Castles and Coprolites

It’s hard to believe it’s already been six months since I joined Durham University . The time has absolutely flown by, and I’ve found myself in the midst of a whirlwind of new ideas, collaborations, and opportunities that are making this next chapter of my career incredibly exciting. One of the most rewarding aspects so far has been the chance to work across disciplinary boundaries. There’s a real appetite here for collaboration, and I’ve been lucky to connect with brilliant colleagues in engineering, biosciences, and computer science. Together, we’re developing a cross-department XR-CT centre, bringing together our  complementary facilities in Archaeology and Engineering . I’ve also been exploring new collaborations with the computer science team, particularly around machine learning for XR-CT segmentation and analysis. There’s huge potential here, not just for streamlining workflows, but for transforming how we interpret complex datasets in archaeology. We’re already thinking ...

It finally happened. After continuously posting since 2012, 2024 was the first year I didn't make a single blog post. To be fair, 2022 and 2023 weren't exactly prolific either, but I did manage a handful of posts. There is an explanation for this. 2024 overall was a incredibly stressful year, and I didn't manage to get much of anything done, as most of my time was taken up trying to solve a rather major problem. Back in 2021 I was lucky to apply successfully for an AHRC Capability for Collections grant , to establish NEMCAS (formerly Newcastle Material Culture Analytical Suite). Over the following 3 years, I worked hard with my technical team and colleagues to build up our portfolio of research in the facility, and build collaborations with museum partners in the north-east. I also worked very hard developing a relationship with the AHRC, as part of my vision for NEMCAS was to integrate into the new RICHeS programme that we knew was on the horizon. RICHeS ( Research Infras...

And we're nearing the end of 2023. After a few years of sporadic infrequent posting, I've accepted the fact this will never be the weekly blog that it started out as, all the way back in 2012. My life is almost unrecognisable now compared to when I first started this blog. I was halfway through my first postdoc at York, had no family responsibilities, and publishing my PhD research was going really well. On the surface, an up and coming ECR with a bright future. It took another four years of postdocs before finally getting a permanent academic job in 2015 , literally at the point when I'd decided to leave academia ( and in fact had been in a non-academic job for 6 months ). Since getting married and having a baby, the uncertainty of temporary contracts and having to move around so much was no longer viable. I am not sure how things would have turned out had I not landed my current job. I was happy to have some stability, but the loss of identity as an academic during those ...

What makes archaeologists angry? Please share your worst rants - it’s research for a new vlog 😈 — ArchaeoDuck (@ArchaeoDuck) 5 November 2017 Twitter is not long enough for this rant. I was reassured to see a lot of the responses to this tweet mirrored my own concerns. Whilst I do have academic annoyances about archaeology to do with methods and interpretation, these feel so minor in comparison to the frustration I feel about archaeology as a profession. It all links in with the history of archaeology as a discipline. Other responses touched on the 'cult of the object' - despite moving beyond being about pretty objects, the popular image of archaeology still focuses on the objects, rather than what archaeology can tell us about society, and how it is relevant to the present and future. What hope have we to convince people archaeology is an important academic subject when the popular opinion is that it is lovely and all that but really just frivolous. The history of arc...

Following my post a couple of days ago I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and thought I would get some other opinions to add to my own. I had a chat with some senior academics I have worked with who have been involved in the hiring process of postdocs and academic staff, 1 from a science-heavy background, 1 who is a straight archaeology/regional specialist and 1 who is a bit of both. I asked a series of questions regarding publications, and the answers were pretty interesting. Largely they reflected my own perceptions, but there were a few noteworthy points that I hadn't considered. 1. What do you look for in terms of a candidate's publication record? As we know, peer reviewed journals are important, followed by books in the sciences, with the quality of the book publisher being important. Being an editor of conference proceedings was also noteworthy, but the quality of the papers mattered, and also where it was published. However the overall message was that go...