Michael Haslam
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twigtechnology.bsky.social
Michael Haslam
@twigtechnology.bsky.social
5.2K followers 540 following 680 posts
Australian archaeologist, PhD, obsessed with tool-using animals. Steward at Skara Brae, Orkney | http://twig.technology | writing Intelligence Hallucinated with @abigaildesmond.bsky.social for Harvard Uni Press (2027)

🐒🦦🐙🐦‍⬛🐝🕷️🦧🐴🐠🪲🦜🐿️🐋🦀
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twigtechnology.bsky.social
The merrie dancers dressed in red and green for #Orkney tonight 🔭🧪
Photo of an aurora over Birsay in the west mainland of Orkney. Pillars of gentle green light shoot upwards, joined by vivid reds in a starry night sky.
January 19, 2026 at 9:41 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Eleven years ago today, one of my excavations in Laem Son National Park to retrieve archaeological macaque stone tools 🐒🏺🧪🪏

#Thailand #PrimateArchaeology #throwbackthursday
Photo of a half metre square excavation into intertidal beach sands on a small island off the west coast of Thailand. Large flattened boulders surround the site, and the Andaman Sea is adjacent.
January 15, 2026 at 10:36 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
You’ll never convince me that Euclid, the #ESA space telescope capturing the structure of the universe, isn’t just a big bellows camera 🔭🧪📷
Photo of an old-timey handheld camera in which you opened a box and slid out the lens (attached to an expandable bellows) to focus. It’s an ICA Ideal 325 model.
January 4, 2026 at 4:14 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Obligatory #Orkney snow photo, taken out my living room window

📷 3 January 2026
Black and white photo of a low, snow-covered rural landscape with a dark lake in the middle distance. The near field has patches of grass showing through, and the high winds are whipping up swirls of snow from the ground.
January 3, 2026 at 5:34 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
At year’s end, Angus (the horse that lives beside Skara Brae) briefly becomes a sun-unicorn 🦄☀️🏺
Photo of a brown horse in a coat standing in a grassy field and looking off to the left. The low Orkney sun behind his head gives the appearance of a pointed shaft of light coming from his forehead.
December 31, 2025 at 10:13 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Old Red Sandstone, Warebeth #Orkney

📷 me, 26 December 2025
Photo of an eroding sandstone slab from the intertidal zone near Stromness, Orkney. The stone has an undulating surface reminiscent of topographical lines, with pastel rose and bluish-grey colours. The photo is about one metre across, but resembles an aerial image of a desert from high above.
December 27, 2025 at 4:01 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Folks often ask if Skara Brae will fall into the ocean. Medium term: no, thanks to our sea wall, built in the 1920s and reinforced/extended since.

Long (enough) term: probably. Foot traffic and storms continue to erode the dunes around the wall.

🎥 me, this morning, winter solstice 2025 #Orkney ☀️🏺🌊
December 21, 2025 at 10:30 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
I’m struggling to believe this NASA-published photo of red sprite lightning in France is real, but it seems to be so.

Red sprites can appear very briefly above thunderstorms, exciting high atmospheric gases to produce vivid colour and form. Who needs aliens? 🧪⚡️🛸

📷 Nicholas Escurat, 3 Sept 2022
Photo of a night scene in the French countryside, with a well-lit castle (Château de Beynac) perched on a hill above a town. Seemingly over the castle, although actually in the distant atmosphere, are pillars and tendrils of red light connected to a glowing red cloud. The camera can see into infrared so some of the treetops are greyish.
December 18, 2025 at 7:08 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Last light at the Bay of Birsay this afternoon #Orkney
A panoramic photo of a low orange sun setting into the North Atlantic. To the left are stairs that lead down from the Brough of Birsay carpark to the beach. To the right is the Brough itself, an island fortress for the Norse rulers of Orkney a millennium ago. In the far distance is a sandstone headland, typical of those that flank our western coast.
December 15, 2025 at 4:41 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Obligatory photos of the lady herself

📷 my own, 10 December 2025
Right side photo of the 30,000 year old stone Venus of Willendorf figurine, with her braided hair and arms across her chest. Left side photo of the 30,000 year old stone Venus of Willendorf figurine, basically a mirror of the right side. Front photo of the 30,000 year old stone Venus of Willendorf figurine.
December 10, 2025 at 2:53 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Another entry in my occasional series ‘What does the artefact see?’

Today I’m visiting Vienna’s Natural History Museum, home of the ca. 30,000 year old Willendorf figurine. This is what the Palaeolithic Venus sees day in, day out, in her own special display room.

(plus tourists like me) 🏺🧪🎨
Photo from behind the glass case of the Venus of Willendorf display at the Vienna Natural History Museum. The stone figurine sits on a thin black stand and faces a red wall with two display panels in German and English. She is, as always, implacable.
December 10, 2025 at 2:49 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Quick visit to the National Museum of Slovakia 🦖🇸🇰
Photo of a dinosaur facing the camera at close range, with sharp teeth up front and scrappy hairs to the side. There’s a yellowish crest on its head. It’s a glamorous way to be eaten.
December 6, 2025 at 10:56 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
If you’re into myths and nature, I highly recommend Mythopedia from @amayor.bsky.social . Such a huge amount of knowledge and tales in a handy little package! 📚🏺
My hand holding the book “Mythopedia: a brief compendium of natural history lore” by Adrienne Mayor. It’s a blue hardback with an illustration of an orange serpent beast poking its tongue out.
November 29, 2025 at 6:27 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Quick check on the Neolithic Tomb of the Eagles today, in 60 mph winds. Extremely proud that this important ancient site is now fully community owned.

