#Parkrun at Worcester Woods this morning, with Millie’s customary post-run scamper through Nunnery Wood. My journey up there probably follows the route once taken by medieval nuns of Worcester’s Whiston nunnery on the Tything, who farmed the land and after whom it’s named.

A nice surprise this morning: my article on prison reform from below is out! I believe it’s open access but let me know if you can’t get a copy and would like one. academic.oup.com/histres/adva...

Cheers Tess. I’ve been remiss of late in advertising, but some of my illustrations are available on sustainable clothing and gifts. And if you’d like a design in a different colour/garment, give me a shout. Tomorrow is last day for 1st class Christmas postage 👍 incurablearchaeologist.teemill.com

By strange coincidence, I’m wearing my Cirencester Roman Cockerel T-shirt today! I love Tess’s chocolate version. Any other representations out there? 🏺🏛️

Completed my ECB Level 2 Core Coach qualification yesterday! 🎉 A great course: participants from current 1st class / England U19 pros all the way down to parent volunteers. Pride slightly tempered by aches in muscles I’d forgotten I even had, after yesterday’s pace bowling session. 🏏😬🤕 #cricket

I had a great time giving this talk yesterday! And it's already available to watch in YouTube! Huge thanks to @insuhi.bsky.social for having me!

Just sharing this again - a piece in @uk.theconversation.com that Alex Brown and I wrote about peasants and the surprising amount of 'sick leave' they were given in the middle ages #medievalsky #history #medieval theconversation.com/medieval-pea...

📣Join us on 2 Dec, 5.30pm for our hybrid SBC lecture and reception with Neil Gregor @neilgregor.bsky.social on 'Writing Cultural Histories of Nazi Germany: Thoughts from the Concert Hall' - Please register for in-person or online attendance. Eventbrite links below

Ventured over to Worcester Woods for #Parkrun. Millie likes to bark encouragement on the home straight. The woods seem eternal, but the undulations underfoot are what remains of medieval ridge and furrow created by ploughing: once upon a time, all this was open fields… 🏺🗃️

I am currently reading 'Hild', a fabulous novel by @nicolaz.bsky.social that explores her early life, immersing the curious reader in the rhythms of 7th century life. Would heartily recommend it to anyone curious about Hild and her achievements. nicolagriffith.com/2023/11/17/h...

Spent the morning turning this into a tiny zine. Printing, cutting, folding - a tiny analogue act of resistance to the news we’ve had this week about cuts to History at Leicester. I’ll bring them along to the @leicesterucu.bsky.social demo on Weds 12th November if you’d like your own copy.

Less than a month to go for submission of abstracts! Papers invited for the Life and Landscape Research Showcase at the University of Nottingham.

Doing my ECB level 2 cricket coaching qualification. It’s great… … but yesterday’s enthusiasm (“wicket keeping is great fun, why did I never do it… maybe it’s not too late?”) has been tempered by today’s bruises and aches. Newfound respect for all you ‘keepers.🫡

Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve* Parkrun this weekend was an excellent opportunity to pay a Samhain visit to an old friend. *yes, it is lovely. But yes, the hill at the end is every bit as horrible as they warn you.

I recently went back to @maacambridge.bsky.social for the first time in years. I love the direction the museum is taking, but was delighted to see this familiar old friend! My illustration of it is available on T-shirts etc in my Teemill shop: incurablearchaeologist.teemill.com/search/?sear... 🏺

Both in our collections. A researcher from Paris said that they didn't think the arrowhead was French, but made by someone very skilled who had seen French arrowheads.

Researchers from Athens say that the ones like the gold-studded Bush Barrow dagger (a later version of the one in this drawing) inspired Mycenaean gold-workers. Lots of European links in the Bronze Age - Cunnington and Colt Hoare were right!

#ArchInk 4: bronze; 5: flint; 9: ivory #archaeology #illustration 🏺🏛️🗃️ Combining three prompts to look at early-19th century views of early Bronze Age artefacts.

#ArchInk 2: shell; 3: residue; 6: horn; 7: textile; 8: stratigraphy #inktober #medievalsky #skystorians 🏺🏛️🗃️ Combining a few prompts to tell the story of Worcester Cathedral’s Cockleshell Pilgrim.

#ArchInk 1: pigment #inktober #medievalsky #skystorians 🏺🏛️🗃️ Not sure how much I’ll be able to contribute this year, but I’ll try to chip in when I can.

Had a grand time this afternoon chatting to students in Orlando, Florida about the advantages and limitations of tech in #archaeology. Give ‘em a few years and I’m sure one of them will crack my request for a portable C14 robot… Enthusiastic kids & doesn’t take too much of your time… get involved! 🏺

A new comic: A brief history of History at the University of Leicester. You can download the originals and find links to further reading on my blog: incurablearchaeologist.wordpress.com/2025/10/02/l... #skystorians 🏛️🏺🗃️ Individual panels are threaded below:

Brian Patten has died. Thawing Frozen Frogs was given to me as a small child: the first poetry I really *got*. The fact that I had to fish this dog-eared volume out of my son’s bedroom is testament to his gift: surreal, silly, funny, and moving. Sometimes all at once.

