Antiquity Vol. 100 No. 410 (2026) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @antiquity.ac.uk @ecogeo.bsky.social @dl-arch.bsky.social @deborahpriss.bsky.social @alicekensa.bsky.social @yannisham.bsky.social
UK people, Sudanese students have set up a petition to Parliament for reinstating their educational visas.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...
Ministers are exploring triggering the break clause in Palantir's NHS contract. I've signed the open letter to Wes Streeting calling on him to get Palantir out of the NHS. www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/we...
The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.
🧵 1/5
Six graphs, each representing a different period (from Early Bronze Age 1 to Iron Age 2) depicting settlements as dots and hollow ways between them as lines, displaying how network density and connectivity changed over time.
Hollow ways are shallow linear depressions that stretch across Mesopotamia: traces of ancient route systems that facilitated trade and connections between settlements. Analysis of these networks shows how societies changed and adapted over time.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
Three weeks on. Still no response.
Thanks for the great thread about our newest research @antiquity.ac.uk!
Very proud of this third and last paper from my PhD thesis which emphasises how much we can learn by adapting interdisciplinary methods and framework for archaeological contexts.
🏺#Archaeology #Connectivity #Resilience
Map of the study are in Northern Mesopotamia, with major sites pinpointed and blue lines representing ancient route systems between them.
NEW How did ancient cities adapt to changes and overcome crises? By applying resilience theory to Northern Mesopotamian urban centres, researchers empirically analyse how settlement networks and connectivity changed over time.
A resilient #AntiquityThread 🧵 1/9
🏺 #Archaeology
I think I might take one of these "under 20 minutes" AI skills courses the UK Govt. seems very keen on everyone doing and live-post it here... Maybe we can all learn something together! The press release sends me to aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/ - let's go and see!
New paper out 🥳
In "#Urban #resilience in Ancient #Mesopotamia: insights into the socioeconomic system of the Bronze and Iron Age Khabur Valley", we are mapping network metrics of urban dynamics onto #Holling's adaptive cycle.
Full open-access paper here: doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Al is dehumanizing I've saved the most important part for last. GenAl is dehumanizing. By this, I mean that using genAl means saying that the people involved in what you're trying to do don't matter. I've already talked about part of this; building an entire commercial enterprise around comical levels of theft while racking up a body count is not a project that takes people's humanity seriously. It says that the people being harmed don't matter. If I were to use genAl to grade your work, which is now a possibility with new Canvas integrations, I would be saying that your work is not worth taking seriously enough to read myself. It's saying that you don't matter enough to take seriously. A world where genAl grades genAl generated submissions from a genAl generated assignment is not a world where people and the work they do matters, and I refuse to live in that world. The dehumanizing aspect of genAl is even worse when you consider the effects of genAl on you as a student. Using genAl as a substitute for doing the work yourself robs you of your voice. It prevents you from developing your own sense of who you are, what you believe, and how you express that in your own unique way and replaces it with statistically generated slop that is literally incapable of forming a novel thought. In a world that works to dehumanize us every day to say who we are and the relationships we form don't matter I don't want to add to that work. I don't want to do this because the relationships you form matter. Your voice matters.
Generative Al has a literal body count In the short time genAl platforms have been available, they have repeatedly encouraged people to harm themselves or others. This includes murder and suicide. In one case, ChatGPT told a user who killed his mother before killing himself that his mother may have been a demon, that he "wasn't crazy" to think she tried to poison him using the air vents of his car, and said that it ChatGPT-would meet the man in the afterlife. In another case, ChatGPT encouraged a man to commit suicide in part by rewriting the text of Goodnight Moon to what one news report called "a nihilistic philosophy that romanticized suicide and encouraged him to let go of his life." There are cases where genAl has not only encouraged suicidal ideation but told users to hide these thoughts from loved ones. These cases were not users who found some exploit or were pushing the edges of with new technology. They were normal people convinced by a computer program to do terrible things when using that program normally. These aren't the only cases. There have been enough deaths related to Al chatbots that there's a Wikipedia article. OpenAI's data suggests that hundreds of people in mental distress interact with ChatGPT weekly. This is not the behavior of a moral company. In 1982, seven people died in Chicago when someone tampered with Extra-Strength Tylenol, lacing pills with cyanide. Johnson & Johnson responded by voluntarily recalling all Extra-Strength Tylenol in Chicago, offering refunds to anyone who had purchased it, ceasing advertising, and taking out national ads advising consumers to not use Tylenol. Compare that to what companies like OpenAl have done in response to murders and suicides encouraged by their products. A platform that encourages murder and self-harm under normal conditions is not a platform I think belongs in my classroom. The fact that genAI companies aren't taking meaningful steps to address these outcomes only makes it worse.
I just updated my explainer for why I don't allow generative AI in my classrooms with a new section and an expanded section.
New: Generative AI has a literal body count
Expanded: Generative AI is dehumanizing
CETERUM AUTEM CENSEO INTELLIGENTIA ARTIFICIALIS ESSE DELENDAM
Duckduckgo has a survey for pro/anti-AI and I cackled so hard at the (current) results
https://voteyesornoai.com
'“Embedded precarity” in higher education is diminishing research quality as staff on short-term contracts favour “safer” work to secure future employment, according to the author of a new report.'