#Orkney 🧪🏺💀
The entrance to a sandstone tomb built around 5000 years ago, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
November 28, 2025 at 6:21 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Gigantopithecus is a tool-using star in the new #PrehistoricPlanet Ice Age series. This extinct, largest-ever ape makes a dipping tool for ants, and beats down berries from a tree with a long stick. The species is known mostly from teeth, so we have no idea if it did these things, but maybe… 🧪🏺🦧 🐜
Screenshot from Prehistoric Planet Ice Age episode 4, of a large male ape in a forest, trimming a twig with both hands. Continuing from the first screenshot, now the ape, an extinct relative of orangutans, uses his twig tool to gather ants from a nearby branch. Finally the gigantopithecus draws his ant - covered tool through his lips to snack on the ants it has collected. In a separate scene from Prehistoric Planet Ice Age episode 4, the giant ape walks upright towards a tree with overhanging berries. In his right hand he carries a long stick, as he looks up.
November 27, 2025 at 1:34 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Most people don’t know that part of a Steward’s job at Skara Brae is keeping away the #Orkney Neolithic demons.

I’ve just performed the salting ritual on our visitor centre (the site uses environmental and monument friendly artificial salt) 🧂😈🏺🧪
Photo of the entrance to the visitor centre at Skara Brae in Orkney. There’s a paved road leading away from sandstone buildings, with flagged steps leading down to the doors. Salt is scattered in patches across the ground, and a small white bucket of salt with a blue scoop is close by.
November 25, 2025 at 10:14 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Seals singing in a sea cave

#Orkney 🦭🎧
November 21, 2025 at 5:54 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
FYI here’s the figurine, and an artistic reconstruction
A small pale coloured clay figurine, cracked and ancient, is paired in this image with an artist’s reconstruction of its original form. The figurine shows a crouched woman with her head tilted to her left, while a large goose beak and head peer over her shoulder. Its wings extend down her sides.
November 17, 2025 at 10:47 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
On the left, Alan Turing’s 1950 paper introducing the imitation game, where he says that using public polling as a guide to whether machines are intelligent is absurd.

On the right, yesterday’s NYT opinion piece using public polling as a guide to whether machines are intelligent.

🧪🤖
The introduction to Turing’s paper titled ‘Computing Machinery and intelligence’: I PROPOSE to consider the question, 'Can machines think ?' This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine' and "think'.The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous. If the meaning of the words 'machine' and 'think' are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, 'Can machines think ?' is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words. Introduction to an opinion piece published in the New York Times on 8 November 2025, by Barbara Gail Montero, titled ‘A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence’: Not long ago, A.I. became intelligent. Some may dismiss this claim, but the number of people who doubt A.I.'s acumen is dwindling. According to a 2024 YouGov poll, a clear majority of U.S. adults say that computers are already more intelligent than people or will become so in the near future.
November 9, 2025 at 12:09 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Watching @realgdt.bsky.social’s excellent new Frankenstein film reminded me of a specific passage from the book.

Mary Shelley wanted somewhere extremely remote and depressing for Victor Frankenstein to create the companion for his ‘monster’. So she sent him to…Orkney

📚🧬⚡️
A passage from Mary Shelley’s 1818 book Frankenstein: Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland, and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me, and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands, and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock, whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the main land, which was about five miles distant.
November 9, 2025 at 8:38 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Update: the Buckquoy Pictish site and surrounding coast looking their best this afternoon 🏺
A photo of a sky approaching sunset with a sandstone shoreline and a small peninsula in the mid-distance. Water off to the right is the North Atlantic Ocean. A hand drawn arrow points at the peninsula, which is the where the Buckquoy archaeological site was excavated.
November 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
What spooky #Orkney site is this?

It’s the view inside House 7 at Skara Brae, the one we keep locked. The only two skeletons found at this ancient village were under the wall to the left. Look closely to see Neolithic carvings in the stone, made over 4500 years ago….if you dare

#Halloween 🏺💀
A black and white photo of stone furniture inside a stone house. The floor is clay. A small doorway is visible in the upper right, but the image is dominated by the upper edge of a sandstone slab in the centre. The slab has a series of lines carved into it, not a language, but clearly meaningful to the Neolithic people that made them.
October 31, 2025 at 8:18 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Brilliant new study (preprint) led by @noraslania.bsky.social on how wild eastern chimpanzees observe each other.

'Peering'—or close-range attentive observation—happens in all kinds of contexts and esp. for young chimps, opening the door to new cultural traits 🧪👀

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 31, 2025 at 12:16 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
20 years ago today I was teaching a tutorial at UQ when I heard my friend and mentor Dr Tom Loy had died. He was 63.

Tom was a pioneer in biomolecular archaeology, finding blood and other organic materials on ancient tools. But he never rebuilt an entire DNA strand, as #JurassicPark noted

🏺🧪🧬🦖🦕
October 19, 2025 at 8:09 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Aurora/dragon over my #Orkney house tonight 🧪🔭
An aurora of mostly green hues with some red in the night sky. Stars are visible through it. The shape is kind of like two giant wings if you use a lot of imagination.
October 18, 2025 at 9:30 PM