Castles and Coprolites

Not too much to report, aside from the fact I've had a productive and successful, albeit short, field trip this year. I managed to collect 20 large block samples during the week I've been here, which is more than enough to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future. The midden deposits I sampled in Trench T cover the early to late sequence, and hopefully we will be able to distinguish differences in activities and resource use between these phases. Will we see similar things going on here as we see in the main excavation area? Or will there be differences between these two parts of the site? Just some of the many questions we are hoping to answer! For now I will leave you with these fine images of the site being covered over until next year! More tyres than archaeologists

Dig house in the distance, Stones of Stenness to the right. Ominous rain clouds overhead. Day 2 at the Ness. I had some things to sort out in Kirkwall this morning so took the local bus to site. It only takes about 30 minutes but it drops off on the main road, and then you have to walk all the way along the peninsula to get to the excavation. Lovely view, but increasingly rainy and windy the further you get towards site, almost as if it’s in its own little otherworldly wet dimension. Glad I invested in an all-weather notebook. On site I’ve been getting on with taking micromorphology samples out of the midden section in Trench T. The excavation in this part of the site is being supervised by Dr Ben Chan, who I previously worked with on the Feeding Stonehenge project. There are other familiar faces from York too – Prof Mark Edmonds and Alison McQuilkin, who recently completed her dissertation on phytoliths from the famous Mesolithic site of Star Carr. The Ness is like a magnet for ...

Layers of ashy midden deposits sitting on glacial till A dizzying view of excavations in Trench T After a small adventure involving delayed flights, gale force winds and navigating with no GPS signal (how did we ever cope before smart phones with Google Maps?), I finally arrived in Orkney yesterday. This is actually the last week of excavation before the trenches are covered over until next year, so it’s all very quiet on site. Most of the students have left, and the remaining teams are working to complete recording by the end of the week. I have had a quick tour around to get a feel for what’s happened since I was here last year, and have spent today planning my sampling strategy. As usual so much is going on and there’s plenty for a micromorphologist to do. This year I am focusing on collecting samples from middens in Trench T. Regular blog readers will have seen the snippets I’ve posted about my analysis of middens in the central excavation areain 2013 . Although analysis o...

I'm pleased to announce the publication of the final article on my work at Margat Castle, Syria: Shillito, L-M., Major, B., Almond, M., Anderson, E. and Pluskowski, A. in press. Micromorphological and geochemical investigation of formation processes in the refectory at the Castle of Margat (Qal’at al-Marqab), Syria Journal of Archaeological Science For those without a subscription the final version of the manuscript is also available open access on my academia page here (you'll need to log in). This is the end product of a pilot study I started in 2010. It was initially envisaged to be a test for a larger program of research, looking at differences in activities and resource use between different phases of the castle's occupation, but unfortunately due to the deteriorating situation in Syria, I was never able to return. I still have the lovely gifts I was given by the Syrians I worked and lived with. I wish there was some way of knowing if they are ok. I have posted ...

I don't really do 'advice' posts that often, but I was inspired to do this after a recent 'mini interview' I did for the Chronicle of Higher Education on what it's like doing multiple postdocs in the humanities. The resulting article is all a bit more doom and gloom than I was expecting, so I thought I would do my own version here that focuses on the positives. Disclaimers. 1. The Chronicle article I assume is for a US audience, and it's worth pointing out that there is  a terminology difference. Postdocs in the UK, at least in my field, are not really training positions, but contract research jobs. You may get some additional training but that's not the main purpose, and you're expected to be able to do the job from day one. 2. Also I am an unusual case in many ways, as I sit right in the middle of the sciences and humanities, and actually for the scientists in my field it's the norm to do multiple postdocs and fellowships.3.  And my case is ...

It's been a while since I've been in the lab, but last week I got to spend the entire week working in the NERC LSMSF (Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry Facility) in the Organic Geochemistry Unit at the University of Bristol. I have worked with Bristol for many years now as they have arguably the best set up in the world for archaeological and environmental geochemistry. For this visit I was working mostly on samples from the Ecology of Crusading project , with a few extra coprolite samples thrown in from Catalhoyuk and Durrington Walls (more on those at a later date!). The EoC samples are part of a larger programme of geochemical analysis, designed to look at human impacts on the landscape associated with colonisation in the medieval period. We are looking for evidence of increased faecal inputs (lovely!) associated with clearance of land for pasture, and maybe even human 'sewage' inputs from intensification of activity. Although I have developed the facilities for pot...

Followers of my Twitter account may recognise these little creatures! I posted the pics separately a while ago to see if anyone could help with identification. So far no response, if anyone has any clues or reference suggestions do let me know. Both are from medieval floor deposits that have undergone significant post-depositional bioturbation. The lower image is one of my favourites. The hyphae are like little tentacles that spread all the way through the sediment. That is the little string like projections that you can see extending from the sporongium. Which is the spherical bit containing all the little spores, and in this particular view is nice and ripe with little spores bursting forth. It is quite creepy to come across all of a sudden when you are looking down a microscope and not expecting it! The one at the bottom has a clear area in the middle, because the top has been abraded away during the thin section preparation process. Basically we are looking at an 'aerial' v...