Castles and Coprolites

I just got back from a great visit to Bristol, to discuss timetables and a plan of action for the NERC grant. My coI is Dr Ian Bull of the OGU , and expert on all things faecal biomarker related. The last time I was in Bristol was in 2014, when I was a research fellow at Edinburgh , doing a whole range of pilot studies on various projects. The first time I went to Bristol was during my PhD, around 2004, to be trained in faecal biomarker analysis. Ian is like the unofficial third supervisor and the guy who showed me how to write a good academic paper. So it's somewhat surreal, but exciting, to be going back there as a PI. I'm always blown away by the amazing laboratory facilities they have -  it has to be one of the best places in the world for organic geochemistry, and there's always some fancy new kit to gawk at. We had a visit to the new radiocarbon AMS lab in archaeology. It's the first time I've seen one of these in person - such a complex bit of kit, it's i...

I love this image. It's another one from Catalhoyuk , a nice midden in the South Area (unit 17739). I published a paper on these deposits in Antiquity which included this image , so I'll let you read the paper to find out more about this area and its significance. Here I wanted to show a close up of this image and the beautiful but daunting complexity of archaeological deposits under the microscope. What we are looking at is a tiny fragment of wall plaster mixed in with ashy debris and charcoal. A few years ago I did a post about these plaster deposits, as they are found within buildings at Catalhoyuk , on floors and walls. By counting the layers we can see the frequency with which the inhabitants were re-plastering and 'repainting' their houses - regular cycles of maintenance on an annual and seasonal basis. This layer in the midden shows a fragment which has fallen off a wall, and somehow made its way into the midden, probably through sweeping and dumping of debris, ...

I have a very important deadline tomorrow, hence it's the perfect time to do a blog post for Doug's Archaeology Blogging Carnival.  Last year I took part in a series of posts about the purpose of blogging . This time the theme is Grand Challenges facing archaeology, specifically the participant's archaeology. In my case of course this is geoarchaeology. It's a good theme for me, as it's something I've been reflecting on a lot recently. I am writing a paper on investigating 'use of space', and multi-proxy approaches in archaeology. It's half review, half critique, and is turning into a bit of a monster. What follows is some of the central thoughts I am discussing in that paper, so actually any comments and feedback would be much appreciated! One of the major challenges that I see facing geoarchaeology, is the integration of data from different scales. How do we use data collected for example at the microscale (such as geochemical patterning of floor...

This weekend I went to my first AEA conference . As a student, then as a fixed term post-doc, it is difficult to fund conference attendance, and also to find the time when there are so many conferences to choose from. Having done a few years of the big conferences ( SAA and EAA ) to maximise audience and networking opportunities, I’ve decided to spend some time at the smaller ones, where I can focus on my specific interests. Overall it has been an enjoyable weekend, and it was great to be back in York and catch up with old friends and colleagues, including Matthew Collins , who I can’t thank enough for writing me many references over these past few years (I bet he’s relieved that I finally got a job so he can stop writing them!). There are three ‘themes’ that stood out for me at the conference. The first was the study of taphonomy, and how wildly different this is between different techniques in environmental archaeology. The second was the recognition of the advantages of inte...

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...

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...

Team palynology and zooarchaeology Team archaeobotany and geoarchaeology Lovely weather here in London today, though mostly being experienced inside a meeting room at the Warburg Institute ! I'm away from Edinburgh this week, firstly for a project meeting for the Ecology of Crusading project and then for a week of lab work in Bristol - more on that to come! This weekend I am here with fellow team members Rowena Banerjea , Alex Brown , Monica Badura and PI Aleks Pluskowski , discussing our  analyses of deposits from medieval Riga. This is the first time we've all got together to integrate our data, and to get updates on the dating of the deposits. So far  we have potentially the earliest known building in Riga, on the basis of dendrochronological dates, and some great archaeobotanical data on the types of plant materials that were being used - along with the micromorphology it looks like a lot of the plant material is associated with construction, such as wood chipping...

Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago , here is another snippet of geoarchaeological observations from my recent road trip across the US. As I mentioned in the previous blog, the coast to coast trip was a great chance to observe the gradual changes in geology, vegetation and climate that happen across the continent, and how these link with the archaeological preservation. In the humid subtropical climate of the Florida pan-handle we saw a lot of water action and salt precipitation occurring at Fort Pickens, with relatively degraded brick structures that are only around 180 years old. The contrast in New Mexico is significant. The climate here is semi arid to arid, and the preservation of the brick structures (about 1000 years older than those at Fort Pickens) in the Chaco Culture National Park is fantastic. However we do still see other types of weathering occurring. Whereas most people would be taking pictures of the fantastic structures (actually, I did that too...), I ...