The Red Moss Skull - the hunt for a missing head
My rant about institutions that lose stuff they were entrusted to keep safe.
http://archaeocourses.weebly.com/the-red-moss-skull.html
http://archaeocourses.weebly.com/the-red-moss-skull.html
Must Farm, Cambridgeshire - a Bronze Age time capsule
Must Farm is revealing a complete snapshot of a point in time in the life of a Bronze Age settlement, down to food and footprints. This amazing archive has survived for three reasons. Firstly, the settlement burned down, totally and comprehensively (we hope everyone scarpered in time). Secondly, the remains collapsed into river clay which was them overlain by waterlogged fen. Thirdly, the site belongs to a brick-clay company whose cooperation has enabled the vast, deep, expensive dig to go ahead.
Quarry sites all over Britain, take note: we can all benefit from giving the past a little TLC.
Quarry sites all over Britain, take note: we can all benefit from giving the past a little TLC.
The Ness of Brodgar - new light on Neolithic Orkney
Excavations at the Ness of Brodgar are changing the understanding of the spread of farming across Europe, and the nature of society in the British Isles at that time. If you can't make it up to Orkney, or if you'd simply like to support a good cause, then the new ness of Brodgar Guidebook's the way forward. You can get it from the Trust's website http://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/
Egtved Girl - new DNA evidence for migration
New courses website, wealearning.weebly.com
From this academic year, September 2014, I'll be putting support material for my courses on a new website which you can get to at http://wealearning.weebly.com/
Anyone is welcome to visit and browse any of my sites, and I hope it encourages you to take part in learning activities of any type.
Anyone is welcome to visit and browse any of my sites, and I hope it encourages you to take part in learning activities of any type.
Palmyra, Syria
Very sad to think of threat to this amazing archaeological site from knowledge-fearing bigots. Good article from the BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32748392
40,000 year-old stone bracelet from Siberia
Analysis and dating of artefacts excavated from the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia show not only the extremely early date at which jewellery was being made, but also that the Denisovan people created beautiful and imaginative objects.
Denisovans like Neanderthalers previously have been assumed to have been primitive and not capable of higher order thinking or skills. But two things about this stone bracelet stand out. One is the technical competence of its production, drilled out of hard stone and polished, and then pierced to take an additional 'charm'. The other is the choice of stone used for it, which appears different in transmitted and reflected light. Clever, magical, wonderful. A very special person must have worn it.
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0100-stone-bracelet-is-oldest-ever-found-in-the-world/
Denisovans like Neanderthalers previously have been assumed to have been primitive and not capable of higher order thinking or skills. But two things about this stone bracelet stand out. One is the technical competence of its production, drilled out of hard stone and polished, and then pierced to take an additional 'charm'. The other is the choice of stone used for it, which appears different in transmitted and reflected light. Clever, magical, wonderful. A very special person must have worn it.
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0100-stone-bracelet-is-oldest-ever-found-in-the-world/
UK's genetic structure and understanding the past
Research from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics has been in the headlines this week (March 2015). In a nutshell, DNA sort of confirms some archaeological hypotheses, but fails to confirm others.
So DNA confirms that a huge population swathe of eastern and southern England inherits its DNA from Anglo-Saxon migrants - but, it's still only about 30% of their DNA make-up overall. Which suggests these Anglo-Saxon migrants were a minority who married in with the locals. And this opens up the fascinating question of how a minority managed to impose their language, successfully, on the majority.
So DNA confirms that a huge population swathe of eastern and southern England inherits its DNA from Anglo-Saxon migrants - but, it's still only about 30% of their DNA make-up overall. Which suggests these Anglo-Saxon migrants were a minority who married in with the locals. And this opens up the fascinating question of how a minority managed to impose their language, successfully, on the majority.
Looking closer at this study reveals interesting regional patterns. In the article and podcast, Professor Donnelly cites the noticeable difference between Devon and Cornwall. I'd add to that the noticeable difference between the Pennine / High Peak, and adjacent areas. I'm not falling for corny Lancashire vs Yorkshire stuff. What the DNA pattern seems to show is a territory that is centred on the distinctive Pennine and High Peak landscapes.