Family walk around NT Croome yesterday. “What are those birds, daddy?” Glossy ibis, right in front of us! Inevitably, I’d left my camera at home… #worcsbirds

Still buzzing from Worcestershire’s #OneDayCup triumph last night. Took the boy to Trent Bridge, spent the day dodging the rain. Skies cleared for just long enough to witness an all-time classic. Stands full of friends, family and the grassroots #cricket community 🏏

It’s been quite a week (+month, year etc), so here’s a little #FindsFriday / #FlintFriday treat for your timelines: a gorgeous little Mesolithic ‘mèche de foret’ (drill bit) from my desk. Retouched edges abraded to a smooth sheen by repeated use. 🏺🏛️

Joined a friend for the southern leg of his solo Malverns marathon this morning, over the marvellous hillforts at Midsummer Hill and British Camp. Started warm and dry. Then several hours of unremitting downpour, brightened only by abundant lightning. How it started vs how it’s going:

Couldn’t resist the lure of a medieval World Heritage Site AND a #Parkrun! Fabulous course around and amidst the ruins of Fountains Abbey this morning.

50th #Parkrun and a PB this morning at Worcester Pitchcroft. After a challenging week, it really is the best way to start the weekend!

It's 1629 and they're *still* after you. It's so long ago now that they've started getting the date wrong!

🤫. I’ve got away with this for 428 years, only to be outed on Bluesky. The archive always gets you in the end… 🗃️

Working on 🏺 artefacts, there are times when you need to take a step back, to think conceptually about a site at a distance from the stuff. One method I use is to think through sketching. These are usually quick, rough sketches that never see the light of day…

Wonderful thread on the amount of thought and depth of knowledge that goes into an archaeological illustration, and on living with the uncertainty:

This is an excellent thread. Worth adding: the legislation didn’t work. It didn’t work because that imagined class of peasant—the able bodied idle poor—did not exist. The legislation imagined a paradoxical peasant, simultaneously being too entrepreneurial and too lazy.

Perfect cool and breezy #Parkrun weather at Worcester Pitchcroft this morning; racecourse sprinklers adding extra refreshment! Just a terrific and brilliantly inclusive start to the weekend. Shaved a few secs off the PB for the first time in months.

Rounding off a flinty week with some beauties for #FindsFriday / #FlintFriday. From a Bronze Age burial mound dug by @rachelcrellin.bsky.social, showing that there was a human presence here at least 2000 years before the mound was constructed.

Hate to be the bearer of more grim HE news, but things are afoot at the University of Leicester. History is one of a number of subjects currently in 'pre-change engagement'. What does this mean? Cuts. Of what magnitude? We won't know until the Autumn. #skystorians 🗃️🏺🏛️ le.ac.uk/news/2025/ju...

📣 Monday is the deadline for applications for the John Hurst Memorial Prize: present online or in person. Travel bursaries available. If your postgrad research touches on medieval landscapes, get your applications in! 🏺🗃️🏛️ #medievalsky

This little email brightened up my day. It’s rare for freelance archaeological specialists to get feedback like this, but it’s so important, cause: a) if we’re right, it assuages the imposter syndrome; b) if we got it hopelessly wrong, there’s probably a typology somewhere that needs updating. 🤔🏺🗃️🏛️

The Corolla takes it in its stride… I spent decades running dilapidated Land Rovers and French vans/cars held together by patience and a prayer. But my Corolla… I could probably rivet the bonnet shut and it would still outlive me.

Some gentle reading for a very hot morning: how finding oak galls let me and my daughter think about slipping through time at Midsummer. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/the-acids-...

Spent a highly enjoyable evening listening to @drmjwarren.bsky.social talk about birds and place names. Get yourself a copy of #TheCuckoosLea, it’s a terrific book.

I’m with @histassoc.bsky.social tonight talking all about how birds have been shaping and transforming our relationships with place for a very long time. Old places and old ways. Come join! Online, free, 19:30: www.history.org.uk/events/calen.... #thecuckooslea #naturewriting

Isaac Mohammed’s intro to the New Road crowd: 32 from 15 to get the chase off to a flyer. Against a quality Durham attack. Rode his luck but played utterly without fear. Here he is with a deft ramp on his way to ruining Matthew Potts’ figures: 🏏

The Office Manager has demanded a fan. She simply cannot complete her busy schedule of chewing and snoozing without the vapours of a tray of ice cubes gently misted across her desk.

The county archivist at my former employers got so fed up of hearing ‘can’t you just digitise it all?’ that he calculated the resources needed: 2 full time archivists for 500 years. 1000 person-years. Not including the new material arriving weekly. 🤷🗃️

This is a Sir Jimmy Anderson appreciation post: you all know the numbers… but today, having ripped the heart out of the Worcestershire innings with 3/32–11 years after we last saw him in domestic T20–he would not leave the field until every autograph was signed and every selfie snapped 🏏 #cricket

Boosting this for postgrad medieval archaeologists, historians, geographers, or any related subject: £200 prize; a great place to share your research; travel bursaries for shortlisted applicants. Apply by 30th June. 🗃️🏛️🏺 #medievalsky