WHAAAT? Well, this is excellent news! More of this, please!

Come join our aDNA community at Trinity College Dublin and explore medieval ruminant genomes! Funded PhD studentship in ancient animal genomics at Trinity College Dublin. Deadline 27th May 2026 Please see the information attached for full description and application process.

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)

DNA is not the same as kinship. Our perspective paper argues that treating genetics as the ultimate proof of identity or family can: • erase community-defined relationships • reinforce Western biases • and even cause real harm in policy + research Special Issue: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Spring.

🏺New paper on web of close (although mostly more distant) genetic relationships between people buried in tombs in Orkney and northern Scotland 3700-3500 BCE, in the Early Neolithic.

Could anyone else eat a Tunnocks Tea Cake about now?

Fund Adult Education classes again.

My sister is one of the volunteers welcoming refugees to Crowborough with packs of necessities. She reckons the volunteers easily outnumber the protestors 'And we're not bussed in every morning'.

Barely anyone other than Roman Britain nuts have even heard of Uley, but imo we should all be losing our minds over the unrivalled religious continuity of this sacred site - at least 3000 years, from the Neolithic era to a probable 8th-century church

Some bad news from your favourite archive

so you've probably heard about the London measles outbreak. A lot of people are talking about anti-vax misinformation, but that's not actually the problem here. The problem is austerity. 🧵

Inspired by this fossil, I once again feel compelled to point you towards the time that @everywhereist.bsky.social psychologically terrorised her husband by sticking googly eyes and quote-bubbles on everyday household appliances. www.everywhereist.com/2015/06/i-to...

I think my bone assemblage loves me. ❤️

I wrote about the Olympics defector.com/which-other-...

Might need to revisit this at Halloween, what a horror story. 🐟🐚🐟🐚🐟🐚🐟🐚

Happy 4th birthday to this stupid thing I was compelled to create! LONGOOSE FACTS: - Neck - The idea came from a typo - The music is a loop from Bandlab - It has over 3 million views on TikTok! - Those views translated directly into £0 and 500+ NFT bros hassling me 24/7 for a YEAR! - HONK

We want to see your mice! Mouse impression on a Roman roof tile 👇

I feel like I spend 10% of work time logging into devices and work websites and doing 2FA over and over. Guys, it’s me, nobody else would be using up their one precious lifetime going to your SharePoint site

I've lived in York for getting on fifteen years now, and I still struggle with what to call a twitten up here when it isn't a twitten (but will always be a twitten).

Cranky as hell this evening, so here's a sketch I did of some ivy doing no good at all to a brick wall.

Our @antiquaries.bsky.social Low Ham book (myself, Roger Leech and @thepostexcox.bsky.social ) is now available OA - library.oapen.org/handle/20.50... - the first synthetic publication of one of Britannia's largest villas, with reports on strat, finds, & enviro remains, & fully contextualised. 1/10

Callanish , no drama , recent snow #StandingStoneSunday

A small tour of the Twelve Apostles on Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire, when the weather was rather better than it is now. Damaged, eroded, rebuilt, and not much left of its Neolithic self, but I've rarely been up there and not seen something left for the stones. #StandingStoneSunday

It's the 3rd of January 1939, your name is professor James Smith and you are staring at a drawing of a fish. It's not a regular fish. It is a completely impossible fish.

Winter light at Fountains Abbey. #Yorkshire

Seeing the old year out in the company of Bonnie and Caer Caradoc - may 2026 bring more of this sort of thing. #HillfortsWednesday #hillfort #Shropshire

Absolutely shocking. We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases. We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.

Something a bit different for #StandingStoneSunday... Back in 2011 my aunt, Di Cope, visited Rudston, E. Yorkshire, with my grandma and drew this from a photo she took. If you've not seen actual Rudston, it's a single monolith, the tallest in the UK, and looks a lot like this, minus the grin.

uh oh

also just thinking as someone who's a STEM educator interested in communicating ideas, poetry is *super* important to learn about because a lot of the devices in it are basically "how do i make a set of words and ideas stick in your brain", which is important!

Someone put a hat and scarf on LongBoi!

UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record

Today the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence begin. People around the world are wearing a white ribbon to call on men to never commit, excuse or remain silent about gender-based violence. Join me and support our work to build a London that's safe for everyone.

Every so often it's worth getting out on a grotty winter's day. That's two egrets, a heron, a bunch of weird ducks (pochard?) and a kingfisher, an actual kingfisher, all on this stretch of campus lake.

The Old pier perch end. A mirrored sea. #Papay #Orkney

Every year I stop myself from posting “now look here you lot, my books would make an excellent Christmas present” in October because it’s way too early, and then I forget until it’s way too late. Hope I’ve hit the sweet spot this time. levparikian.com/index.php/sh...

Hm. So. This time last year I wrote an eight-part blog series, broadly on the topic of how to survive the winter. It's rather more personal than the writing I'd usually share here and less archaeological, and for anyone interested it starts here: fromthebonesoftheland.wordpress.com/2024/11/24/t...

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent trees I have met on walks. You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

A few months ago, I went to Orkney with insufficient layers and was given a secondhand windproof fleece by a friend of mine there. It turns out the fleece is also waterproof in even quite substantial rain. I am taking this as evidence that my friend is one of the Fair Folk.

Happy Exploding Whale Carcass Day to all who celebrate.

Most years on Remembrance Day, I take a minute to think about the Chattri Memorial, just outside Brighton and near where I grew up. It's there to honour the Hindu and Sikh soldiers from India who fought in the WW1 trenches and who died of their wounds in Brighton. www.chattri.org

Let's play Bucks Name or Name Name

You know what, it's actually nice to be asked to peer review an article which, based on the abstract, I'm really excited to read. Maybe that's spotting a rainbow in the howling thunderstorm of the academic publishing world, but, eh, it's a rainbow, I'll take it.

Went to hang out with my local standing stones, the Devil's Arrows in Boroughbridge, for Samhain. The last remaining fragments of a much wider ritual landscape, now swallowed by farmland and settlement; standing in conversation with the local trees. #StandingStoneSunday

When you go out to photograph standing stones but the trees are doing this... #winter

No idea why this has come up but yes, can confirm.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

Whenever I do any work on oysters, I am reminded of the decidedly-nameless "specialists" I once inherited an assemblage from, who decided that the left valve of an oyster was a "marine oyster", and the right valve was a "river oyster". Pro tip: Don't do that.

Alas, it appears they were beheaded, not burnt to a... well, you know.