Poikilos-skinned? Sappho would approve

Still looking for recommendations - I'm after something nice and detailed with a lot of maps!

This is SUCH an excellent account of this moment in both informational and emotional terms.

🏺 "Recombination and convergency, raw material limitations, variable site functions and local cultural preferences... are all realistic complexities... but it is worth remembering that, evolutionarily, braided streams may be technological as well as biological." Taylor, 2024 doi.org/10.1080/0067...

🏺🧪🦣 I'm at about 18 minutes in, giving a few thoughts and some context to this new find 🦷 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

🏺🧪🦣 I'm at about 18 minutes in, giving a few thoughts and some context to this new find 🦷 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

20 seconds of Welsh forest-bathing

Take a moment in the woods as the last of the wild garlic blooms. 🌱

Good thread on the dangers off LLM-based transcription products changing the meaning of historical documents. Earlier OCR tools make transcription errors, but they are generally misrecognitions rather than fabrications. The tool described here appears to recognize the text but then alters it.

Take a moment in the woods as the last of the wild garlic blooms. 🌱

Listen out to BBC R4 #InsideScience tonight to hear my brief thoughts on this very cool tooth! 🧪

🏺 🧪 🦣 I've commented on this research elsewhere, but while #Neanderthals using a stone tool to dig around in a rotten tooth is far from surprising (we know they used tooth picks), I don't think it's possible to describe it as being "drilled". journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Middle Pleistocene hominin interactions like

Middle Pleistocene hominin interactions like

🤯“We successfully extracted & analysed ancient enamel proteins from Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus specimens from 0.4 million years ago. One amino acid variant was previously identified in Denisovans; our evidence indicates it may have been introduced via interactions with H. erectus populations.”🧪

🏺 🧪 🦣 I've commented on this research elsewhere, but while #Neanderthals using a stone tool to dig around in a rotten tooth is far from surprising (we know they used tooth picks), I don't think it's possible to describe it as being "drilled". journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Took the opportunity to spend the rest of the day in a lovely spot writing #Matriarcha ✒️ in @nationaltrust.org.uk café

🏺 I might be a prehistorian at heart, but this gives me incredible time-shivers

Excellent meeting at the lovely Powis Castle this morning with @henebtwa.bsky.social, working on exciting new ideas for #archaeology engagement & education strategy in Wales

And back to the #archaeology 🏺 🦣 Exciting new analysis of MSA shell bead evidence from El Mnasra North Africa: large assemblage likely >100 Ka, inc pigment residue and wear from ?thread, but other wear suggests diverse uses. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Govt has been in power for less than 2 out of a 5 year term. People have been expecting miracles from a wasteland; hyper-fixating on mistakes and ignoring the real, radical good stuff. There is no perfect PM or leader and IMO a new one now will cause fresh structural problems

Ten years after the referendum, in the jaws of all this awfulness, they are finally saying it. Britain IS European and it must get back to the heart of the EU as the strongest place from which to face the immense challenges of the next century 🇪🇺

Sending good #writing vibes to everyone who needs it today - my favourite place is up the garden, away from WiFi signal so I can focus 💭 ✒️

Our homeworld, from Artemis II. Image ART002-E-24017; credit: NASA/Artemis II Crew

What a lovely message to receive: a senior woman who came on my #NewSciNeanderthals tour last year, was fired up by everything she saw and heard, asked for my help to do further archaeology studies, now accepted onto a Masters course 🥰

What a lovely message to receive: a senior woman who came on my #NewSciNeanderthals tour last year, was fired up by everything she saw and heard, asked for my help to do further archaeology studies, now accepted onto a Masters course 🥰

🏺 Just a Palaeolithic synaptic fizz, but it's interesting that in MIS 5 the preceding industries focusing on bladey & convergent Levallois products disappear, to be replaced by centripetal Levallois, while in northern France, there's a sudden fluorescence of blades and Levallois points.

Already up to 46! What a fabulous way to celebrate the breadth of #DavidAttenborough legacy in sharing natural history knowledge & wonder!

This is such a fabulous find. I love the focus on where it was made - frontiers were full of people who were not soldiers. I write a little about these bowls in my new book - published next week - in a chapter about the craftsmen and women at Hadrian's Wall www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...

