The deadline for the MSRG John Hurst Memorial Prize is fast approaching! Open to any current/recent postgraduate students. Submit abstract by 30th June. £200 prize for best paper; presenters eligible for travel bursary. Details/forms at: medieval-settlement.com/grant.../dis... 🏛️🗃️🏺 #medievalsky

If you’d like to take a minute out of your Friday afternoon, here’s a time-lapse video in which I colour my live sketches from the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists conference in Edinburgh this week. (🔈 for commentary) #archaeology #illustration

On my way back after a fine CIfA archaeology conference in Edinburgh. And yes, I’ve been scribbling - will get my illustrations coloured and posted soon… 🏺🏛️🗃️

I suppose it was inevitable… after scoring, then coaching, I played my first game of competitive cricket in 17 years yesterday. The less said about my bowling the better… but I did manage 42no and a last-wicket 50 partnership to win. And I felt the joy of being out in the middle on a glorious day. 🏏

A little time-lapse video, colouring my live conference sketches from the weekend’s Medieval Settlement Research Group Spring conference in Lincoln. #medievalsky 🏺🏛️🗃️ #sketchbook #illustration #skystorians (🔈for commentary)

Don't forget to come and see us today between 12-4! We have #OSL and #Pollen data which gives us a tremendous record of #Medieval farming! Sheen village hall SK17 0ES ///soap.social.cosmic

A cartoon to illustrate Ellen Durbin's excellent Diggers' Forum article on the awkward disconnect, raised by @sarahmay1.bsky.social, between the impact of archaeology and the impact on archaeologists. There'll be more from me in future issues of British Archaeology. 🏺

Enjoying that ‘first page of a new sketchbook’ feeling. Bishop’s Palace, St Davids, Pembrokeshire.

Porth Mawr. 11/04/2026 North #Pembrokeshire #surfing 🌊🏄‍♂️

Restorative Pembrokeshire Easter weekend with familiar faces. Not pictured (because they were too quick), the first swallows. One on Friday 3rd, then two pairs on Sunday 5th above Aberfelin, Trefin.

Not felt like there’s been much to celebrate of late, but today as the mist cleared and the sun appeared, I shaved 18 seconds off my #Parkrun PB.

🏺🗃️ The #Historians of #Archaeology group website launches soon! historiansofarchaeology.wordpress.com We welcome submissions for the blog from everyone working on any aspect of the history of archaeology (excavations, object provenance, community, popular histories, histories of science...) 1/2

#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.