A fascinating programme, especially the insights about Bernard Lovell, and amazing music, of course, from @hannahpeel.bsky.social

What's through the not-quite-square window behind Stonehenge on this #StandingStoneSunday and #RemembranceSunday? Why, it's an entire concertinaed military landscape of camps and barracks! This 'novelty card' was written to Miss E. Nixon of Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1916 but never posted… 🧵

The hypocrisy of taking pride in your nation’s history while refusing to acknowledge any shame (though personally I don’t find either sentiment appropriate in relation to the past per se, only for its consequences that are still playing out in the present day)

It’s William Stukeley’s birthday 🎂 His landscape views are often just as interesting as the drawings of monuments - here’s his Prospect of Kits Coty House in Oct 1722

Couldn’t we just ban people using fossil fuels to blow leaves from one place to another?

As it's Richard Jefferies' birthday (born #OTD in 1848), here's an extract from a piece he wrote for The Graphic in 1877 about flint: "all along the vast caravan route, so to say, of the human race… in cave and mound, and river, the chipped flint is found, the stamp, as it were, of [man's] presence"

On the Euston Road

Surrey's heaths are a joy at this time of year. The photos are from today's dog walk on Smart's Heath, which exemplifies Oliver Rackham's statement that "Most surviving heaths have the characteristic shape of commons, with concave outlines, crossed by roads which enter the common by funnels"

At the very least the costs of conservation and necessary research should be deducted from any ‘reward’ payable to the finder

This seems doubly risky given the penalties for damaging an ancient monument on the schedule of the 1882 Act 🙈

'Halloween High Jinks' in the Daily News in 1925: "One of the things that surprise Americans visiting England is the way that Halloween comes & goes without any notice from the bulk of the population. Only here and there, in scattered, remote farmhouses, and in the North, are any celebrations made."

'New Light from the Greatest Treasure-House of Ancient Man': #OTD in 1925 the ILN splashed on the Upper Palaeolithic site of Predmost (Předmostí), Moravia, with numerous images, including portrait reconstructions by Amédée Forestier. The skeletal material was destroyed during WW2. #FossilFriday

The benefits of an early dog walk

A nice listen for us exiles...

I missed the news that Stan Beckensall sadly passed away a few weeks ago, at a ripe old age, but The Times has a nice obituary - and here he is on a fascinating trip to look at Swedish rock art in 2008 (my photos)

There are the colourful, in-your-face #Halloween displays, and then there are the things that lurk in the shadows and just catch the corner of your eye...

For #TombTuesday here's the Modern Antiquarian himself at the massive Duggleby Howe Neolithic round barrow (38m diam, 6m high) on 28 October 1996, and the site as visited this month. An important series of Middle Neolithic burials were covered by the mound, which was enlarged in the Late Neolithic.

Its only value these days is in winding up people on X...

These local oak trees (red oak?) are always good value this time of year, and not just for the colours - look at the size of those leaves 🍂

The church of St Peter & St Paul, Albury, in autumn sunlight yesterday, and the interior of the tower, which is raised above the chancel of the original Saxon church and topped by a picturesque early 19th-century cupola #SteepleSaturday

Essex Honey is a great record and this is a fascinating read

They could at least have got Cunk

It seems this work may have been done with a bit more expert assistance than is mentioned in the BBC report, which goes all in on druids, lucky rainbows and borrowing boxes from the landowner!

Intact Roman vessels clearly below the ploughzone, removed from their context 😳 The archaeological equivalent of the movie character who digs out a bullet with a rusty penknife rather than going to a doctor…

Scheduling a barrow cemetery to protect it from the railway reminds me of what J.P. Williams-Freeman said in 1915 on "the best way to visit our ancient earthworks". After foot, bicycle, horse and car, "There is one other mode of locomotion which must be mentioned only to be condemned—the railroad… 🏺

This week marks the centenary of the announcement of the discovery of the London skull, aka the Lady of Lloyd's. Who's that, you ask? Here's the story of the most famous hominin you've never heard of... 🦣🏺

"It's a very sad thing to be caught in the rain When night's coming on upon Salisbury Plain"

This week marks the centenary of the announcement of the discovery of the London skull, aka the Lady of Lloyd's. Who's that, you ask? Here's the story of the most famous hominin you've never heard of... 🦣🏺

The heritage of horror (or vice versa...?)

One of the key sites for medieval archaeology in Britain, the deserted village of Wharram Percy in the Yorkshire Wolds, as seen last week #MedievalMonday

“Norway’s wealth tax only raised 2.7bn so how could the Greens possibly raise 15bn from a country with 12 times the population?” 🤔😬

Standing Stone Sum(o)day? #StandingStoneSunday

These days I feel very little “cultural coherence” with anyone in the Tory party…

Thomas Browne was born #OTD in 1605: I'm lucky to have one of the 500 copies of 'Urn Burial' printed by the Chiswick Press in 1893, with an introduction by John Evans, who notes some of the archaeological interest in Browne's great meditation on death & burial, as prompted by urns found in Norfolk 🧵

“This is the only thing that has stayed with me after our house was gone”

Great to come across this - can't reply or quote for some reason but just to note that Jacquetta Hawkes had previous with speculative fiction, though more utopian than dystopian in the case of Providence Island: substack.com/@jonathanlas...

I’d almost forgotten that the actual sky can occasionally live up to the name of this platform 😉

I’m up for an HG Wells Day, so long as, along with his writing, it champions some of his internationalist causes, including the teaching of global history

The eastern rose window of Palma Cathedral, Mallorca #StainedGlassSunday

A small but swashbuckling stone hides among the hotels in Illetas, Mallorca - dedicated to Errol Flynn (d. 14 October 1959) and Patricia Wymore, who lived here for periods in the 1950s and helped make the area fashionable #StandingStoneSunday

See also: Elon Musk and Douglas Adams

Harvest moon just now

It’s great that the Greens acknowledge the interconnection of heritage & nature, but l hope it amounts to more than just giving nature the same protection as heritage - we need better integration in planning policy, and recognition that ‘landscape’ is the bridge between them, not a subset of nature

What an outrageous restriction: "The British Transport Police ... will not investigate bike thefts outside stations where the bicycle has been left for more than two hours"

As with Brexit, the Right always sees European institutions as something imposed on us that we can’t control, rather than something we co-created and that can be reformed (if required) collectively

This is so good from Cory Doctorow on all the tricks Amazon uses to get both consumers to pay more, and how businesses on the platform end up paying it 45-51 cents on every dollar. Plus he rightly calls for regulatory change, not just individual consumer action www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I still miss Douglas Adams

Using AI imagery is now pretty much the equivalent of continuing to post on X