Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Rachel King

TAG 2025 @ York @tag2025york.bsky.social · 1d

Are you a student at a UK university and looking for support to come to TAG York? Did you know the Royal Archaeological Institute Cheney Bursary is available to support you?

You can find more details here: www.royalarchinst.org/grants/bursa...

@royalarchinst.bsky.social

Bursaries

Cheney Bursaries for StudentsAs a result of a bequest left by Frank Cheney, the Institute has a fund to enable students that attend a UK university to attend RAI Meetings and conferences. Individuals ...

www.royalarchinst.org

1 22 15

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · 9d

Teaching the 2019 Big Gods paper (retractionwatch.com/2021/07/07/c...) as a cautionary tale in archaeological theory, and also in how not to use excel

Critique topples Nature paper on belief in gods

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay A widely-touted 2019 study in Nature which argued that large societies gave rise to belief in fire-and-brimstone gods — and not the ot…

retractionwatch.com

2

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · 27d

Super excited for this! And what excellent timing now that we’re putting together a module on (among other things) gaming 🤗

ArchaeoPlays @archaeoplays.bsky.social · 27d

Pre-orders for Carved in Stone are open!! This book is gorgeous, and I am so grateful to use it (and the artwork!) in my videos.

You can pre-order from @stoutstoat.co.uk here: www.stoutstoat.co.uk/carvedinstone

Thanks to @archaeonado.bsky.social for the endorsement!

🏺 #archaeology #ArchaeologySky

A young person with braided red hair rides a spotted brown horse through trees, a determined look on their face. They have a brown cloak, a yellow tunic/dress, and black leggings. They're carrying a water flask and a leather book satchel. Whatever message they're carrying, it's clearly urgent.

On the left of the image, there is a quote: "It's basically the best book on the Picts ever written. By starting from Scotland's environment and incorporating lessons from archaeology, history and art, this brings the Picts to life more effectively than any other depiction I've yet seen." from Dr Adrián Maldonado, National Museums Scotland.

2

Reposted by Rachel King

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · Aug 15

🏺🗃️

Dr Rachel Pope @prehistorian.bsky.social · Aug 15

Our first working-class prehistorian, Bill Varley, assisted socially during the Depression by recruiting unemployed men from Liverpool to his and Joan’s hillfort excavations in Cheshire, allowing them to work whilst still drawing their benefits.

1 5 21

Reposted by Rachel King

William Carruthers @williamcarruthers.bsky.social · Aug 6

The British university mess is so clearly what happens when the incentives of the people administering and consulting on the system bear no relation to those of anyone actually working in it

2 39 170

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Aug 5

🏺Putting together an exercise using field diaries for my archaeological theory class and wondering whether anyone knows of any digitised/archived *laboratory* diaries that would be good to teach with? 🙏🏻

(Before anyone asks the Catalhoyuk research portal search isn’t working 🙃)

1 2 3

Reposted by Rachel King

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · Aug 1

Today is August 1.

Asking an academic how their book is going is a felony.

82 200 2.2K

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Aug 1

Aaahh I had an MA student do their final project on human-cat heritage, so will pass this along!

1 1

Reposted by Rachel King

Brenna Hassett @brennawalks.bsky.social · Aug 1

Like science? Then you better be interested when *someone* starts putting out hit pieces on scientists. This is beyond the pale ethically and honestly anyone who doesn’t want to slide to hell on a slick of ai generated content that benefits billionaire business, maybe now is the time to get angry.

New scientist headline critics of de extinction hit by mystery smear campaign

3 35 60

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 25

A table top game rather than a board game (hair splitting, I know) but Artefact is wonderful mouseholepress.itch.io/artefact

Artefact by Jack Harrison

A game of legendary items & transient heroes.

mouseholepress.itch.io

1 1 4

Reposted by Rachel King

William Carruthers @williamcarruthers.bsky.social · Jul 22

2/ On that direction of travel, I wrote this earlier this year: apollo-magazine.com/usaid-abolit...

What the dismantling of USAID means for world heritage

As development agencies have become increasingly entangled with heritage projects, the end of USAID raises the question of who will fill the funding gap

apollo-magazine.com

1 2 3

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 20

I have it on good authority that there’s an excellent study on the junk methodology of teacher evals in the pipeline so yes to this episode in like >2 months or so!

