Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for sharing! 😊

Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

estherwidmann.bsky.social @estherwidmann.bsky.social · 1d

Höhlenbilder aus der Altsteinzeit sind immer nur Variationen von Rot und Schwarz. Aber anders als bisher angenommen bedeutet das nicht, dass die Menschen blaue Farbe gar nicht nutzten. #palaeolithic @izzywisher.bsky.social www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft...

14 000 Jahre alt: Archäologen finden älteste blaue Farbe auf einem Steinobjekt aus Hessen

Zuvor hatte es verschiedenste Mutmassungen gegeben, warum die Menschen in der Altsteinzeit keine blaue und grüne Farbe herstellten. Es zeigt sich: Möglicherweise kamen die Pigmente lediglich in versch...

www.nzz.ch

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Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

IPBES @ipbes.net · 6d

RIP #JaneGoodall - one of the modern pioneers of profound interconnections between people, animals and ecosystems. Her life was lived through science, compassion and tireless advocacy for the multiple values of nature - leaving a legacy that will endure for people and planet.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 6d

BREAKING: Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for chimpanzee research and environmental advocacy, has died.

Jane Goodall, conservationist renowned for chimpanzee research and environmental advocacy, has died

Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, has died. She was 91.

bit.ly

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 6d

Heartbreaking news, I remember being deeply inspired by her work as an undergrad. Truly a pioneer who no doubt inspired many generations of women.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...

Jane Goodall, chimpanzee expert and animal rights campaigner, dies age 91 - follow live

The campaigner, a

www.bbc.co.uk

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 8d

Wonderful video by @antiquity.ac.uk summarising our research!

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 9d

Europe's oldest blue pigment

Dating back ~13,000 years, it questions the long-held belief that Palaeolithic artists only used red or black and indicates a more vibrant Ice Age world than previously imagined

Read the original research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

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Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 9d

NEW Archaeologists find the earliest evidence for blue pigment use in Europe, dating back ~13,000 years and questioning the long-held belief that Palaeolithic artists only used red or black.

Strap in for a colourful #AntiquityThread 1/10 🧵

🏺 #Archaeology

Close-up image of a stone with traces of blue pigment on its surface.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

Amazing, I hadn't seen this one!

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

And in National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

This is the oldest blue pigment ever discovered in Europe

The discovery of a stone long overlooked in a German museum suggests that Ice Age communities experimented with vivid hues far earlier than scholars believed.

www.nationalgeographic.com

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

And some lovely coverage by @spoke32.bsky.social for Science! Check it out 👇

Andrew Curry @spoke32.bsky.social · 9d

The color blue never shows up in Paleolithic cave paintings. Archaeologists assumed that's because blue pigments and dyes were unknown in prehistory. A new study by @izzywisher.bsky.social in @antiquity.ac.uk, along with an even older indigo find, suggest otherwise. @science.org

Paleolithic painters had the blues

Two recent studies shine light on the earliest known artistic usages of blue pigment

www.science.org

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

This all started with @felixthehauskat.bsky.social showing me a "lamp" and snowballed into the mother-of-all side projects! HUGE thank you to the heroic efforts of everyone involved (from no less than 5 countries, and many more institutions) - and supported by the IPERION HORIZON grant.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

Does this imply a more deliberate use of colour in the Palaeolithic? We hope our research will open up new avenues for exploring this. Our stone is rather... unremarkable, and we plan to re-examine some of these (boring) stones in future work to try and expand our knowledge of Palaeo-palettes!

Image of a sand-coloured stone that has an irregular, round shape. The scale bar in the bottom left corner is 5cm and shows the stone is around 15-20cm in maximum width.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

We suggest they were using it for archaeologically-invisible activities, like body paint. In later prehistory, azurite is found in female burials and on cosmetic applicators at Çatalhöyük (but not used for wall paintings) and decorates the hair/eyes of Bronze Age female figurines from Greece.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

Blue is a colour that is absent from Palaeo art, which is usually reds and blacks. It's been assumed this is due to resource accessibility. BUT azurite occurs in near-surface deposits and we know there is some mining for certain materials around this time. So if not art, what did they use blue for?

Map of Europe that shows the coastline as it was in the Palaeolithic. The land is in green, with a yellow square identifying the site Mühlheim-Dietesheim. White and red circles show sites with evidence of flint and ochre mining respectively. A pop-out box shows blue circles that represent the presence of azurite around the site, and along the rivers Rhine and Main.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d

Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵

Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺

doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Close-up image of a sand coloured stone, with a diagonal crack. The sand rock has a textured surface, and small spots of blue can be seen towards the centre of the stone. The background is grey.

Microscopic photo of the blue spots, that are irregular in shape and size and positioned diagonally across the image. The rest of the photo shows the rough sand coloured texture of the stone.

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Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

Dan Hicks @profdanhicks.bsky.social · Sep 3

your periodic reminder that “archaeology isn’t political” is a political statement

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Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

Happy Monday!

Here’s an ancient amber bear carved about 10,000 years ago!

This magical find washed up on a beach at Fanø in Denmark from a submerged Mesolithic settlement under the North Sea.

