I've been contemplating leaving archaeology in a very serious way. 26 years in and I'm all out of fight. Fight I shouldn't ever have needed. I can't encourage anyone into our discipline in good conscience. It's a snake pit. Maybe there's improvements. Hard won. But still. I'm broken.

Life is pretty challenging right now 😓 My daughter took this pic of a little friend that comes visit us around 7pm each evening. I hope it makes you smile as much as it did us. ❤️🦔❤️🦔❤️🦔❤️🦔❤️🦔❤️🦔

Took these quick pics today to help someone out with an ID, so if you've ever wondered what the quadrate bone of the allis shad (Alosa alosa) looks like, wonder no more! ❤️🐟🦴

I made a cake for my daughter's birthday tomorrow 🎂🌻 Well, a tiny cake and 7 buns technically, I guess! 11 years old, gifted with SATs exams all week! 😅

😍🦴💮 On first glance, I thought this was intricately decorated bone, but the surface pattern is almost certainly caused by fungal growth! 🍄‍🟫🍄 So beautiful! ❤️🦴

A level archaeology no longer exists 😢 But I had so much fun and this 2-year course gave me an amazing head start for my degrees in archaeology, which focussed on plants and animals ❤️

Oh a bird skull! 🤩🐦💀 Nope, nope, wait. It's gum. 😂

Petrosal bones of domestic cattle (left) and equid (right, probably domestic horse). As well as being species diagnostic, they are also a good element to note because of their dense bone structure that preserves genetic material well 🐄🐎🦴🧬

Well hi there wee fella 🙂🦴 I'm glad one of us is smiling.

I've been told for 30+yrs that I'm "too soft" I need to "toughen up" 🙄 I don't need to "grow thicker skin". People need to stop being bullies. Stop gate keeping. Stop abusing their positions. I'm done changing so that ppl can continue to think their shit behaviour is ok.

❤️🐟 @nhm-london.bsky.social Natural History Museum Tring

Yup, I feel like that too, sheep/goat maxillary M3 tooth roots. I feel ya 🐑🐐🦷🥴

Unexpected iridescence 🌈

🌳🪵🔥🔬 Beautiful example of oak (Quercus) wood charcoal (x40 magnification). Rocking the ring-porous. You can compare with English oak wood (Quercus robur) here: www.wood-database.com/wp-content/u... and with English oak charcoal here: www.wsl.ch/land/product...

Because no one owns the copyright on archaeological objects!

Sometimes it's sacral 💕🦴🐐🐑

Right occipital condyle of a horse of course! 💀🐎🦴 (well, equid, but that doesn't rhyme. It's most likely a horse, but donkey or mule can't be ruled out!) The only Equid bone for this context! www.archaeology.biz

Baaaaaaayybeeeee pig, du doo, du do du doo 😂🦴🐖👶 Humerus of a young pig. Archaeological example on the left, recent reference specimen on the right ❤🦴

I share my office with a #sherdnerd My favourite thing is his reference collection. Wee snips of pot, 100s, nay 1000s of them, sorted by ware type & location! This is only part of his reference collection just for Roman period York 🤩😱 I'm just jealous. His collection smells way better than mine 😆🦴

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

"Hello! I'm at #AstonOnClun this morning for @shropshirewildlife.bsky.social ... and everything on the table is dead! No idea how that happened; don't tell my boss!"

Friends! Please take your seats! The turkey is ready 🦃❤️🦴🍽😅

Once widespread, now critically endangered: New study shows kākāpō are the 4th most common bird in NZ's late-Quaternary deposits (>1351 individuals from 274 sites), and occupied all forests and adjacent habitats, on the NZ mainland prior to human settlement authors.elsevier.com/c/1klUo-4PSD...

Left dentary of a bluefish and a right premaxilla of an angler/monkfish ❤️🦴🐟

I demand teeth of the finest walrus ivory! Past folks of Whitby - You got it! ❤️🦷🤩 #Whitby #WhitbyMuseum #Walrus #CoolTeefs

When you have to stop the car to let the wildlife off! 😅❤️🦎 We jumped so hard when it appeared on the car window screen!

Even holidays have bones 😅🐋🦴 The famous blue whale jaw bones in Whitby, North Yorkshire. A reminder of industries past. Framing St Mary's church and the abbey ruins in the distance 🩷☀️🩵

🐈🐈‍⬛🦴🐁🐀 Nice to see the mice getting thier own back! Rodent grawing on a cat humerus ❤️🦴 #Zooarch #archaeology

🪿🦴❤️ Sometimes, it's just the beak of a goose ❤️🦴🪿

🔬🌿 wee little lanterns 🏮 Might have had to squish one to check initial ID thoughts - def struggling with imposter syndrome and lack of confidence 😅 squish check = ✔️ Calluna vulgaris common heather (fruits) ❤️

When tiny charcoal person waves hello 😊👋 That's probably time to stop doing microscope work for the day 😅🔬🪵🔥 #archaeology Www.archaeology.biz #charcoal #samples

So sad the archaeological ones don't retain the blue! 🦴🐟🩵 These are vertebrae of the garfish, Belone belone. It's a tasty fish 😋 I drew one 🎨🖌 #zooarch #archaeology #fish

I really want to like this 'new' place but I'm impatient for the community of followers it took me years to build in Twitter/X Tips for increasing my follower numbers much appreciated xx

🐓🦃 Chicken Licken or Turkey Lurkey? The landfowl order includes our most popular dinnertable birds, chicken & turkey 🍗 It also includes native & introduced birds - e.g. pheasant, grouse & partridge. Identification can be a challenge, even with a ref collection, online & published ID guides 🦴🤔

DEER! 🦌 😱🦴 (IYKYK 😅) The distinctive deep groove distinguishes cervid 🦌 from bovid 🐄🐐🐑 for the metatarsal bone. Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), right metatarsal. Recent reference specimen on the right, archaeological fragment on the left ❤️🦴

Happy International Ferris Wheel Day to all those who celebrate! ❤️🎡 rprides.com/2023/02/14/i...

😬🦷🐄 Left cattle maxilla with M1-M3 molars. BUT check out that M3 tooth hook! 😱 I've never seen such a big hook! It looks like some kind of image glitch! 😅

🦷🐕 Recent greyhound left mandible with a c.2000 year old M1/carnassial tooth of a fairly large dog ❤️

Wrote a book chapter 🎉📖🐚🦪🇦🇪 Congrats to Derek and the whole team! 🌟

I just heard from the British Trust for Ornithology. They confirmed the bird was a kestrel, a nestling ringed in Brompton-on-Swale, 14/06/24. A baby :-( At ~8 months, the plumage I identified as female may actually just be juvenile. I need to look again to see if the remains can be reliably sexed.

Sad times 💔 Reported this deceased female kestrel. It read: INFORM BRIT. MUSEUM LONDON S.W.7 EW45248 fyi report ringed birds: app.bto.org/euring/lang/... She'll join the Live Forever Reference Collection for Recently Deceased Animals. She'll get along with Sprite, a female sparrowhawk ❤️🐦🕊🦅🦆🐦‍⬛🪿❤️

Them pigs be laydees! ❤️🐖🦷❤️🐖🦷❤️🐖🦷❤️🐖🦷 Left maxillary canines of female pigs.

First post! 💙🦋 I'm a Zooarchaeologist 🦴🐚🐌 (available for hire no less!) based in the UK working across the Med & SW Asia. I love learning about the roles animals have played in our lives over the millennia, from food to pets to what we can understand about the natural environment. Also, I ❤️ emojis!