Castles and Coprolites

Field season is beginning a bit earlier than usual for me this year. 2015 - 16 was wonderfully successful in terms of project development and grants, which in turn means that there is a lot going on in 2017. The first round will start at the end of next week, when I will be heading off to Oregon for the main period of fieldwork for the NERC project at Paisley Caves, which I've been blogging about a fair bit. I can't wait to be back in central Oregon getting my hands dirty, literally. It is such a beautiful landscape, very quiet and we'll be a small team, which I prefer. We'll be camping near the site, and taking showers at Summer Lake Hot Springs.  So the stress of sampling at such an important site will be rewarded with a bit of relaxation at the end of the day! When I get back from Oregon I'll be making frantic arrangements to get my research visa for Turkey. This involves leaving your passport on the consulate in London for 1-2 weeks, which is a bit difficult w...

Oh the excitement! Today I received a parcel from Earthslides , with 20 new thin section samples from the Ness of Brodgar . These samples were collected in 2014 and are mostly from the Trench T midden. Although I don't yet have the kit in place to do a proper analysis, I couldn't resist having a quick peek with my old Swift scope. The level of complexity is daunting - so may fine layers of stratigraphy hidden within layers that appear relatively homogeneous in the field. But already I can see something interesting things - layers of burnt peat,  a very large amount of burnt bone, and even a tiny fragment of red ochre pigment, about 2mm in diameter. This pigment has been found in various contexts in Orkney (and elsewhere around the world), for example Gordon Childe at Skara Brae found containers of pigment he interpreted as 'paint pots '.  At the Ness it is thought that the pigment was ground down and used as a paint for the stone walls in buildings. Behold my attempts a...

Just taking this opportunity to share a video I recently posted on my YouTube page, from my talk at the Archaeological Research in Progress conference 2015, organised by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland . Any feedback and comments on this would be much appreciated, as it is the first 'full length' talk I have done that has been recorded (by the talented Open Access Archaeology ). I now have a grand total of 3 videos posted on YouTube, and it got me thinking about the idea of doing video-blogging. Is this something that people would find interesting? I was thinking of doing short videos that summarise different aspects of my work (and related research areas), and including PowerPoints that I have previously used in my teaching - this could either be at a very introductory level, or a little more advanced. What sorts of topics would people like to see? Also taking this opportunity to share my IndieGoGo campaign again, which is now half way through and on 21% - thank yo...

Some exciting news for my research at the Ness of Brodgar! I just heard from Earthslides.com that the 2014 samples are well under way being set in resin. I thought readers might be interested in a quick post on the process of creating archaeological thin sections, and I do recommend that you go check out the Facebook page, Hidden Worlds , if you want to investigate this further. Below you can see block of sediment, as collected in the field. These were posted direct from Orkney to Cambridge, wrapped up tight in tissue, tape and bubble wrap, to avoid disturbance during transport. These are carefully unwrapped and air dried over a few weeks, before being transferred into large desiccators. These are the big glass domes you can see below, and they have tight sealing lids that create an air tight seal. Resin is added to the plastic boxes containing the samples, and the whole thing is put under vacuum, using a pump. This removes all the air and draws the resin up into all the little spaces...

Regular readers of my blog will have heard that I am soon to be leaving academic research for a while, and will be working full time doing outreach and recruitment work, part of which will be encouraging women and students from disadvantaged backgrounds to study geosciences and engineering. However, I hope this is not the end of my work as a geoarchaeologist, and I have been developing a plan to stay involved in archaeology in a voluntary capacity. Initially I thought about trying to do this as a consultant, but to be honest there just isn't the market for this type of work outside academic research, and in any case I would much rather focus on the teaching aspect, where I can give my time to projects that interest me, rather than any old commercial work. So, I have devised a plan to set up a travelling field laboratory, initially to complete my work at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, but with the longer term aim of doing outreach work with school groups and volunteers, using archa...

Back in March I mentioned that I was involved in a sciart collaboration, where artists and scientists come together to work on collaborative art projects, inspired by scientific research. I love this idea. I was always really into both art and science growing up (and took Art as an A Level subject!), and although I choose to go down the 'science' route for my career, I have maintained a keen interest in art, and particularly how we can use artistic expression to communicate scientific research. The artist I have been working with is Molly McEwan , an Edinburgh based artist and graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and talented ceramicist.  The photos to the left are a sneak preview from Molly's exhibition at Wednesday's Girl, a free exhibition showcasing the work of female artists from Scotland, held at Space Club and supported by Somewhere To , an organisation provides spaces and venues for young people across the UK. Molly's solo exhibition , ...

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

ORCA project officer Dan explains what's going on with middens Marvelous midden at the Ness of Brodgar - check out those ashy layers! Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to be awarded 2 small grants from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Orkney Archaeological Society , to carry out a pilot microarchaeology study at the Ness of Brodgar site in Orkney. The Ness of Brodgar is part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site , and excavations are directed by Nick Card of ORCA/UHI . The site is one of the finest examples of Neolithic archaeology in the UK (along with the rest of Orkney!), and the extent of preservation of the buildings and middens provides a rare opportunity to study the subsistence activities of the inhabitants. The architecture here is some of the most impressive I've ever seen. It's interesting to note that the dates for the Neolithic here go to around 2500BC - roughly the same date that the Great Pyramid of Giza was cons...