Castles and Coprolites

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking over the past year about women in archaeology. I've become increasingly aware of the concept of privilege and the impacts it has on the structure of academia, and since joining Twitter it is something I reflect on regularly. Twitter really is one of the best sources of information and interaction on this topic, letting you connect directly with so many people and understand different viewpoints. It is through Twitter that I became aware of the Trowel Blazers website, dedicated to promoting the contributions of women in geoscience, palaeontology and archaeology. I did a post for them recently on Florence Bascom , and hope to contribute more in future. It got me thinking about my own career and the people who have influenced it, many of who happen to be women. So here is a list of inspiring Trowel Blazing women who have influenced my career from starting university to the present day, in roughly chronological order of influence! Dr...

Sometimes I find it hard to put myself into a subject area box. I was a Geography undergraduate, a Geoarchaeology MSc student, and did a PhD jointly in Chemistry and Archaeology. What does that make me? I used to say I was a geoarchaeologist, applying the methods of geoscience to archaeological questions. But I realised that was too narrow, as even the methods I draw upon vary depending on the question being asked, and indeed a multi-proxy approach is something which I try  to promote. My main research interests are the relationships between humans and the environment, how this has changed over time, and how it varies in different geographic settings. Very much a theme of environmental archaeology, but also geography. Geography has been called the subject that bridges the human and physical sciences, encompassing the Earth and all of its natural and human components, and the dynamic relationship between the two. Physical geography seeks to describe and explain the spheres of t...

Paisley Caves became well known a few years ago for it's famous coprolites, or fossil faeces, which were found to contain human DNA, dated between 14,170 and 14,340 cal. BP. Although there have been questions over the identification of these as human (and work is still ongoing), this ancient DNA analysis currently provides some of the earliest evidence for human occupation of North America. The research at Paisley has been key in demonstrating the utility of coprolites as an archaeological ecofact that can contribute to the wider picture of the human past, rather than simply a 'novelty' area of study or one which is purely ecological . But human poop isn't the only kind we find at Paisley Caves, in fact it isn't even the most common, by far! In this month's micrographs we have pictures of the poop that occurs most frequently at the site, bat poop. This stuff is fascinating, and is a huge contributor to the sediment profile of the caves. In the upper left at the...