Fun fact about us for #InternationalWomensDay - our 1st graduating students were women - Margaret Crichton Mitchell (later Stewart), 1st ever class🥇in #Archaeology MA 1930, PhD 1934 (Childe's only PhD student) & Barbara Laidler our 1st ever BSc Archaeology (c. 1930s)! @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 🏺

Honoured to be in such amazing company for #InternationalWomensDay👩🏻‍🔬 check out everyone’s research highlights 👇 mine features some exciting findings from #ArchaeoFINS including early nuns on Iona!

Dr Sam Leggett @samleggs22.bsky.social featured here as one of the many inspirational women in research funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk #InternationalWomensDay @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

You asked for more mixed-up Goths, you got 'em! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Using multi-isotope analysis @samleggs22.bsky.social’s Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social focused on the role of food and diet and its link to mobility in early medieval Britain and Ireland. media.leverhulme.ac.uk/feature/sleg... #InternationalWomensDay

Dr Gardner’s research is featured in Archaeology Scotland Magazine (Winter 25/26)! It discusses how archaeology can be used to understand our historic & continued reliance on fossil fuels using the example of the oil industry in West Lothian 1851-1962. Check it out! https://tinyurl.com/mrvp3dcd 🛢️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

TOMORROW's ArchSoc/Archaeology Research Seminar 🕰️ 16:15📍Meadows LT "Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh University until about 1990" by Prof Ian Ralston @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social ahead of our 💯 🎂 year as a department! #EdinArch #archaeology #Edinburgh #prehistory

I wrote a thing with Mark Hall on the wonderful late medieval chandelier in St John’s, Perth. Many simply do not know that Scotland has such ecclesiastical treasures and it’s more important than ever that we celebrate them at this time of mass church closures.

Did people always pay their eel-rents? Hell no! In 1250 the abbot of Tupeholm sued the nuns Stykeswald. The nuns owed the abbot a yearly rent of 6 sticks of eels, but hadn't paid for 3 years! That's 450 eels, folks. Scandalous! The nuns agreed to pay a fine, and life went on. 🗃️🧪

Fascinating “whole town” approach to medieval Cambridge with amazing isotopes by @alicekensa.bsky.social! Charting diet & social status from the 10th-16th century! 🧪⚛️🏰 #MedievalSky

The RIA's Archaeology Research Grants and Radiocarbon dates schemes are open to applications from now until 25 March. Archaeologists and archaeology students (undergrad, postgrad, PhD) who wants to carry out research based in Ireland (including NI) can apply: www.ria.ie/2026/02/12/w...

For anyone who's interested @waterstones.bsky.social is running a special pre-order offer (no pun intended) on my new book about King Offa of Mercia, valid from Friday 20 Feb. eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

New study maps where wheat, barley and rye grew before the first farmers found them. #Archaeology phys.org/news/2026-02...

Medievalist friends! Applications are open until end of Feb for a fully-funded PhD in Arthurian Literature with the brilliant Louise D'Arcens @medievalafterlives.bsky.social and myself, based between Sydney (Australia) and Groningen (The Netherlands). Please share widely! tinyurl.com/f7su6urv

Great new study on early medieval foodways, specifically a lack of fish in cooking pots! Glad it's not just our #ArchaeoFINS pots that lack 🐟! Implication with the human isotopes is that the Vikings adapted to local cuisine & left their fishy ways behind! doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

In the early medieval period, colorful glass beads were a mark of prestige and fashion. This striking necklace, comprising over 60 beads in vibrant reds, blues, yellows, and intricate patterns, was discovered in the burial of a woman at Bissingen, southwest Germany, dating 7th century. 🧵1/2 🏺

Congratulations to our former MSc student Luisa and my amazing colleagues Sophie and @drbutty.bsky.social on a very cool CT method paper with some interesting implications about osteoporosis in medieval Scotland #MedievalSky #edinarch

Aus arch! there are two continuing, full time archaeology-adjacent professional staff jobs open at ANU! These are a collections coordinator for CASS and a lab coordinator primarily for my school jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/collect... jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/laborat...