Three nice things I have seen recently for anyone else finding everything right now - for whatever reason - All A Bit Much (and very many sorrys to anyone waiting on things from me)

I also told primary school peers I "loved" David Attenborough (though just in a Nature Grandad way kind of way) and they all were into TT and NKOTB and were merciless; so began self-realisation of my fundamental nerdery

I don't know if it's actually a reflection of the photographer or not, but it looks like someone is holding the Moon and the Earth - the entirety of our tiny, exquisite worlds-system in the palm of your hand 🌎🌑

I don't know if it's actually a reflection of the photographer or not, but it looks like someone is holding the Moon and the Earth - the entirety of our tiny, exquisite worlds-system in the palm of your hand 🌎🌑

🧪🏺🦣 Fellow researchers: please check PR for your projects and do not accept the use of gen- #AI artwork for promotion if you would not use it in your scientific publications...

🏺 Planning my site visits in Athens, does anyone have recs for an up-to-date, detailed guidebook, e.g. like the OUP Archaeological Guides (sadly their Greece one is 2001)?

🏺 Planning my site visits in Athens, does anyone have recs for an up-to-date, detailed guidebook, e.g. like the OUP Archaeological Guides (sadly their Greece one is 2001)?

Beltane sunset and holly blossom : as summer begins, a hint of winter's flame yet to come at the other side of the year.

Looking forward to speaking at this event soon in Athens 🏛️ to kick off a Bronze Age Aegean 🏺 mini-tour visiting Crete & Santorini to see Gournia, hopefully Mochlos and "prehistoric Pompeii" town of Akrotiri - can't wait to experience places I've written about in #Matriarcha !

🧪🏺🦣 New paper on Amud 7 #Neanderthal baby, finding accelerated growth and development (Amud 7 is the one with the intriguing deer upper jaw on its pelvis, a rare apparent object placed with the dead) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

2026 Festival Season's nearly here & I'm thrilled to bring more #archaeology to @chalkefestival.bsky.social🏺 🎪 : - back w/ @livancworlds.bsky.social Hearth of Science - collabs with amazing heritage interpreters - & plotting something spectacular involving The Stone! Tix: www.chalkefestival.com

2026 Festival Season's nearly here & I'm thrilled to bring more #archaeology to @chalkefestival.bsky.social🏺 🎪 : - back w/ @livancworlds.bsky.social Hearth of Science - collabs with amazing heritage interpreters - & plotting something spectacular involving The Stone! Tix: www.chalkefestival.com

🏺🦣 🐢 V. cool to see we now have evidence that not only were #Neanderthals around the Mediterranean & in Iberia eating tortoises, but others in Germany during the warm Eemian interglacial were also eating pond turtles - I wrote about this possibility in #Kindred! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🏺🦣 🐢 V. cool to see we now have evidence that not only were #Neanderthals around the Mediterranean & in Iberia eating tortoises, but others in Germany during the warm Eemian interglacial were also eating pond turtles - I wrote about this possibility in #Kindred! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🏺🦣 New paper on Amud 7 #Neanderthal baby, finding accelerated growth and development (Amud 7 is the one with the intriguing deer upper jaw on its pelvis, a rare apparent object placed with the dead) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🏺

Extreme political violence as a threat for anyone near Trump seems like the perfect reason for UK govt to pull Charles' visit on security grounds, sparing us all the spectacles that will otherwise ensue

Spring sounds on Long Mountain included woodpecker, bullfinch and a CUCKOO this morning! 🌿 🐦‍⬛ (heard one in the forest two years ago, but think it was merely passing through)

Gorgeous v short science-inspired #scifi 'I reached under the rug, pulling out the rusted drive wrapped in oily cloth. An artefact from the Time Before Silence. “Raw memory,” I whispered. “Uncut. No AI polish. No emotional dampeners. Just jagged human experience.” ' www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Gorgeous v short science-inspired #scifi 'I reached under the rug, pulling out the rusted drive wrapped in oily cloth. An artefact from the Time Before Silence. “Raw memory,” I whispered. “Uncut. No AI polish. No emotional dampeners. Just jagged human experience.” ' www.nature.com/articles/d41...