Morning all. Week two of the fight back:

Holy shit that is a powerful piece of writing

Trying to track down the earliest scientific studies of mummy wheat, c.1830. Anybody know who 'Dr Gay in Paris' might be? He sounds fun.

'On the Advantages of the Study of Archaeology': paper read at the 1849 congress of the British Archaeological Association by T.F. Dillon Croker, then aged 18. Transcript in alt text. Good insight into early archaeological thinking - quotes extensively from philosopher Madame de Staël.

Are you a 15th century king? Do you want to show that you’re down with this humanism stuff that your scholars keep talking about, but you’re also terrified of your own people & the damn French? Ask your architect if Fancy Renaissance Gate Sandwiched Between Existing Medieval Towers is right for you.

It’s Roger Livesey’s birthday. The Life & Death of Col. Blimp is a favourite film & it’s largely due to the brilliant performances of Livesey and Anton Walbrook as lifelong friends from warring countries. This scene is sadly all too prescient about our current situation: youtu.be/vb2AlCaY_gk?...

Writing about the poet and archaeologist Martin Tupper (1810-1889) including a long footnote about how much Karl Marx loathed him.

The sentences doled out in the Prairieland case today are horrific. Des was sentenced to 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines. There is no pretense of "justice" here. The judge said, “the state wants to send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.” crimethinc.com/prairieland

Keir Starmer Resigns Amid ‘Not Being Very Good Prime Minister’ Scandal

economy's in the toilet, pound's in the toilet, labour party's in the toilet, the only thing not in the toilet is the people the ehrc say can't be in the toilet

For those of us who see Palestinians as human beings, this was Starmer's defining moment. It is not sustainable to behave in this way while leading the nominally progressive party in a two party system. Starmer's unpopularity is not one of life's great mysteries. www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_s...

Delighted to announce that we are relaunching the Steppe Sisters Speaker Series! Join us tomorrow (2pm UK time) to hear the excellent Nari Lee present her eye-opening research on gendered barriers to participation in fieldwork, comparing case studies in Mongolia and South Korea. lnkd.in/dPT6RPaR

When I bake i weigh ingredients to the gram but making lentil soup i just go by instinct except on cumin which must be Excessive. Never gone wrong yet

He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past endurance, it was like listening to somebody interminably recounting a long and stupid dream.

Thomas 'Mummy' Pettigrew (1791-1865) is best known for his public lectures where he unrolled Egyptian mummies. I've been studying Pettigrew for more than fifteen years and I'm currently writing a book about him. I am having... so much fun.

Every fucking day the anti-trans and anti-queer movement takes more ground in the UK. We are in the midst of a full blown and accelerating Transphobia Crisis with the singular goal of queer eradication. The UK's (il)liberal democracy has fully turned on us. But we will fight to whatever end.

tbh this is exactly what it feels like to be the only faunal bone specialist on a project

New First Aid for Finds: www.firstaidforfinds.org

The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labour but the result of organised, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people's blood. -Frantz Fanon

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

Bastard

In 2020, a landslip exposed a medieval cave shrine in a railway cutting near Guildford. ASE archaeologists abseiled(!) in to investigate carved symbols and niches adorning the cave walls. The cave is the focus of a new publication in Medieval Archaeology: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The Met put its entire collection online for free so I made a game out of it! 10 artifacts a day, and you guess where and when each one's from. Anthropeum.com if anyone wants to give it a shot and leave feedback :) #history #archeology #arthistory #museums

loser of netherlands vs japan has to pay reparations to indonesia

Bit of detective work, figured out author of rather useful 1834 letter signed something like 'Brigdon' is most likely Viscount Boringdon. Into my footnotes he goes!

I am still very happy! It was amazing to lift one large chunk of pot (albeit in several pieces) and find another one underneath, and another underneath that.

'It was not a huge surprise to find myself in the Epstein files...' My investigation into the scientists bewitched by money and the dilettante superficiality of Jeffrey Epstein's need to be near clever men. newhumanist.org.uk/articles/a-t...

Ursula K. LeGuin, "American SF and the Other," 1975.

In our first blog post we present a model of how the far right appropriates archaeology and how we can fight it! We use the recent 'looksmaxxing' trend as a case study to explore this. Give it a read and feed back what you think! 🏺 #AntiExtremistResearch

Sorry but hate presenting this as “ooh this is the scary future under reform” like this isn’t the Scary Present under Labour. This is not Reform’s Britain, this is Labour’s Britain. Its here its now and laying responsibility explicitly outside of the Actual Current Gov is a major mistake

If you live in the UK (or tbh anywhere) it'd be amazing if you signed up for a refugee action group or a emergency response phone tree or a deflagging crew for your cool girl summer 🌴🌊🏖️☀️😎💅

I am very excited to share our (the amazing @cjfrieman.bsky.social, @leilaar.bsky.social, Nika, James, and myself) new publication for the annual review of anthropology on Anarchist Theory and Inequality in Archaeology!

"Night of disorder after knife attack" Nationwide network of racist thugs seize on an excuse to coordinate a city-wide racist pogrom. We watched them plan this online yesterday, and then they went ahead and did it.

John Piper - an all time favourite artist. From his depictions of archaeology to his magical stained glass in the Cathedral in Liverpool. A gorgeous exhibition @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social No photos so my pics from catalogue or my sketch inspired by his works. Genius. #archaeology #wiltshire

Astonishing how many fools are trying to shoo, pet, harass, hand-feed, and get selfies with these fearsome creatures.

Want to learn how to promote inclusive community engagement by using archaeology to build skills, confidence & connections? Jane Miller's talk - free - 7 July (7pm UK time) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/archaeolog... #archaeology #publicengagement brought to you by @archsengage.bsky.social

#OtD 5 Jun 1868 Marxist industrial unionist, James Connolly was born in Edinburgh to Irish parents. An advocate of Irish independence and a member of the @IWW Connolly was executed by British authorities following the unsuccessful Easter rising of 1916 stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1053...

OOooo i want a nice cup of TEA look at ME I'm ENGLISH i want to eat PLAIN TOAST

Doomscrolling [reading the Wikipedia page about the Battle of Jutland]

I talked to Justin Walsh and Shawn Graham about their new Mt Everest project, “Archaeology Impossible,” and what they learned from space archaeology on the ISS. 🏺🧪 @jstpwalsh.bsky.social / @electricarchaeo.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy

Mummy: *exists* Europeans since literally the twelfth fuckin century: 'I'm gonna eat that.'

'Person with metal detector finds treasure and gets £££' is a feel-good story and archaeologists moaning about it is a bad look for the profession. Campaign positively for better heritage laws and proper museum funding, don't grouch because some lucky finder paid off their mortgage.

There are currently no airworthy Hawker Typhoons. Without these natural predators, the population of Nazis has grown to unsustainable levels. #MakeBritainStrafeAgain

Wow a mid-nineteenth-century book promoting radical political, social, and legal reforms, written by a British doctor, I wonder if it's full of weird eugenics and racism?

How is this a real person and not a character in a cheesy Regency romance novel?

For #FindsFriday, I'm gifting you this fantastic Bronze Age felled tree we’ve just excavated from #Skipsea in Holderness. The marks of the socketed bronze axe are clearly visible, and the thud of the axe is almost audible. Used - we think - as a post, perhaps for a trackway.

Nice bit of nominative determinism

Everything has to change. Everything. Do not settle for politicians who want to go back to "normal." "Normal" was the garbage state of existence that allowed all of this evil to take root and thrive. Everything has to change.