Just found some 1986 rates for archaeologists. Supervisors get £7481, the equiv. of c.£29,302 today. That’s almost exactly the same as the min. rate for G4 supervisors recommended by BAJR today -£29,858! Pay increases have been hard fought in recent times, but it was it just for it to stay the same!

I am looking through old archaeological archives at the moment, mostly from the 90s, and feeling intense pangs of sadness every time I see Sheffield mentioned. An absolute power house of archaeological science then… only to have its heart ripped out in recent times. Ugh.

New Doctor Who villain just dropped:

🚨 The call for submissions for the next issue of Geological Curator, titled 'Moving towards equitable Geoscience collections', is now open! 🚨 The purpose is to consolidate current research and initiatives that aim to improve the environment, accessibility, and future of geological collections.

Am I the only one who finds blocked up doorways and windows really pleasing? Look at the archaeology of this! (I started a new job at Fort Cumberland, it is aesthetically very enjoyable!)

Hail hail the Queen of the May!

What a fun question! 🪨 I usually lay my hands on them and close my eyes (I largely do this in the vague hope a time slip will trigger and I’ll find myself somewhen else… 🤷🏼‍♀️)

*groans in archaeologist* 🦖

Had a real influx of followers in past couple of days… no idea why, but… hi! 👋 I am still finding my groove here, but suffice to say it’s mostly archaeology and screaming into the void. Occasionally both at same time.

I wrote a brief article on the challenge that AI presents to archaeological visualisation. Check it out here: theconversation.com/how-ai-image... Though I have done a lot of scicomm, it was the first time I'd written for The Conversation. 🏺 +

Is it #TileTuesday? No. Am I going to post the 13th century tiles I saw at Titchfield Abbey at the weekend anyway? Yes! (They are mostly covered by burlap and sandbags at the moment, but whatever was covering this section had flipped up in the wind so… behold!)

Super interesting study on facial piercing and stretching in early prehistory! #archaeology #bodymodification

You know what’s a joy? Listening to the dulcet tones of @noddinggoth.bsky.social talking about archaeology & the mid-COVID excavation of the Castle Street burial ground in Hull. What a challenging project for @oxfordarchaeology.bsky.social & everyone who worked on it shows.acast.com/627bb65a6cf5...

Here are the late Bronze Age ramparts of Chanctonbury Ring in the snow last weekend. It's weathered way over 2000 years of winters but the white stuff is now a much rarer visitor to the hill. #HillfortsWednesday 🏺

Tom Booth and Pontus skoglund sampling the human remains from the Poulton project for aDnA data. Both young boys, probably brothers and may well have died from the Black Dearh Incredible what we can now learn #diggingforbritain #drawingdiggingforbritain #archaeology

What an incredible object. Showed how even the periphery could be an intersection

This carved whale bone box was one of wonderful things in the #SilkRoads exhibition at the British Museum… 8th century, made in Northumbria, depicting Wayland the Smith, the Adoration of the Magi from New Testament along with an Old English rune dedication to the dead whale! 😍

If you listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ on repeat and put on BBC2 at 8pm I will eerily appear on your screen accompanied by the maniacal laughter from ‘On The Run’. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Not the best Tripadvisor review we've ever had. We're thinking of updating our Bio, though... 🤔

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

Sometimes you look at a stone and it’s kind of unassuming… until you hold it and it falls perfectly into to your grip and suddenly it’s all HOW IS THIS SO PERFECT IN MY HAND??* *I can’t be the only person who picks up stone tools and is astounded by their ergonomics every time, right?

Yesterday Curator James Sainsbury was kind enough to show me the small biface currently on display in Worthing Museum. The story of it's discovery, found on the beach at Shoreham-by-Sea by then six year old Ben Witten, has travelled the world. 🧵 1/3 #FlintFriday #FindsFriday

Happy New Year! If you are interesting in teaching & learning about #Archaeology 🏺 #Heritage #TeachLearnSky #AcademicSky come & join our online global roundtables! archaeologytandl.wordpress.com Our first 2025 session is on "Enhancing educational practices in archaeology" Tues 21st Jan 2-3pm GMT.

When life gives you unspeakable, eldritch lemons… make fhtaganade! 🍋 🐙

#TombTuesday -Incredible Callanish, a prehistoric monument so unusual & exhilarating that it has a chambered tomb crammed into it's central circle I found the tall stones & avenues here weather-beaten, mesmerising & disorientating. Just an incredible place in the Outer Hebrides 📷 My own, June 24

Another day, another all encompassing urge to go admire a massive rock. Or walk around a hillfort.

BLOG POST: What to watch next if, like me, you wish there were at least a hundred more of those 1970s BBC ghost stories for Christmas. 🎞📽 precastreinforced.co.uk/2024/11/24/t...

You… you left what on the tube?! 💀 A rather throwaway sentence from this 1995 monograph on archaeological human remains being lost on the London Underground!

Showing some love (at a respectful distance) to some big rocks 🪨

Sure, Sutton Hoo had some cool treasure and stuff, but look at this way more fun archaeological anomaly which could only really be appreciated in section - a 'stone-roll' lens of pebbles, thickening downwards, the result of rolling pebbles on the slope of the burial mound.

For #FlintFriday an Acheulean handaxe from Slindon Bottom Sussex. Part of the Boxgrove palaeolandscape. Maybe more than 420,000 years old. On the limit of how heavy a tool my hand could handle, this was confidently made to undertake cutting and processing tasks, but did it play social roles too?

Every so often you read things and wish, sincerely, for another asteroid to hit. I’m happy to give something else a chance. Mammals haven’t done a good job of it, at all.

Extremely pleased & excited for Dr Brenna Hassett's lecture for World Menopause Day today at 18.15 BST: "Past It? Digging up the radical evolution of menopause and the archaeology of women"🏺 It's sold out, but you can join via zoom link in the invite page below. www.eventbrite.com/e/talk-by-dr...

A perfect bird strike, moments before the windows were cleaned at work. A temporary natural artwork, gone now, as is the bird. (Consider this my vow to use this platform more, the other place is too bleak. I hope it’s better here.)

Finally got my grubby mitts on a physical copy of The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology & the Media in the 21st Century! It’s a really hefty weight, packed with public archaeology goodness & enriched by incredible authors (shame our data has been sold to LLMs)

A beloved colleague left last week and I made this cake for her - it’s a hillfort! I wanted it to have more than one rampart, but didn’t have enough real estate for multiple ditches (a problem I’m sure some early builders had with them too 😆)

One year tinsel stopped smelling like proper tinsel and I’ve been vaguely sad about it every Christmas since.

Nice to see this Sexton was spending money on the important things

20+ years in an industry & I still find myself thinking “But who even am I to have any opinions on this [insert basic archaeological query]?” 😒 What more do I need to trust my own reasoning? Another 20 years? 40? Finally on my deathbed admit I probably had a good idea about mitigation strategies?

Both my 4 year old and I had nightmares last night… him of a wolf outside the house, and me of seeing something in his room through the monitor that was not-quite-human. I don’t believe dreams mean anything much, but this double nightmare thing is sticking with me!

Funded #Folklore PhD alert. Healthy Folk – The role of vernacular knowledge in health-related decision-making, project funded at the OU in partnership with the Folklore Society Excellent supervision team - Victoria Newton (OU) and Richard Jenkins (FLS) www.oocdtp.ac.uk/healthy-folk...

A tree in my local churchyard… it uh… has a butt. Right? That’s not just me that can see that? 🍑