Castles and Coprolites

Today I am doing three hours of teaching for PG students on soil. This follows two hours yesterday of teaching 3rd year students sediment micromorphology. My 3rd year Geoarchaeology module is challenging this year, as the class is 75% geography students, so I have had to modify the content a bit to make sure we go over the archaeological concepts. Having non archaeologists in the audience makes you really just how jargon filled the subject is! At the moment the module is set up so that the practical classes are about 25% bulk soil analysis and 75% thin section analysis, but I am tempted to switch this next year and focus on the bulk sediments. As much as I love micromorphology, it is a very challenging subject to teach as it is so time intensive, and I think it would work better as a stand alone module. This will give the students more time to work on materials, and to focus the seminars specifically on micromorphology. At the moment the Geoarchaeology module seminars are focused on br...

I've been preparing for teaching a micromorphology lab class tomorrow, on the topic of architectural materials. Having recently dug out my old laptop ( to look at old job applications... ), I came across my huge archive of micromorphology images. I really need to figure a way of making these available online. I have so many and they are such fantastic references. I found this nice example of a partially burnt aggregate; it is perfect for showing how pseudomorphic plant voids appear in a plant-tempered clay. On the right hand side of the image, the plant temper (grasses) has been burnt, and so has preserved in the form of microcharcoal. On the left hand side, where the aggregate escaped the burning, the plants have totally decayed, leaving only the voids in the shape of the grasses. It also shows how the colour of the sediment change as they are heated, becoming a distinctly darker brown. This sample is from the Deep Sounding midden at Catalhoyuk, some of the earliest deposits that...

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...

Deschutes National Forest April is not usually this busy but I've been away for almost 2 weeks visiting family in Oregon, hence the lack of updates. Prior to that I had a mad week of coursework marking, and now upon returning there's a stack of exam marking in my near future. Do not despair however, exciting micrographs are ready to be posted for May, and to make up for the lack of posting in April, here are some lovely images from hiking in central Oregon. Sorted sediments on meander beach Although it was technically a holiday, I can never resist having a bit of a dig, and spent a lovely afternoon test pitting around the in-laws property in Powell Butte (Crook County). It's hard to break the habit of staring at the ground looking for finds whilst taking a stroll, and last year we found a single fragment of worked obsidian, so this year we decided to start a survey. Nothing archaeological in the test pits alas, but we hope to extend the survey gradually every tim...