IMO this study is a brilliant new tool for understanding archaeology but it needs to extend to Eire and the Isle of Man before we can make secure conclusions about what the 'Celtic' DNA differences represent.
IMO this study is a brilliant new tool for understanding archaeology but it needs to extend to Eire and the Isle of Man before we can make secure conclusions about what the 'Celtic' DNA differences represent.
Free online courses - MOOCs
If you're reading this, then you can be doing a free interactive course at your own pace. More and more universities in the UK are offering these and they're a great way to learn at your own pace.
All you need is a computer, or laptop, or tablet, or smartphone - and access to the internet.
Futurelearn run a number of archaeology-themed courses, and Canvas Network have just announced an Egyptology course taught by Joyce Tyldesley, starting in April.
https://www.mooc-list.com/initiative/canvasnet
https://www.futurelearn.com/
All you need is a computer, or laptop, or tablet, or smartphone - and access to the internet.
Futurelearn run a number of archaeology-themed courses, and Canvas Network have just announced an Egyptology course taught by Joyce Tyldesley, starting in April.
https://www.mooc-list.com/initiative/canvasnet
https://www.futurelearn.com/
The Neolithic just got earlier
Marine archaeologists working in the Solent have identified 'Neolithic' features in an underwater site - which date 2000 years earlier than other Neolithic sites in Britain.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/the-remarkable-archaeological-underwater-discovery-that-could-open-up-a-new-chapter-in-the-study-of-european-and-british-prehistory-10073458.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/the-remarkable-archaeological-underwater-discovery-that-could-open-up-a-new-chapter-in-the-study-of-european-and-british-prehistory-10073458.html
A family tree of languages
Minna Sundberg, artist and illustrator created this beautiful explanation of the relationship between the Indo-European and Uralic languages. Click here for more
Minna's webcomics can be found here:
http://www.minnasundberg.fi/
Minna's webcomics can be found here:
http://www.minnasundberg.fi/
A voice from the past: Ancient Sumerian song reconstructed
....and it sounds eerily like some kind of radical free jazz. I can imagine this being sung in a cellar club in The Village in 1959. This is the epitome of dedication. Stef Conner's first degree was in music but her fascination became ancient Babylonian literature and poetry. Now, I know of one or two scholars who can read the cuneiform script. Less than a handful might stand up and speak it convincingly. What about singing it - with emotional inflection - convincingly, accompanied by a contemporary musical instrument?
Visit Stef's page on this project at http://www.stefconner.com/the-lyre-ensemble/
Visit Stef's page on this project at http://www.stefconner.com/the-lyre-ensemble/
In praise of museums and archaeology: Racton Man
It's easy to get grumpy with institutions like museums: "look at them, with all their...stuff....that we don't get to see. Why don't they do more?" Go on - look me in the eye and tell me you haven't thought that on at least one occasion.
The account of Racton Man's discovery, preservation and - here's the vital part - re-analysis a generation later - summarises why we need museums and how exemplary and totally unsung most of their work is, most of the time.
In brief, a chance find by a metal detectorist was excavated and archived in 1989 by a small museum and field archaeology team. The discovery was archived because no funds existed to do anythng else, and because all good investigators archive what they can't take further, in the hope that someone later on can make something of it.
The results of the re-analysis are intriguing: this is the earliest dated use of bronze on mainland Britain. Read the more about the find and its implications here. But I suggest that there's a bigger message: archives like this are awaiting analysis all over Britain, in museum and archaeology department stores. Think about the implications, and support your local museums.
Happy Christmas!
The account of Racton Man's discovery, preservation and - here's the vital part - re-analysis a generation later - summarises why we need museums and how exemplary and totally unsung most of their work is, most of the time.
In brief, a chance find by a metal detectorist was excavated and archived in 1989 by a small museum and field archaeology team. The discovery was archived because no funds existed to do anythng else, and because all good investigators archive what they can't take further, in the hope that someone later on can make something of it.
The results of the re-analysis are intriguing: this is the earliest dated use of bronze on mainland Britain. Read the more about the find and its implications here. But I suggest that there's a bigger message: archives like this are awaiting analysis all over Britain, in museum and archaeology department stores. Think about the implications, and support your local museums.
