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Oscar Lozada

@oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.1K following 490 posts

Prehistoric archaeologist and hunter-gatherer of interestingness 🏹🌾 | Sharing my love of all things ancient 🏺🏛️ | PhD student at Cambridge studying the Neanderthals of Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan https://linktr.ee/oz_of_the_ancients

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · Mar 30

I got to talk about #Neanderthals all weekend!

A great time at #CamFest speaking to the public about my PhD research at Shanidar Cave! But am fully wrecked now 😵☠️

Still on for a week, come say hi if you're near #Cambridge!

More pics below

#sciencecommunication #scicomm #archaeology #camfest2025🏺

A group of people with their backs to the camera looking at a young man holding a grey and brown skull cast, who has his hand out and is gesturing towards it. Background is a wall of cabinets with geological specimens inside.

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Dr Alan Montgomery @classicalalan.bsky.social · 22h

This is the only visible stretch of the Roman wall of Dorchester, known in ancient times as Durnovaria. Only the inner rubble core of the wall survives - it would have been faced with more regular carved blocks on each side, but these have long since disappeared. #WallsonWednesday

A short stretch of rough rubble wall incorporated into a garden wall with a fence in front.

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 14h

#Lidar of Poverty Point, the type-site for a prehistoric culture occupying the Lower Mississippi Valley from c. 1730–1350 BC.

Radiocarbon dates show, however, that the nearby, supposedly peripheral site of Jaketown dates even earlier.

🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

LiDAR digital elevation model showing mounds, six ridges and a plaza. By K. Ervin).

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 1d

It is! It's the Four Barrows, seen from the walk to Upper Upham. Od you know the area?

Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 1d

Isn't Wiltshire amazing - five Bronze Age round barrows in one image! See if you can spot them all...

#TombTuesday

📸 Mine

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #photooftheday 🏺

A hillside made up of patchwork fields and hedges with a round barrow at the bottom of the valley and several on the ridge above

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 1d

Excavation on a hilltop at the ancient Albanian settlement of Bushat found a fortified stone platform decorated with Corinthian-style tiles #TilesOnTuesday

Despite not being part of the Greek empire, the city was clearly influenced by regular contact.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Archaeological excavation on a hilltop overlooking farmland.

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 2d

#MedievalMonday The tiny 12th Century St Moluag's church (Teampall Mholuaidh in Scots Gaelic) on the northern windswept tip of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides

St Moluag was a companion of St Columba and founded a chapel on this spot in the 6th Century!

#archaeology #history #scotland #photooftheday🏺

A gravel path with fences either side leading up to a small stone chapel surrounded by wild moorland on either side

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 3d

#StandingStoneSunday The causeway across the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, guarded by the 'Watchstone'

This probably-Neolithic stone may have once been part of a pair, guarding the processional route from the Stones of Stenness

📸 Mine

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #scotland #photooftheday 🏺

A road across a narrow waterway, with a large standing stone standing on the left

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 4d

For #RomanSiteSaturday, here's the remains of the Basilica of the Five Martyrs in Salona, Croatia

It was built in the 4th century AD above the graves of five priests killed in Diocletian's persecution of the Christians

📸 Mine

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #romanempire #photooftheday🏺

Roman ruins in a rectangular open plan with a few stumps of columns remaining on either side and grass covering flagstones on the floor. Behind are a row of trees and in the distance some rugged mountains

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 5d

I just have to post this #iceage masterpiece from time to time: A tiny (3.7 cm) but amazing figurine of a woolly mammoth carved in mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago.

Found in the Vogelherd cave on the Swabian Jura, south-west Germany.

📷 me
🏺

A mammoth figurine carved from ivory, its surface weathered with age. The shape captures the essence of the animal, with a prominent trunk and sloping back. The figure is displayed on a metal stand against a dark background.

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

#archaeologynews Now this is a rare find!

A Palaeolithic toolkit containing 29 stone tools, still together after 30,000 years!

They were likely once held together in a pouch that decayed long ago

#archaeology #news #findsfriday
archaeologymag.com/2025/09/3000...

Rare 30,000-year-old personal toolkit reveals life of a Stone Age hunter

Rare 30,000-year-old Gravettian stone toolkit found in the Czech Republic reveals Ice Age survival and social networks.

archaeologymag.com

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

All good questions! I think we can only confidently answer one for those: the materials - jet stone and bone (though I'm not sure which species). As for the rest of the questions, your guess is as good as mine!

