New comedy series, ‘Dig’, featuring fictional archaeologists being planned.

Was giving a presentation on some of my recent and ongoing archaeological work at a conference today and unexpectedly came across this promotional poster for my forthcoming book ‘Once Upon This Land: Archaeology in British Columbia and the Stories it Tells’.

Earlier today I received word that I will be receiving emeritus status from Capilano University at the June convocation. I’m thrilled.

The Apollo core rope memory and women's heritage on the Moon Between 1969 and 1972 there were six Apollo human spaceflight missions to the Moon, each leaving a complex site behind. A common joke now is...

Men walked on the Moon - but women made the guidance computers that got them there and back. At the landing sites and command module crash sites the computers are evidence of a unique women's lunar heritage. 🧪🏺

Don't forget to human today.

Make stuff. Do stuff. Go see something interesting. Move around. Eat.

I sometimes get busy and forget to human.

BC Studies Conference 2025 – Diamond Point, Interconnected (2021). Used with permission of the artist. Diamond Point, Interconnected (2021). Used with permission of the artist.

the draft programme is available (and looks amazing!) and registration is open for the 2025 bc studies conference, which is being held at the university of british columbia from may 1-4.
#bchist #cdnhist #bcpoli #bced
blogs.ubc.ca/bcsconferenc...

I'm delighted to see archaeology accepting the jigsaw pieces we won't find. The ephemeral, the perishable....they've got their own story too, as you know I've written of....

The TAG 2025 website is up and running, which means we are open for session proposals! Check it out here: tag2025.hosted.york.ac.uk

Once upon This Land Once upon This Land - Archaeology in British Columbia and the Stories It Tells; Once upon This Land is a much-needed overview of archaeology in British Columbia that introduces readers to the fascinat...

My latest book: ‘Once upon This Land: Archaeology in British Columbia and the Stories it Tells’ is available for pre-order. www.ubcpress.ca/once-upon-th...

Hello Archaeologists!
Welcome to the official BlueSky page for the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) 2025 conference!

Watch this space for our website and Call for Sessions!

Find us on:
Facebook at TAG 2025 at York
X at @TAG2025_York
Instagram @tag2025_york
#tag25 #tagyork #tag2025york

Archaeology of contemporary times

Write every day for 1 hour. If you miss a writing day add 1 hour to the next. It’s incredible! Tomorrow I’m writing for 7 years.

In a 1st, ancient proteins reveal sex of human relative from 3.5 million years ago Researchers have extracted ancient proteins from australopithecine fossils and determined whether they were male or female — a first for human evolution studies.

It may be a bit "inside baseball," but I'm wildly excited about the promise of palaeoproteomics -- not quite as much info as DNA, but can give us info from millions of years ago. This new paper out today shows they were able to figure out biological sex of an A. africanus specimen (2-3.5myo). 🏺🧪

How AI imagery could be used to develop fake archaeology Even before the use of AI, it was widely accepted within archaeology that visualisations of the past are highly fraught and should be treated with caution.

I wrote an article for The Conversation about generative AI visualisation in #archaeology, will discuss it further in a thread tomorrow. 🏺

theconversation.com/how-ai-image...

On the pleasure of lists in: archaeology; video games “Lara Croft is seen as the monstrous offspring of science: an idealized, eternally young female automaton, a malleable, well-trained techno-puppet created by and for the male gaze.” So says Anne-Ma…

This week's blog post is a little different.

On:
Capturing the embodied experience of archaeology in games
Games as lists
Archaeological stratigraphy as a spatial list
Vocabulary lists and queer identity
Erasure
Perpetuity

florencesmithnicholls.com/2025/02/04/o...

The trunk, head and dorsal hump of a mammoth drawn in black outline. A silhouette of a hand, painted in red placed within and partially over it. On the beige, scratched wall of a limestone cave

The juxtaposition of a mammoth reduced to the barest line, with the most human of symbols in blood-red ochre.
Yes, there is probably something to decode, but first it's important to share the awe that human art can persist for such spans of time.
That we can still encounter it.
Chauvet ~32,000
🏺🦣

Cover of book entitled From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal, Metal tool production and use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers of North America. Book cover has examples of metal projectile points across the cover and a colorful map in the background.

Cover reveal! Check out this beautiful cover for our edited volume coming out later this year from Berghahn Books. Very excited about this.

Today I registered for the 2025 Honolulu marathon. I started recreational running in 2022, and nobody is likely to be more surprised than me that I like it. I’m slow, but I get there.

It was somewhat formal, and it has been my plan to revisit it in 5 years (eg. Compare what we see in 2025/2026 with what we saw in 2020/2021).

Not scrunchies but I recall @drspacejunk.bsky.social did some archaeology of cable ties

Reviewing the copyeditor’s comments and suggestion on my latest book ms. I almost always find myself in awe of copyeditors, and this is no exception. The ms is for ‘Once Upon This Land: Archaeology in British Columbia and the Stories it Tells.’

Colin Renfrew has passed away. A hugely influential figure in archaeology throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Here are a few photos of him from about 15years ago, when I was working on his Keros Project.

Thank you for writing the alt text

Yes, this is in British Columbia. On the margins of Metro Vancouver, in the Seymour Valley.

Yes, Canada had internment camps for Japanese

Entire settlement was abandoned relatively quickly, leaving many useful things behind (eg. Tableware, clocks, lanterns). Perhaps left in anticipation of being sent to internment camps.

Typical early 1900s ofuro in N America was 3 wall foundation (about 6’x4‘)made with rock or bricks supporting a tub constructed with metal base and wood sides. Fire was built beneath the tub to heat water. Surrounded by small wood building. Fire was fed from outside through open end of foundation.

Foundation of an oforu (Japanese bathhouse) from early 20th c Japanese settlement in Canada. Very cool site. No historical documents mention it. Very little arch visibility on surface. Excavations revealed evidence of about a 14 small houses, a garden, and a shrine. Sudden abandonment.

Arch project in 1980s, northern Canada

Tools of my trade. My personal trowels.