Happy Christmas!
Class of 2013 revisited: fossils and lots of fun
In January 2013 a quirk of fate led me to Manchester Museum, where a geology course had been set up but the tutor had to drop out. For ten weeks I was on the outer limits of my comfort zone - but what good fun and what fantastic students. And here's the class website I set up to go with it
The bare bones of archaeology
Bones don't lie: if like me you find bones intriguing rather than scarey, then you'll enjoy this site which provides lots of insight into the forensic analysis of excavated human remains
Journey Planner, Roman Style from Stanford University
If you've ever wanted to know just how fast or slow Roman travel was....
Ok, well it's something I often ponder, and something students ask about quite regularly. Fortunately an answer's now available, via Stanford University's Orbis Project. The researchers have taken all the variables into account: method of travel, time of year, and even cost. Choose your start point and destination, and you get both a route map and a cost break-down.
This is surely why the internet was invented....
Ok, well it's something I often ponder, and something students ask about quite regularly. Fortunately an answer's now available, via Stanford University's Orbis Project. The researchers have taken all the variables into account: method of travel, time of year, and even cost. Choose your start point and destination, and you get both a route map and a cost break-down.
This is surely why the internet was invented....
From Hair to Eternity?
Speechless about Syria
If you ever need convincing about the futility and wastefulness of war, read this article from the BBC's Diana Darke. One of the cradles of civilisation is being blasted to pieces as factions and government forces bombard each other from the ground and from the air. Heartbreak is piled on heartbreak - not just the terrible human tragedy but the loss for ever of human history.
Elizabeth: a beautiful life celebrated
Elizabeth died recently. She lived a full and exciting life before succumbing to dementia and dying at the age of sixty. No age, I'm sure you'll agree.
But here's the important part. Elizabeth wasn't supposed to live beyond three days after being born. Nowadays babies Like Elizabeth are described as having Down's Syndrome. In the 1954 when Elizabeth was born, the consultant gynaecologist in attendance told her mother to forget her, ignore her cries, definitely not to feed her or allow her to be fed, and she would 'fade quietly away' after three days. It would be for the best as she wouldn't ever recognise her own mother.
Elizabeth's mother knew grade one bullshit even if 1950s women were meant to be passive little wifies. She told the important man to get out, and loved her baby as mums do.
As time passed Elizabeth grew into a woman and her mother became frail, and Elizabeth's daily care and tending was taken over by her sister Pat who dedicated her life to her sister's wellbeing. Without smothering, without taking over, without babying, without demanding back. Although plenty was given back, and Elizabeth knew, loved, talked to and argued with her family just as everyone does and should.
Elizabeth went to college, sang (one one note, lustily), abseiled, potholed, played the accordion, had her own views, moved at her own pace and was confident that she was totally loved and totally welcome. She enjoyed her pint of Boddington's, loved her family, and never worried because she never needed to.
Elizabeth's life story is one we should listen to and learn from. Have hope. Love people, in a practical above a romantic way. Show the door to the 'experts' that advise nasty uncomfortable solutions.
Nothing else matters.
But here's the important part. Elizabeth wasn't supposed to live beyond three days after being born. Nowadays babies Like Elizabeth are described as having Down's Syndrome. In the 1954 when Elizabeth was born, the consultant gynaecologist in attendance told her mother to forget her, ignore her cries, definitely not to feed her or allow her to be fed, and she would 'fade quietly away' after three days. It would be for the best as she wouldn't ever recognise her own mother.
Elizabeth's mother knew grade one bullshit even if 1950s women were meant to be passive little wifies. She told the important man to get out, and loved her baby as mums do.
As time passed Elizabeth grew into a woman and her mother became frail, and Elizabeth's daily care and tending was taken over by her sister Pat who dedicated her life to her sister's wellbeing. Without smothering, without taking over, without babying, without demanding back. Although plenty was given back, and Elizabeth knew, loved, talked to and argued with her family just as everyone does and should.
