Anatolijs Venovcevs
@avenovcevs.bsky.social
150 followers 160 following 22 posts
Ruin explorer, fermentation foodie, food gatherer, bike-riding pinko, one of the world's northernmost archaeologists. Secretly a chanterelle. Researcher in Historical Archaeology at the Svalbard Museum in Longyearbyen.
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avenovcevs.bsky.social
Analysing lead bullets from an 18th century Russian Pomor site on Svalbard. Four different calibers of lead bullets plus lots of evidence of shot manufacture - from lead bars to waste to cut sprues.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
17th century whaler's shoe found on the surface in northeastern Svalbard.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
An untimely artifact of archaeology - an artifact tag from the Institute of Archaeology of the USSR - written in 1994.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Today at Svalbard Museum - figuring out how to conserve a 400 year old piece of boiled whale fat 🐳
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Coles Bay, Svalbard - the shipping harbour for the Soviet coal mining operation at Grumant from the 1930s to 1961. At one point, Grumant and Coles Bay had a combined population of 1,100 people making it the largest population centre in Svalbard. It was closed in 1961 due to dwindling coal reserves.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Artifact packaging of cigarette and medicine containers can be seen as artifacts in themselves 😂

Though the item conservation practices leave much to be desired...
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Five months into my new position and I'm finally starting the job I got hired to do - working with the archaeological collections. First is the Russian Pomor material of which we have around 20,000 items, mostly excavated by Russian archaeologists in the 70s, 80, and 90s.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Stuck in snow on a glacier. I've driven in white out conditions before (thanks for the experience Canada!) but this was something else. The world was a white sheet of paper and the only thing that existed was the snowmobile in front of me.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Getting back into Bluesky with shots from my new home - Svalbard - an incredible glacial land of ice and snow with even more incredible archaeology.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
My babushka is a sewing grandmaster.

Keep also in mind that at age 83 her eyesight isn't the best... she sews a lot by the feel of the needle. All of this is made from discarded clothing.
Reposted by Anatolijs Venovcevs
shannonmattern.bsky.social
The kids’ accounts “have helped officials and investigators build a picture of a Russian effort to remove children from Ukraine — often under the pretext of rescuing them from the war zone — to turn them against their homeland and into loyal Russian subjects”
Ukraine’s Stolen Children
Thousands of young Ukrainians were separated from their parents by the Russian authorities in the early stages of the war. They are among the most forlorn victims of the invasion.
www.nytimes.com
avenovcevs.bsky.social
An incredible icescape on the Baltic Sea by Oulu during the five hours of daylight. The temperature was around -21 C with windchill.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Quick reminder to anyone interested in participating in our session (or any other session) at @nordicarchtag.bsky.social - the abstracts are due on December 1st.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
For the multidisciplinary-minded people out there, check out Session 3, "Entangled Worlds, Entangled Methods: Archaeologies of Nature" organised by me and my colleagues at the University of Oulu.

How does working beyond the nature-culture binary reconfigure our approaches to studying the past?
nordicarchtag.bsky.social

📣 Call for Papers for the Nordic Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference: Archaeology/ Heritage 🏺

Open until 1 December.

Call for papers' details on the conference web page: sites.utu.fi/nordictag202...

Session overview: sites.utu.fi/nordictag202...
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Picture taken at a former pulp and paper mill waste dumping site, now redeveloped into a local park. Photo looking out over the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Oulu sunset, 14:53, 19 Nov 2023.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
A memory of the mushroom season - admiring the sporing body of an inocybe genus fungus growing on an unidentified iron interconnecter left behind by the retreating German troops in northeastern Norway while working alongside the local mushroom society.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
I guess I'm officially a doctor now 😃

For those interested about the archaeology of twentieth-century single industrial mining towns in the (sub-)Arctic can find and read my thesis here - munin.uit.no/handle/10037...
avenovcevs.bsky.social
If you want to contribute, please send an abstract to me by December 1st. And even if you don't feel like presenting - come to what will surely be a great session!

For my part, I can promise you fungi and charming Norwegian mushroom ladies and Nazi ruins.
avenovcevs.bsky.social
For the multidisciplinary-minded people out there, check out Session 3, "Entangled Worlds, Entangled Methods: Archaeologies of Nature" organised by me and my colleagues at the University of Oulu.

How does working beyond the nature-culture binary reconfigure our approaches to studying the past?
avenovcevs.bsky.social
Welcome to my fungal musings for a possibly better future.

I bring you this lichen growing on crushed and melted glass from the scorched earth retreat by the German forces from Sør-Varanger, northeastern Norway in October 1944.