What about the dirt of the East Wing? 10,000 years of history may now lie dumped on another Trump golf course. (free basic subscription) #anthropology/archaeology shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/a-peoples-...

There is nothing wrong with #Roman humour! 🏺

Britain's economy did not collapse after the #Romans left! Some of our most-read research from last year found an unbroken timeline of British metal production from the 5th century AD to the present day, questioning the idea of a post-Roman 'Dark Age'. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Trump's fails: a toilet water called "Empire" and the inability to build even a decent ruin. In this week's Substack (free!). #archaeology/anthropology #academic.sky shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/dancing-in...

Happy Earth Day! Last week's essay was in praise of the deep weirdness of life on Earth. Chill out, people, we're just a temporary anomaly here. shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/the-comfor...

Bye bye, archaeology funding. 🧪🏺😢

The East Wing of the White House still exists! Read my State of the Tiny Union Address to learn all about it. Free subscribers welcome. @ad-of-aaa.bsky.social @academicblue.bsky.social shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/a-teeny-ti...

The NY Times saves its harshest skepticism for progressives. Instead of being impressed by 3,000+ coordinated protests, NYT dismisses the value of “hitting a number” and asks if No Kings will be “a primal scream that fades into a whimper.” F off, NY Times. We'll defeat fascism w/o you. (Gift link)

The history of war tax resistance is as old as, well, war and taxes. Free subscribers welcome. shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/war-and-ta...

Out today is our paper 'Genomic history of early dogs in Europe', in which we uncover the identity of the dogs that lived in Europe before agriculture—during the Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... A thread ⬇️ (10) @biouea.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social

Good timing, going straight into my Ruins course this semester.

In 1901, divers found a 2,000-year-old Greek device that turned out to be the world’s first analog computer. Douglas Erwin’s essay explores what the Antikythera mechanism reveals about why some inventions transform the world—and others disappear. press.princeton.edu/ideas/novel-... #Biology

It's Lent. Which means I gave up plastic and discovered the ancient roots of plastic near the Strait of Hormuz. (Free to subscribers) shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/the-worldw...

Looking for something good to read? Check out Shannon Lee Dawdy's Substack, "Chronoscope," where she writes about contemporary life through the lens of archaeology. shannonleedawdy.substack.com

This film "is about how you lose your country... through countless small little acts of complicity.” THIS. Why I started to call my campus "Vichy Versailles". Academia conditions faculty to become so risk-averse they convince themselves that silence and inaction 'does no harm.' #academicsky

It's wild to me that higher ed leaders can tell themselves that institutional neutrality will get the job done and then you've got Hungarian ambassadors and Russian dissidents saying this is the way you aid authoritarianism

Sad to see the Ides of March becoming commercialised like this. I really feel like we're losing track of the true spirit of the holiday. It's not about how many knives you can stick in a tyrant all at once, it's about the whole community coming together to stab the tyrant as many times as possible.

My Ides of March fun fact is that the place where Caesar was stabbed is now a cat sanctuary, and I think it’s beautiful that creatures with tiny knives on their feet live there

From the SAPIENS.org archive! www.sapiens.org/archaeology/...

Always so lovely to hear that students are reading your work. Thank you @tatepaulette.bsky.social !

How would the dead diagnose us? (free subscribers welcome) shannonleedawdy.substack.com/p/diagnosing...

The 2026 Cultural Resources, Historic Preservation, and Heritage Career Fair is now pre-registering job seekers! The event is virtual, free, and nationwide on the Handshake Network on March 18th, 2026, from 12-5 EST. #CRM #HistoricPreservation #Heritage #jobs #Careerfair

A few hours before the U.S.-Israeli bombs started hitting Iran, I posted a new essay on why we have so few monuments to peace and why it is so hard to sustain peace movements. Let's fix that. With shout-out to @wingedisis.bsky.social and Monument Lab (link in bio, free subscribers welcome)

Looks like we're going to have to go back to that chaining-yourself-to-a-tree thing. But I guess we should try the comments section first morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/blm-announ...

Nice AI-image-generating tool, but it will never be as great an artist as Onfim, a child who lived in the Novgorod Republic in the mid-1200s and who scribbled these drawings and schoolwork writings on birch bark at the age of 6 or 7.

Buddo! My favorite ancient enby sculpture. www.livescience.com/55132-photos...

Snowflakes all the way down...

The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?

Next week, March 3rd at 2:00 pm EST, the Museum of Jewish Heritage hosts a free, virtual event with Amanda Rubin on The Third Reich of Dreams, Charlotte Beradt's archive of the dreams of Berliners living under the Nazi regime, now republished in a haunting new translation. Register: buff.ly/J9dhRlk

More dystopia for your feed

The nature of the archaeological record varies according to gravity: looking at orbital 'stratigraphy' as a dynamical system. 🧪 🏺 #SpaceArchaeology

Do Aliens Eat Pickles? open.substack.com/pub/shannonl... And what does this have to do with archive of human knowledge in the Arctic? (free subscribers appreciated).

Saw this IRL at the Laténium a couple of days ago, absolutely stunning.

This 53 year old man who lived in my neighborhood w/no criminal record & who had been in the US for 30 years, was detained and thrown into a cold cell for days, caught pneumonia and COVID there and deported. He finally died. I am so angry. www.kptv.com/2026/02/21/n...

Make sure to get your applications in for our fieldwork scholarships and project grants by Monday, February 23! Grants and scholarships are eligible for work only on ASOR-affiliated projects. Find out more here: www.asor.org/fellowships/

Last winter and spring, I took a journey deep into an imagined future with artist @auntiemojo.bsky.social and an amazing group of students at Johns Hopkins University. Here's a glimpse of the future river culture we conjured together at the Peale Museum in Baltimore. www.aam-us.org/2026/02/17/s...

The Florida Reich has just made feminism and critical race studies hot as hell. Nothing feeds a rebellion like telling a bunch of teenagers what they can't do.

DOCTOR Rümeysa Öztürk has earned her PhD!!

Man, I love ancient footprints. 👣🏺🧪

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

In honor of Lunar New Year, one of my all-time favorite maps: How dumplings spread around the world (tl;dr: It was largely, though not exclusively, the Mongol invasions!)

They want to scare people out of posting ICE-critical content, because they know these posts are turning even their supporters against them. But the better option is to take a page out of their playbook and flood the zone.

How do we rehabilitate utopian thinking and plant positive seeds for future generations? Please join us at the first virtual salon of The Future Cafe on Feb 26 @ 8:00 pm EST. Registration below. uchicago.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

When all the female grad students tell you a candidate seems arrogant & smarmy & they don’t like him, but it’s all vibes, maybe hire one of the other candidates who are just as amazing researchers, but don’t give off bad vibes. Cuz in my experience those vibes have proven right 100% of the time.

A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts

New short essay on the history of peace movements and symbols (an archaeology of our times). Free subscribers welcome. #anthropology/archaeology @academicblue.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/shannonl...

Joan Scott on why the attack on gender studies by powerful patriarchal men is not a coincidence, but an attempt to silence critique and analysis of their abusive behavior. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🧪🏺 Update - authors have new paper showing how useless gen- #AI is for archaeological illustration. All 400 images were multiply inaccurate (physically, socially, technologically, environmentally), even with improved prompts. JUST USE HUMAN EXPERTS & ARTISTS www.cambridge.org/core/journal...