Elizabeth went to college, sang (one one note, lustily), abseiled, potholed, played the accordion, had her own views, moved at her own pace and was confident that she was totally loved and totally welcome. She enjoyed her pint of Boddington's, loved her family, and never worried because she never needed to.
Elizabeth's life story is one we should listen to and learn from. Have hope. Love people, in a practical above a romantic way. Show the door to the 'experts' that advise nasty uncomfortable solutions.
Nothing else matters.
And did those feet.....?
The North Norfolk coast is much better known for its caravan parks and for pretty Farrow-and-Ball painted cottages than for breaking global academic records. So the discovery of the footprints of a human group dating to around 800,000 years ago are delightful in every respect, being the earliest evidence for humans outside Africa.
Spotting them was not really a random piece of luck, as the area is the focus of continuing research by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) group ( http://www.ahobproject.org)
Bafflingly, and for me disappointingly, even the Daily Mirror online provided more engaging coverage of the discovery than did the AHOB website. So if you want some flash-bang-wallop pictures and stuff, google '800,000 year old footprints in Norfolk', or just click here if you can't be bothered typing.
I think this discovery above all raises the game for digital recording of evidence. The footprints no longer exist but were captured in stills and video before tides washed them away.
Spotting them was not really a random piece of luck, as the area is the focus of continuing research by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) group ( http://www.ahobproject.org)
Bafflingly, and for me disappointingly, even the Daily Mirror online provided more engaging coverage of the discovery than did the AHOB website. So if you want some flash-bang-wallop pictures and stuff, google '800,000 year old footprints in Norfolk', or just click here if you can't be bothered typing.
I think this discovery above all raises the game for digital recording of evidence. The footprints no longer exist but were captured in stills and video before tides washed them away.
Well nobody expected that....
DNA analysis of two men buried in a cave at La Brana in northern Spain doesn't fit current theories about human development.
The leading theories so far suggest that people entering northern latitudes developed lighter skin and blue eyes some time not long after 40,000 years ago.
These blokes lived 7,000 years ago and had blue eyes, dark skin and browny-black hair.
Genetically they are closest to modern Scandinavians who are noted for blue eyes, light skin and blond hair.
When these men were alive, the first farmers were changing European lives for ever. As far as we know the new way of life reached the area of modern Catalunya, and central Europe, at around the time the La Brana men were buried. These men were carbohydrate and lactose intolerant, and lived on a diet of mainly protein, which suggests they weren't relying on carbohydrate-rich barley or wheat to pad out their diet. They were hunters, not farmers.
Their genetic link to modern Scandinavians might reflect on events as the new farming ideas spread. Archaeologists have argued for decades about whether the ideas were spread by contact, or by a new population supplanting the older hunter-gatherers. It may be that the La Brana finds illustrate the latter process, with the indigenous population being pushed to the margins of good farmland as the new guys moved in.
The discoveries also raise the very new notion that skin and hair colour variations may be a much later evolutionary development than previously thought.
Exciting times for understanding more about our fascinating human past! Read more here from the BBC, or from an anthropology website click here
The leading theories so far suggest that people entering northern latitudes developed lighter skin and blue eyes some time not long after 40,000 years ago.
These blokes lived 7,000 years ago and had blue eyes, dark skin and browny-black hair.
Genetically they are closest to modern Scandinavians who are noted for blue eyes, light skin and blond hair.
When these men were alive, the first farmers were changing European lives for ever. As far as we know the new way of life reached the area of modern Catalunya, and central Europe, at around the time the La Brana men were buried. These men were carbohydrate and lactose intolerant, and lived on a diet of mainly protein, which suggests they weren't relying on carbohydrate-rich barley or wheat to pad out their diet. They were hunters, not farmers.
Their genetic link to modern Scandinavians might reflect on events as the new farming ideas spread. Archaeologists have argued for decades about whether the ideas were spread by contact, or by a new population supplanting the older hunter-gatherers. It may be that the La Brana finds illustrate the latter process, with the indigenous population being pushed to the margins of good farmland as the new guys moved in.
The discoveries also raise the very new notion that skin and hair colour variations may be a much later evolutionary development than previously thought.
Exciting times for understanding more about our fascinating human past! Read more here from the BBC, or from an anthropology website click here