Castles and Coprolites

I was invited today to take part in a blogging carnival, related to a Blogging in Archaeology session at the upcoming SAA conference . Quite handy actually as I can't attend the conference in person this year due to teaching commitments. What is a blogging carnival you may ask? Check out the original post on Doug's Archaeology here. Each month leading up to the session, a question is posted, and participants can choose to answer it via their blog. The answers are then all summarised at the end of the month. Hopefully this will highlight some new archaeology blogs to add to the long list I already follow (maybe I should do a post about that!). Anyhoo. Here are my answers to the first set of questions: Why did you start a blog? I had been meaning to start one for years before I actually did. I have been a big user of social media since I was an undergrad, but always for personal rather that professional purposes. I eventually started my blog at the beginning of 2012 af...

Here we have a series of micrographs showing a seed, embedded within waterlogged midden deposits at Neolithic Catalhoyuk. These are the earliest deposits from the Deep Sounding in the South Area, and are some of the only waterlogged contexts at the site. These deposits make a particularly interesting comparison to the later middens at the site, as we can look at the differences between waterlogged and non-waterlogged versions of similar deposit types. In the many sections I have looked at, getting sections through seeds like this does not occur too often. I have see larger seeds from Celtis (hackberry) more frequently. This teeny little seed looks like it might be a Chenopod (the little bump on the left of the seed is a feature of Chenopods), though I'd have to ask an archaeobotanist to confirm. The exciting thing about this is you can see the organic part of the seed still preserved within the endocarp - the orangey colour is typical of mineralised organic remains. In the lowe...