1 2

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 19

My children have complementary approaches to birthday cake

1 2

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 17

Me, photographing archives in 2023: I really should get these catalogued and onto a hard drive now so I’m not scrambling to do this when I need to write a talk

Me, scrambling to write a conference talk in 2025: curse these totally foreseeable consequences!

1 1 5

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 8

Amazing funding scheme for postgraduates, working on amazing projects with the best people. Yes, I really am that excited.

Jen Baird @jenbaird.bsky.social · Jul 8

So pleased that we have MA funding available this year for our MA Archaeology & Heritage Programme. Please spread the word (or get in touch if you have questions)!
www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...

The Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies Postgraduate Scholarships - Birkbeck, University of London

Find out more about the Carena Institute postgraduate scholarships with project themes and how to apply.

www.bbk.ac.uk

1 2

Reposted by Rachel King

Jen Baird @jenbaird.bsky.social · Jul 8

So pleased that we have MA funding available this year for our MA Archaeology & Heritage Programme. Please spread the word (or get in touch if you have questions)!
www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...

The Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies Postgraduate Scholarships - Birkbeck, University of London

Find out more about the Carena Institute postgraduate scholarships with project themes and how to apply.

www.bbk.ac.uk

30 34

Reposted by Rachel King

Technology Connections @techconnectify.bsky.social · Jun 25

"digital asbestos" is fantastic framing.

Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · Jun 24

I'm going to be honest here, I think AI is going to do so much damage to the usable internet that even after it's inevitably crashes out, it's going to take years to disentangle from every space it's polluted, like digital asbestos it's gonna be time consuming effort and likely expensive venture.

🕸️jess m. 🎃🍂 @jametc.bsky.social · Jun 24

I think AI is going to eventually tank in the longterm, but...

the only real way to combat this is single-interest communities. Forums, user comms, etc, with a barrier to entry. They become trustable knowledgebases. It's really the only way forward is to return to what worked best the first time

49 1.6K 5.2K

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 7

More of discourse-through-time than sustained historical analysis but work by these authors deals with the sorts of issues you’ve described

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Social dilemmas in built-heritage policy: the role of social considerations in decisions of planning inspectors - Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

This paper addresses an underrated aspect of historic preservation policy: the role played by social factors in conflicts over proposals to develop heritage properties. After reviewing existing litera...

link.springer.com

1 1

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jul 6

5yo is doing a unit on African countries so naturally I’ve primed her to pedantically correct anyone who mispronounces Lesotho. I’m sure this will not affect her popularity in any way.

1 2

Reposted by Rachel King

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Jun 25

7 130 1.4K

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jun 24

🏺 So pleased to have this out for ACHS #Currents about my adventures in economic history, how markets have valued the past, and how #heritage buys into growth (but doesn’t have to!).

🙏🏻 @heritagethings.bsky.social for being the most patient editor!

www.criticalheritagestudies.org/currents-cri...

Unnatural Economies — Association of Critical Heritage Studies

Rachel King, UCL Institute of Archaeology & University of the Witwatersrand Unpacking the entanglement of heritage, loss, and growth in the 20th century For a field preoccupied with value, he...

www.criticalheritagestudies.org

7 11

Reposted by Rachel King

Peer Community In @peercommunityin.bsky.social · Jun 10

Check out the freshly launched TSOSI (Transparency to Sustain Open Infrastructure) website and take a peek at the list of PCI supporters! tsosi.org/entities/ba7...

TSOSI - Transparency to Sustain Open Science Infrastructure

Web platform visualizing the funding made to Open Science Infrastructures.

tsosi.org

1 2 4

Reposted by Rachel King

Emily Hallinan @eshallinan.bsky.social · Jun 10

We're excited to announce the next @icarehb.bsky.social Alt-Ac Paths conversation, with Luíseach Nic Eoin @roinnanluisigh.bsky.social and Tansy Branscombe @tansybranscombe.bsky.social, who now work at @natecoevo.nature.com and @barpublishing.bsky.social.
Thurs 19th June, 11am (GMT), Zoom link below.

1 8 14

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · Jun 9

Students for my ‘Critical Heritage Research Skills’ module write a grant application as their final assessment and these are always a DELIGHT. Cats as stewards of heritage sites! Carceral heritage! Someone fund these ASAP!

2

Rachel King @rachelking.bsky.social · May 28

Congratulations! This looks great and is so badly needed

1 1