Castles and Coprolites

Phytoliths from Catalhoyuk TP Area The reeds decay, the wheat decays, and all The silica preserves within the ground. Remains of binding, and mats that lie beneath Many a summer’s children dead and gone A type of immortality - Organics wither slowly in time’s arms Here in the quiet depths of the earth A white impression yet shows what once has been A hidden record of the past Deposited, now soon to be revealed. Behold! This opal shadow, once a plant; A fascinating glimpse into past choices For fuel and crafts and fodder we can see Phytoliths from Catalhoyuk South Area A diverse array of use other than food! I asked thee “show me your secrets” Then didst thou grant mine asking with a glance Through concave lens of ‘scope Opal shapes, reveal the truth Of all that was, in ashes.

I'm pleased to announce that we have had two session accepted for the 7th World Archaeological Congress . The first is a poster exhibition of micromorphology images in collaboration with Earthslides.com, which I talked about last month , Hidden Worlds - Revealing the Microscopic Archaeological Record . The second is a symposium, Integrated analytical approaches to investigating ancient diets , and we are now accepting paper contributions, for more details check out the call for papers here .

BioArCh PhD candidate Harry Robson excavates Flixton Back out in the field, at long last, on a day trip with fellow micromorphologist, Helen Williams (PhD candidate at the University of York). This is a bit of a change for me; normally heading off on field work involves long journeys in hot foreign places, but today I had to go no further than an hour down the road to Flixton, Scarborough. Not such a long journey and fortunately the weather was great. I’m not going to say hot as the last place I went to that was ‘hot’ was 40 ° + ( in the 100 ° s), and I think if it ever got to that temperature in the UK it would literally be breaking the record.  And an added bonus to local fieldwork - a nice cup of Yorkshire tea afterwards with Helen's parents! As I mentioned a few months ago , I will be joining the Star Carr project next year as a part-time microarchaeology specialist, which will involve advising on micromorphology, geochemistry and phytoliths amongst other things....

Many boxes of medieval stratigraphy I was back at the University of Reading a few days ago to have a look through all the samples that have been collected for the Ecology of Crusading project.   Four cardboard boxes and a tray of miscellaneous samples later, I finally got them all unpacked and ready for the drying oven. It appears at least half the samples have the note ‘manure layer’ attached, so nothing new there. In fact, that'll be the third time this year I've recieved parcels of such material. I should start telling people I am interested in highland single malt whisky as well as coprolite analysis, maybe I’d start getting that in the post regularly too. Anyway. Block of medieval manure  The majority of these samples were collected from excavations of medieval deposits in the centre of Riga (Latvia). I am told that these are the first micromorphology samples ever collected from a commercial excavation in Latvia, by students who took part in the C ē s...

Excavating at Kamiltepe , Azerbaijan, 2010 The laser falls on painted walls   To reconstruct their ancient glory: The corer shakes atop the lakes, Soon will the pollen tell its story. Dig, students, dig, set the clods of dirt flying, Dig, students; listen, echoes, sighing, sighing, sighing. Hark, over here! What crisp and clear, Stratigraphy, so keep on going! O sweet, some char, core with flake scar And cattle horn! Keep this trench growing. Dig, students, dig, bring to light what’s underlying, Dig, one more context, hear the ancient past replying. Excavating at Sheik e-Abad , Iran, 2008 O see, revealed, a surface sealed, Layers of time uncovered hither: The memories roll from soul to soul, As echoes from material whisper. Dig, archaeologists, set the total station scanning, And answer, echoes of the past, sighing, sighing, sighing.

It's about time I say a bit about Qal'at al-Marqab, also known as Margat Castle, Syria. It is the castle for which this blog is named, and looking back over my posts it seems I talk much more about the coprolites than the castles. I visited the site as part of a preliminary assessment into the potential of microarchaeology to investigate activities and use of space at medieval castle sites, back in 2009. I had an amazing time in Syria, working with a joint Syrian-Hungarian team led by Dr Balázs Major from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University. I've been working on the pilot samples on and off since then, but today is the first time I've had a real chance to go through the data in detail. As ever, microscopic analysis is providing fascinating insights into the archaeology that would otherwise be missed. One of my favourite samples is the floor section to the right. Probably one of the most difficult samples I've ever collected, I ended up having to hack the thing ou...