National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. 📷 by me

#Archaeology

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 30

🚨DEADLINE ON FRIDAY!🚨 Do you do art-related archaeological research? Are you itching to discuss how we identify individual artists in the past, or the agency art had in societies? Then make sure to get your abstracts in for @tag2025york.bsky.social! You can send them to me at: [email protected] 🏺

Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jun 17

How can we visualise the agency of art and artists in past societies? Mine and @dparrott.bsky.social's session at @tag2025york.bsky.social intends to bring together exciting new research to explore this question! Interested? Why not submit an abstract!✋ 🎨🖌️🏺

ORGANISER(S): Izzy Wisher and Derek Parrott

AFFILIATION: Aarhus University

CONTACT: Izzy Wisher, izzywisher@cas.au.dk

ABSTRACT:

Art was, and continues to be, an active agent in societies. The first traces of artistic behaviour can be glimpsed in etched patterns produced nearly 100,000 years ago, and flourished into the rich, material culture visible in a wide array of both prehistoric and historic societies. It has the relational power to build new connections between individuals, generate cultural identities, or exert political or religious authority over a population. There have been significant efforts in recent years to shift away from “grand theories” of art – whether typological or narrative in nature – to instead appreciate the dialogical, multisensorial, and distributed engagements of art making and reception. Yet there remains a central challenge. In the fragmentary archaeological evidence of past artistic actions, how can we visualise individual artisans?

In this session, we intend to bring together a diverse range of perspectives that examine art from a range of spatial and temporal contexts to identify the actions of individual artists in the past. We particularly encourage submissions that have developed new theoretical and high-resolution methodological approaches to address this challenge. Our session will not be limited in period or object type – the organisers themselves specialise in Palaeolithic art (IW) and Viking Age art (DP), but share a common theoretical thread in their conceptions of art.

Themes could therefore include, but are not limited to:
Material engagements in artistic practices
Art and agency perspectives
Craft networks and the role of the artisan
High-resolution digital modelling
Archaeometric approaches to art

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 25

Oh!! How is Nicky doing? I do miss York - it’s been too long since I was last there!

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 25

Congratulations, Greg! 😊

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 14

Just a few weeks left to get your submissions in for our session "Visualising Artistic Action in the Past" at @tag2025york.bsky.social! If you do research related to artists, art, craft, and agency in the past - from theoretical entanglements to cutting-edge methods - we want to hear from you! 🎨🏺

Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jun 17

How can we visualise the agency of art and artists in past societies? Mine and @dparrott.bsky.social's session at @tag2025york.bsky.social intends to bring together exciting new research to explore this question! Interested? Why not submit an abstract!✋ 🎨🖌️🏺

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Reposted by Dr Izzy Wisher

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · Jul 11

🏺🗃️ Not sure why this is getting more attention today, but happy to see it shared again!
And thrilled that Yusra will of course be part of our #ExcavatingGarrod project, re-examining archives for new insights on Garrod's work on #Neanderthals, and her collaborations & wider networks with women.

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · Nov 29

🏺 The first remains of Tabun 1 were recognised by Yusra, a Palestinian woman who had already dug for years with Garrod. Here is Yusra in 1932 with other young women fieldworkers named as Rashidi and Amui Haj, and in 1934 with Dorothy Garrod.

Black and white photograph in Pitt Rivers museum Garrod archive, taken 1932. Image shows three young Palestinian women wearing traditional dress including skirts, bodices, blouses and a cardigan, with head coverings. They are outside a masonry building, one sitting by some cans and a makeshift table with metal pots, and potentially a sieve. Two others stand up near the door of the building. All three look relaxed, two have small smiles. In the background are stony flat fields and scattered trees.

Black and white photo from Pitt Rivers museum Garrod archive. Image taken in 1934. Shows two women sitting together in a shaded area next to a plastered wall and wall woven of plant material; branches or plants also form the roof and are filtering the sun. The older European woman on the right is sitting in a wooden chair, wearing a tailored dress with her black hair in a bun. She is looking at the young child the other woman is holding on her lap, and reaching a hand toward him. The younger Palestinian woman in the left is wearing layered patterned clothing including trousers or a skirt, a long blouse or embroidered shirt and a head covering. She is also looking at the child she holds while her left hand directs their attention to the European woman on her left, and her hand crosses in front of the European woman's. The child wears pale clothing with embroidery and a white hat, they look 18 months to 2 years old.

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 4

It would make for a great tattoo!

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 3

Inspired by funky Minoan octopus motifs (after an amazing visit to the Heraklion museum on Crete), I just had to draw this guy! 🐙🏺

Pencil drawing of an octopus in black in a Minoan style, with tentacles sprawling across the page

Large brown coloured amphora with a black octopus motif across the centre

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 1

Oh my gosh, this sounds incredible! I can’t wait to see more from the project - especially Garrod’s networks with other women! She was so influential in training a whole generation of female archaeologists

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · Jul 1

!!! Would love to hear more about this project! Also I hope you feel better/get well soon from non-serious health thing 😊

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