear #feedback! Really looking forward to improving it next few months 😁

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

And from fieldwork into labwork… bulk density, here we go!

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?

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…

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!

And fieldwork season 2 has started today! Topsoil samples, testpit samples and archaeological walkover surveys. Here we go!

Happy to report that I’ve started my pollen extraction 😁

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!

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!

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

Glad to be on the program for the Geoarchaeology in Vienna conference! Even if my presense is only prerecorded & online 😁

Cultural heritage is on here. This is censorship

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-....

Officially replacing X with BlueSky on my professional branding/powerpoints 😅