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

You could be right haha. It was almost certainly worn by the elites of their society, so make of that what you will

Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

You're welcome, glad to have piqued your interest!

Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

#FindsFriday This 2000-year old whale vertebra seems to have been used by Iron Age people as a bowl!

Found at the Broch of Gurness in #Orkney, #Scotland, it is thought to have come from a beached whale and shows their resourcefulness

📸 Mine

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #museums #photooftheday 🏺

A whale vertebra on a museum stand with a cup-shaped hollow at the top

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 6d

Charles Darwin returned from his voyage on the Beagle #OnThisDay in AD 1836. His experiences on this trip influenced a book he wrote 23 years later. It was kind of a big deal.

📷 Falmouth Art Gallery / Newquay Zoo Darwin 200 partnership / CC BY-SA 4.0

🏺 #Archaeology

Granite plaque with black writing that reads 'Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, arrived at Falmouth aboard the Beagle on 2nd October 1836 and departed on the Royal Mail coach from this site'.

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 8d

#TombTuesday The escape from Taversöe Tuick Tomb on the island of Rousay in Orkney

Well, it's an escape if you can bash your way out of that grate first...

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #scotland #photooftheday

A long underground passageway with stone walls and a stone floor. At the end is a metal grate covering the exit where light filters through

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 9d

Why was female Pharaoh Hatshepsut's statuary destroyed following her death? Examination of unpublished archival material from 1922-28 excavations sheds light on ritual destruction and political persecution in Ancient Egypt #ManuscriptMonday

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Black-and-white image of several fragments of stone statues, including the head of a pharaoh, cracked across the face. Fragments recovered from an indurated limestone statue of Hatshepsut (MMA 29.3.2) Photograph by Harry Burton (1929). (Negative number M10C 71 © Department of Egyptian Art Archives, the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Madeleine Sugden @madlinsudn.bsky.social · 9d

The Boring Fund will be open for applications in November.

If your small UK charity needs (up to) £200 to cover something boring like insurance or web hosting, take a look.

They welcome donations too.

The Boring Fund - Open Collective

We support small non-profit organisations (UK) by only funding the really boring (but essential) stuff like insurance, accountancy or admin

opencollective.com

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Stone Club @stoneclub.bsky.social · 9d

Burras Menhir in the autumn sun

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Andreas @andreas40.bsky.social · 10d

#StandingStoneSunday
#archaeology #Wales
#photooftheday

Maen Llia, Brecon-Beacons, South Wales

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 10d

😂😂😂

Photo of an empty, muddy, old plastic bottle with a single handle. The bottle is lying on soil surrounded by stones of varying shapes and sizes. The side of the bottle with handle is uppermost. The mouth end of the container points towards bottom left of the picture.

There is text above the image of the plastic bottle which reads “Ancient skull found on archaeological dig is proof of our alien origins”. Having read the text, at first glance the plastic bottle looks similar to an alien skull. The body of the bottle looks like a long skull,the handle looks like a nose, and the indents with shadow either side of the handle look like eyes. An example of pareidolia!

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 10d

#StandingStoneSunday Part of Cefn Coch Stone Circle in North Wales on a dramatic day... such a wild landscape up there

#archaeology #wales #photooftheday 🏺

A standing stone embedded in rugged mossy moorland under a dramatic sky

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 11d

This is the hypogeum (underground chamber) beneath the massive Amphitheatre of El Djem in #Tunisia

Down here animals were kept before being released into the arena, and gladiators sat awaiting their fate...

#RomanSiteSaturday

📸 Mine

#archaeology #romanempire #ancientbluesky #photooftheday 🏺

A long underground chamber leading off into the distance, with dark archways on either side, and a glass ceiling above.

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Marta Mirazon Lahr @martamlahr.bsky.social · 13d

#ESHE2025
Chris Hunt ‘Site formation and Neanderthal disposition at Shanidar Cave, Iraq’
Complex Shanidar cave taphonomy!!
Cluster of individuals in tiny space; 5 bodies 71-73 Kya – mortuary behaviour?! pistachio pollen 😊!!!!!

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Reposted by Oscar Lozada

Marta Mirazon Lahr @martamlahr.bsky.social · 12d

#ESHE2025
Katerina Harvati ‘Middle Pleistocene funerary ritual at Apidima? An examination of evidence’
2 homs– 2 dates: Ap2: >170 ka (NEA), Ap1 >210 ka (early H sapiens).
Could it be mortuary ritual instead (Otte 2020)?! NO.
Analysis of tapho, homs in fissure! no pebbles, no pigments 😀

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