The Bones That Looked Like Pheasants A new molecular technique is untangling one of East Asian zooarchaeology’s most stubborn identification problems — and it started with a drawer full of fragments from ancient Korea.

Chicken vs. pheasant — the bones look nearly identical. ZooMS molecular analysis just confirmed domestic chickens were raised on the Korean Peninsula 2,000 years ago, filling a key gap in East Asian dispersal history. #Zooarchaeology #AncientDNA #KoreanArchaeology

In February, French archaeologists announced they'd found 13 very unusual burials: all male, all buried sitting up. Seated burials are incredibly rare. Who were these men and why were they buried seated? Read more: commingledremains.substack.com/p/seated-bur... #archaeology #burials #bones

Cream-colored garment with embroidered black and blue stylized flying bats arranged in right-left symmetry from the base of the collar to the hem. Mounted on display at museum exhibit. Photographed in 2019 at The Life of Animals in Japanese Art exhibition at the National Gallery of Art DC. “In the West, bats - nocturnal in habit and denizens of dark places tend to be viewed as unlucky, but in China they have long been considered an auspicious motif (one of the characters used to write the word "bat" is a homonym for good fortune). The Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjüro VII (1791-1859) used bat motifs in his costumes, and the perception of these animals as a chic design element spread rapidly throughout Japan in the nineteenth century. Here a great number of them are arranged in right-left symmetry from the base of the collar to the hem.” The above info is from the official exhibition catalog - the bat kosode is on p.124!

closeup of the bats on collar

closeup of the bats on hem

It’s #BatAppreciationDay 🦇 on a #FabricFriday so please appreciate this awesome 19th c. Japanese kosode decorated with embroidered lucky #bats:
KOSODE WITH BATS
Edo - Meiji, 19th century
silk twill, paste-resist dyed, embroidery; 67⅜ × 48⅞ in
National Museum of Japanese History / NGA DC
#JapaneseArt

A Small Group in a Polish Cave, and the Neanderthal Lineage That Once Spanned Europe New mitochondrial genomes from Stajnia Cave place at least seven Homo neanderthalensis individuals in MIS 5 and connect them to a maternal lineage once distributed from Poland to the Caucasus.

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-gr...

The Neanderthal Infant Whose Bones Were Already Older Than Its Teeth A nearly complete skeleton from northern Israel suggests that Neanderthal babies followed a fundamentally different developmental strategy from modern humans.

A Neanderthal infant’s bones and teeth don’t agree on its age. The gap between them reveals something fundamental about how Neanderthals developed. New research in Current Biology. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution www.anthropology.net/p/the-neande...

The ICAZ Worked Bone Research Groups April Bone Tool of the Month - two Aztec Bone Awls of white-tailed deer. See the link to find out more!
#ICAZ #Zooarch #WorkedBone
www.wbrg.net/bonetool-of-...

I haven’t posted an animal bone photo in ages - my cats have become my posting life 🤣

But here’s a partial dog baculum from an Early Medieval site in Ireland.

#zooarchaeology #dog #bones #archaeology 🏺

Absolutely here for zooarchaeology and the baculum!

I'm not sure that anyone sees my posts. Say hi if you do

The 15th ICAZ International Conference will be held next year in Vancouver. Call for Sessions closes 31st of May 2026. For more details check out our website sway.cloud.microsoft/BFTVh4FAbfX6... or email icaz2027vancouver@gmail.com.
#ICAZ #zooarch #Vancouver2027

The Building That Shouldn’t Be There A 6,000-year-old mega-structure in northeastern Romania is forcing a rethink of how Cucuteni-Trypillia communities governed themselves — and when.

A 6,000-year-old mega-structure in Romania was built to be seen — positioned at the settlement entrance, nearly 4x larger than neighboring houses. But what was it? Excavations offer more questions than answers. #Cucuteni #Archaeology #EuropeanPrehistory www.anthropology.net/p/the-buildi...

Can we recover from brain rot, screen addiction and lack of focus? Or is it too late to rediscover our analogue selves?
commingledremains.substack.com/p/too-many-b... #productivity #academicwriting

#TombTuesday
Neolithic Dolmen at Le Pouget (Hérault, #France). Only part of this structure is properly ‘megalithic’. Actually, the walls are mainly made using dry-stone masonry.

📷 © Maurice Von Mosel 2015

#Archaeology

A black and white painting of the megalithic monument known as Wayland's Smithy, with large stones gathered around a dark doorway and trees behind.

