I can often access a bit of money to help with fieldwork or expenses if it is aligned with a research project. If they are keen, I have loads of contacts to hook them up.
We also get a lot of stick from museums and units that want students to study their stuff. I know! That'd be great! Nope.
The topics they pick are often incredibly random, sometimes on the very edges of our expertise. We do our best.
I don't get it!
Each year we offer a list of dissertation projects (both undergrad and postgrad) tied to active research that we'd like to supervise & these are almost never taken up. I try to communicate to students that integrating into an existing research project often leads to better opportunities, but alas.
I’ll never forget watching The Wicker Man with my outer Hebridean mum. “I just don’t know where there got all that wicker from”
I'm also running a workshop the next day at the Festival of History & Heritage in Gaming on using the Worldbuilding Game.
See you in Brizzle. :)
Looking forward to delivering the keynote at the University of Bristol Department of Anthropology and Archaeology Postgraduate Researcher Symposium next week!
My talk is titled: "Archaeology and Emancipatory Unmaking"
www.bristol.ac.uk/archanth/new...
Love a good zine
Join us for our last Digital Lunch of the Spring semester, 24 April, 1pm BST:
Dr Loes Opgenhaffen
"The automated archaeologist. An app to record archaeological visualization practice"
To get the zoom link, sign up below:
forms.gle/4BsKkUiVLHKJ...
First lecture of the Bronze Age SE Arabia series tomorrow on landscapes and foodways. I also have a lecture/workshop in the Archaeology & AI module, where the students will play “and what remains” the world building card game before examining better ways to craft metadata.
As one does.
Take the mattock, I’ll sieve
Yes you deserve first author
Our Land cinema poster
Our Land
Screening on Tue 9th June, Verdant Taproom, Penryn.
OUR LAND takes us to the heart of the ‘Right to Roam’ movement as it embarks on a provocative trail of mass trespass, campaigning and education
www.tickettailor.com/events/verda...
Antifascism needs all of us. We need people on the streets, we need people doing education, we need people doing care and support, we need people having difficult conversations.
There is something that we can all be doing, no matter who you are. 🏴🚩
11 Months ago I lead on an Open Letter to various archaeological organisations demanding resolute support for trans people in the face of the Supreme Court ruling and EHRC guidance. Over 700 archaeologists signed it.
I've now made it easier to cite in academic work 👇
zenodo.org/records/1962...
Ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
There comes a time, 'tween life and death
When all men stop to catch their breath
We ask the stars 'Why?' we question our lot
The heavens open wide, and reply, 'Why not?'
Heavy strike years, iirc
New piece out in @theconversation.com with @apolitopoulos.bsky.social and @docrandom.bsky.social on those early Native American dice everyone’s talking about:
theconversation.com/archaeologis...
(I don’t just want “mum games”, I want mum games written by mums- or at least not cis men)
My personal Baader–Meinhof phenomenon tells me that archaeology is basically run on autism
Nobody: so about getting that AuDHD diagnosis....
Me: Ahh I'm on to a new thing!
ref whispers into my ear: but you haven't finished writing about the old thing
Me: NO MATTER
🫥
A celadon Longquan dish rom China dating from 1300 - 1400 as a comparator to fragments found in the UAE. In the Zayed National Museum.
At least in the top 5 for prettiest pottery ever 🏺
The paper is now officially out in the #chi2026 proceedings!
You can download the dataset, as well as the autoethnographic memos, as Supplementary Material
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
A massive dune in Sossusvlei, in the greater Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia. There are small trees at the bottom being engulfed. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune#/media/File:D%C3%BCne_S-Schlag_Sossusvlei.JPG
Thinking about huge, ancient, slow-moving dunes this morning, while I put together a lecture on environment and climate.
I’d have some of these again. Dang.
A selection of archaeological tools and text discussing excavation with the tools. There are various implements including brushes, trowels, a bucket, sieve, measuring tape, and the like. From Roaf’s Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, 1990 🏺
Aesthetic 💅
Unsolicited life advice: marry someone who can make great maps.