Royal Geographical Society maps important connections between precarity and research topics. 1/3
Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...
Dear Sir Paul, Re: Royal Society Code of Conduct I am sure that many scientists have written to you about the specific question of Elon Musk’s Fellowship and whether, under the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct, his retaining that Fellowship is appropriate. I will not rehash these issues. Instead, as a female scientist with extensive experience of activities aiming to increase equality, diversity and inclusion in the engineering and physical sciences sector, I am writing to you (in a personal capacity) to ask you to reconsider the statements you have recently made in this context to the UK press about the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct and how it is applied. A 2018 report from the joint National Academies of the United States of America, concluded that “sexual harassment is common in academic science, engineering, and medicine” and that “greater than 50 percent of women faculty and staff and 20–50 percent of women students encounter or experience sexually harassing conduct in academia”. This report described codes of conduct that make clear that sexual harassment is unethical and will not be tolerated as a “powerful incentive for change”. The authors also noted that sexual harassment can have significant and damaging effects on the integrity of research. In my own praxis, I have found that clear and consistently-implemented codes of conduct that address these issues make female scientists and engineers safer, and allow them to focus more effectively on their research. For codes of conduct to have such a positive effect, it is vital that sanctions for actions which transgress the code are meaningful and substantial.
I was hence aghast to realise that in an interview with the Financial Times published on 9/1/26, you appear to have suggested that the Royal Society “should only expel fellows if their science proved “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective””. Moreover, in a further interview with the Guardian on 11/1/26 you suggested that the code “may need to be looked at again”, with the implication that your aim would be to remove the option of sanctions on Fellows for reasons not strictly related to faults or defects in their research. I suggest that changing the Royal Society’s code of conduct so that the likelihood of serious sanctions for sexual harassment is reduced, would directly endanger women who interact with the Royal Society at events or otherwise, and would provide a licence to harass to the already powerful people on whom the Society bestows fellowship. The implications of your words - that under your leadership the only infringements of the code which are likely to receive the sanction of the Fellowship being removed are those related to research misconduct - already risk empowering harassers. You stated, in the Financial Times interview, that “there’s many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances”. Given this awareness of the possibility of bad actors in our scientific community, it is wholly irresponsible to suggest that the Royal Society would not act to sanction these people if they harass more vulnerable scientists. I am hence writing to request that you retract any suggestion that the Society’s Code of Conduct should be changed so that the only reason a Fellow might be sanctioned by the removal of their Fellowship is “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective” research. This action is necessary to safeguard female scientists, a requirement placed on the Society by safeguarding legislation and UK statutory guidance. Yours sincerely, Professor Rachel A. Oliver.
Following coverage over the weekend of Sir Paul Nurse's comments that suggested that the only reason that a Fellow should be expelled from @royalsociety.org is scientific misconduct, I have written to him to explain the risks such an attitude poses of increasing sexual harassment in STEM.
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
A blond haired woman stands in front of a lecture in front of a projector screen
@drlucyclarke.bsky.social kicking off the @bsg-geomorph.bsky.social Windsor Workshop for first year PGRs with the importance of having an online presence #PhDchat #AcademicSky #BSGWindsor2025 #BSGTNG
Another paper out from the I-CONN network. Well done Deborah
New paper out! 🥳
We use MCMC-MLE Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (MTERGMs) to assess which network patterns and social processes explain the formation of the ancient hollow ways.
Read the full open access paper here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#Archaeology #NetworkScience
@dl-arch.bsky.social @ecogeo.bsky.social
🏺
Delighted that our paper led by Deborah Priß "The social behind the physical" on connectivity of Bronze and Iron Age societies is now out in Journal of Archaeological Science. It's available Open Access at authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
@geogdurham.bsky.social
A composite image of vegetation change at the Sevilleta LTER site in New Mexico USA, illustrating how grass landscapes on the left of the image are progressively invaded by shrubs, leading to a shrub-dominated landscape on the right. Image by John Wainwright
Anyone interested in a PhD project modelling resilience of dryland ecosystems in a changing climate, led by @ecogeo.bsky.social and with @blindmath.bsky.social, Denis Patterson and Roy Sanderson, please apply to our
@iapetusdtp.bsky.social PhD position iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
University College London seeks candidates for a FUNDED Ph.D. in #geoarcheology and #archeobotany examining the antiquity of slash and burn agriculture in the northwest Amazon of Brazil
Deadline 17 December!
www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/how...
🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music:
#RileyAndCoe
- A tribute to Danny Thompson
Gideon Coe plays the music he loves from every era and genre. A tribute to Danny Thompson.
▶️ Relisten on BBCSounds
Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day?
Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚
RiscBal welcomed @geogdurham.bsky.social students last week with two field trips:
1. Exploring the Flash-Flood Early Warning System in the Balearic Islands at Ca n’Amer River catchment.
2. Learning about ecogeomorphic modelling in Mediterranean catchments at Sa Font de la Vila River catchment.
🌿 Excited to share FAIRTraits!
A data set with 189,452 records of 180 quantitative #traits from 240 Mediterranean plant species, fully FAIR-compliant & openly available 📊🌐
🔗🔓 doi.org/10.1002/ecy....
Started back in 2013 when I was a MSc student, now a huge team effort 💪
@esajournals.bsky.social