‼️Published @royalsociety.org Open Science‼️ "From rugged isles to managed pastures: morphological changes in Soay sheep (Ovis aries) metacarpal bones following anthropogenic translocation" @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 🐑🐏 doi.org/10.1098/rsos... @soaysheep.bsky.social

Awesome work from one of our PhD students Vera! Check out this mega isotope dataset! 🧪 ⚛️ 🦷🦴

🇫🇷 Thursday’s Research Seminar 12/2/26 @16:15 in the Meadows LT will be given by Dr Florian Cousseau (Durham) “Central #Brittany in the Middle #Neolithic: A Landscape Far from Empty” 🔗https://hca.ed.ac.uk/news-events/events/research-seminars/archaeology-seminars @hcaatedinburgh #edinarch #archaeology

☠️ The next Munro Lecture 12/03/26 is by Professor Sabrina C. Agarwal @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social 'Necropolitics in the collection: From colonial legacy to antiracist futures' FREE but booking is essential 🔗 http://hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-events/events/munro-lecture-necropolitics-in-the-collection

🦴 This week's ArchSoc/One Health Archaeology Research Group seminar will be by Simon Mays (Historic England) 'Osteoporosis past and present: Age-related deterioration in the nano-platelets of bone hydroxyapatite'. 🕰️📍 Thurs 5th February, Meadows LT, 16:15pm - all welcome! @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

Between 2018-21 we awarded Duncan Wright of @newcastleuni.bsky.social 3 grants totalling less than 5k, to explore Laughton en le Morthen castle. This led to an AHRC grant to investigate the transition of power btwn Saxons & Normans. This is what they found: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2026/02...

Early Medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100. The evidence from Archaeological excavations Only €9.99 as an ebook from @ria.ie shop.ria.ie/products/ear...

This absolute behemoth of a book landed on my doorstep this week, excited to dive into it - but it’s so huge it might take me a good long while! But I spy lots of C14, isotopes & aDNA! ⚛️🧬The much awaited tome on Llanbedrgoch! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 ⚔️ #medievalsky #archaeology @oxbowbooks.bsky.social

If you’re in/around London next week & want to hear me speak about lots of fun early medieval isotopes + aDNA come along on Tuesday! ⚛️🧬☠️

☠️ This week’s OHA/ArchSoc research seminar is by Dr Jess Thompson (National Museums Scotland) “Curating Scotland’s Archaeological Human Remains: Past, Present & Future” 22/01 @ 16:15 in the Meadows LT 📷 Credit: Neil Hanna https://hca.ed.ac.uk/news-events/events/research-seminars/archaeology-seminars

🦷 “analysis of tooth enamel samples collected from the remains of people buried in England b/w the end of Roman rule in Britain around A.D. 400 & the arrival of the Normans around 1100 indicates that migration to the island was continuous throughout the period” 🦷 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

☠️ Our seminar 15/01 @ 4:15pm is by Prof @ancientchildren.bsky.social "Forgotten Children: The fetal and infant skeletal remains from the W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum, New Zealand" @universityofotago.bsky.social NB: this seminar is online only. #edinarch #archaeology #osteology  📷 EDITH LEIGH

The Young Investigator Travel Award provides support for young researchers (postdoctoral researchers and graduate students) to attend SMBE2026. 📨 Award applications smbe2026.org/abstracts #SMBE2026

Calling all medieval scholars - uncover the gendered, continuous migration that shaped early England! ⚔️🧬 This #OpenAccess study presents the results of a large-scale isotopic meta-analysis of early medieval England which reveals migration patterns from c. AD 400–1100 👇

🏺 ‘The cathedral says findings on the likely identities of those interred are expected later in 2026, while the wider project is planned to reach its conclusion by 2027.’ Well…fancy that.