This is my watercolour of Wayland's Smithy, a Neolithic long barrow in Oxfordshire. Legend tells that if you leave your horse there with a coin then the mythical blacksmith Wayland will magically reshoe it.
The original artwork is now available on my Etsy shop here: shorturl.at/jof38
#TombTuesday

‘Sitting’ skeletons buried in a French playground, why we might have age-at-death wrong, sex determination from long bones, #archaeology news: The Ossuary, March edition. Link: open.substack.com/pub/commingl...

Fully Funded Osteology PhD Sweden | Lund University | HigherJobz Apply for the fully funded PhD in Osteology at Lund University, Lund, Sweden. Open to archaeology and bioarchaeology graduates.

🦴 PhD in Historical Osteology – Lund University, Sweden
🔬 Research hunter-gatherer demography using isotope analysis & zooarchaeology in ERC FORAGER
🎓 Eligibility: Master’s in Archaeology/Bioarchaeology
📅 Deadline: 01 May 2026
🔗 higherjobz.com/fully-funded...
#PhDJobs #Archaeology

We Did Not Evolve Alone: The Full Story YouTube video by New Scientist

THREE HOURS of human evolution goodness! We Did Not Evolve Alone: The Full Story @newscientist.com

www.youtube.com/live/i0aFSv0...

Pectoral cross with original silver suspension chain. Obscured by the chain and slightly mangled at the base of the cross is the inlay detail of a haloed figure representing St Matthew

The winged Lion representing St Mark

Eagle relief detail representing St John... I swear it's a parrot 😉

Winged ox representing St Luke

#FindsFriday
The pectoral cross from the #Viking #Galloway #Hoard found in 2014 and dated to AD900. This Christian cross is possibly #Pictish. It is silver with inlaid gold in the #Cornish Trewhiddle style. The animals represent 3 of the 4 Evangelists.
📸 mine

Fully Funded PhD in Zooarchaeology – Leiden University | HigherJobz Apply for a fully funded PhD in Zooarchaeology at Leiden University, Netherlands. International scholars are eligible. Deadline: 3 May 2026.

🦴 Fully Funded PhD in Zooarchaeology – Leiden University, Netherlands
🔬 Research human-wildlife interactions using zooarchaeology, stable isotope & proteomics analyses.
🎓 Eligibility: Master’s
📅 Deadline: 3 May 2026
🔗 higherjobz.com/fully-funded...

#PhDJobs #Zooarchaeology @unileiden.bsky.social

If I see your profile and it's all politics and activism, I won't follow you. I'm not here for that.

I revisit one of Digging for Britain's most tragic and remarkable archaeological excavations: the mass grave at Thornton Abbey caused by the Black Death. open.substack.com/pub/commingl... #archaeology #BlackDeath #massgrave #humanosteology

I am SO EXCITED to announce that CENIEH in Burgos, Spain will be hosting the third installment of the IZAZ (Integrating ZooMS and Zooarchaeology) Workshop on the 15th – 16th September 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Join the mailing list to stay up-to-date: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Unusual burials of Celtic 'warriors' discovered in France point to violent deaths Archaeologists have unearthed a Celtic cemetery in France that holds 18 unusual seated burials.

Unusual burials of Celtic 'warriors' discovered in France point to violent deaths @killgrove.bsky.social www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Article image

Dressed for the afterlife: What 7,000-year-old grave soil reveals about Stone Age clothing: Finnish and Swedish researchers have utilized microarchaeology to analyze soil from 35 graves at the Skateholm I and II cemeteries in southern Sweden, revealing details about S… https://ranked.news/353196?u=b

UGH. The archaeology feed is full of smut art, people drawing medieval things and random posts that NOTHING to do with archaeology. Honestly, Threads does better than this.

Registration for the 46th Conference of the AEA, held at @unilancashire.bsky.social is still open.

Don't forget to book your tickets 🤠

#AEA #archaeology #environmentalarchaeology #zooarchaeology #palynolgy #archaeobotany #landscapearchaeology

onlinestore.lancashire.ac.uk/conferences-...

Have we been wrong about age at death? This new paper suggests archaeologists might have to rethink how archaeologists determine age at death on skeletons:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Exploring Cladh Hallan with Professor Mike Parker Pearson We’re staying in the Western Isles for Friday's UHI Archaeology Institute research seminar, which will see Professor Mike Parker Pearson explore Life and Death in the Bronze Age: mummies, metalworking...

Feed: "Archaeology Orkney"
By: Sigurd Towrie on Thursday, March 19, 2026

Posting on Bluesky, I pretty much get…

— 0 likes

— 0 comments

— 0 reposts

— 0 algorithm ❤️

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But I’m doing it anyway.

Thank you! That's really useful