A new study by @samleggs22.bsky.social, @shakenbeck.bsky.social & Tamsin O'Connell 'Large-Scale Isotopic Data Reveal Gendered Migration into Early Medieval England c ad 400–1100' arch.cam.ac.uk/news/roots-of-medieval-migration-into-england-uncovered-in-new-study

Really excited that our *new paper* is finally out 🔥 This study is the first to quantitatively investigate museum visitors’ perceptions of historical analogies that compare concepts from the deep past to modern political ideas. doi.org/10.1057/s415...

More on the stunning Iron Age carnyx found in #Norfolk with boar standard and shield bosses 👇👇👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Found by PreConstruct Archaeology and featuring in episode 2 of the new series of #DiggingForBritain with @profaliceroberts.bsky.social on BBC2 Wowzers 🤩

Good to wake up to a news headline that has the words #IronAge #WarTrumpet and #Boudicca in it www.theguardian.com/science/2026... PreConstruct Archaeology reveals a complete carnyx plus other martial objects from #Norfolk Wow 😲 We need a lie down @theguardian.com @theduncanmackay.bsky.social

Early Medieval England Saw Continuous Migration, Study Finds www.medievalists.net/2026/01/earl... - research by @samleggs22.bsky.social @shakenbeck.bsky.social and Tamsin C O’Connell #medieval #England #history

So far in 1066: • Edward the Confessor has died. • Harold Godwineson has been named king instead of Edgar Ætheling. • Edward has been buried. • Harold has been crowned. It's still only 6 January.

Are you a Post-Graduate Researchers, Early Career Researchers or someone starting out in a field involving the past? Join us on 16 Jan for a free event to consider how the Society could contribute to early career support! www.sal.org.uk/event/early-...

It's been a pleasure being on the great organising team at York and Northumbria for next year's NEHN meeting - a collaborative worksop on the many histories of 'unwanted life'. Do see the CFP below, and send in a submission if it appeals!

📣 Published Open Access! 📣 "Large-Scale Isotopic Data Reveal Gendered Migration into Early Medieval England c AD 400-100" 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2025.2583016 by @samleggs22.bsky.social @shakenbeck.bsky.social & O'Connell @cam-archaeology.bsky.social 🧬⚛️🧪🦷 #EdinArch #archaeology #medieval

Not an easy task for sure to study the real impact of #openscience but difficult to find cons except for the insane APCs. So let's make free open science with @peercommunityin.bsky.social and @peercomjournal.bsky.social OPEN SCIENCE IS JUST GOOD SCIENCE www.science.org/content/arti...

𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲-𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰 𝗔𝗗 𝟰𝟬𝟬-𝟭𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘈𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 This study presents the results of a large-scale isotopic meta-analysis of early medieval England which reveals migration patterns from c AD 400–1100. doi.org/10.1080/0076...

🌟New Year exciting new OA paper🌟 doi.org/10.1080/0076... from myself @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social, @shakenbeck.bsky.social & TC O'Connell @cam-archaeology.bsky.social "Large-Scale Isotopic Data Reveal Gendered Migration into Early Medieval England c ad 400–1100" using #isotopes & #aDNA🧵⬇️ 1/

Nice use of stable isotopes to explore past human mobility. Rather than the old myths of mass migrations of 'Anglo Saxons' into Britain, such scientific studies provide valuable data. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Stupendous stuff from @samleggs22.bsky.social - meta analysis of human strontium and oxygen stable isotope data from southern Britain in 2nd half of 1st Millennium AD. Too rich to summarise but if your are into complex early medieval mobility, this one’s for you. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

🌟New OA Publication🌟 doi.org/10.1086/738364 🧪🏰 "Biomolecular Archaeology and Medieval Studies: A Graphic Article" in @medievalacademy.bsky.social w @janetekay.bsky.social & an awesome team of ECR #WomeninSTEM 🧵⬇️ @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social @edinburgharchaeo.bsky.social @cmrsedinburgh.bsky.social