Castles and Coprolites

As part of a postgraduate module I am co-convening, Landscape Archaeology: Theory and Practice, I will be taking a group of Masters students into the field in a few weeks time to teach them the joys of soil transect surveys. We've even bought a brand new shiny hand auger kit. I am quite pleased with how the handbook and plan have turned out. We're lucky to have the amazing landscape of Northumberland to work with, and the area we are looking at, Milfield Basin, has had extensive archaeological and geoarchaeological analysis so there is plenty of background material for the students to refer to. Preparing this exercise has been strange in some ways and almost nostalgic, as this was one of my first experiences as a geoarchaeologist. As part of my MSc Geoarchaeology, we were tasked with doing a borehole survey and writing it up like a professional commercial report. I remember distinctly the terror of being sent out with a hand auger, and being left to get on with it. There is not...

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...

Guest post! Despite having similar theoretical backgrounds, it is obviously clear that the methods and technologies used in maritime archaeology differ drastically from terrestrial research. Though volumes have been written on my particular discipline, I wanted to present a more personal and perhaps more accessible example of what life on the water is truly like.      As with any field archaeological project our day starts early, typically before sunrise. We usually rise somewhere around   5 am and prepare for the day. We arrive at the local marina where our survey vessel is currently stowed, in this particular case we have the luxury of keeping the vessel in the water and don’t have to launch and recover it on a daily basis. Supplies are refilled, boat engines are checked and the equipment is prepped. For the current survey we are utilizing a side-scan sonar and magnetometer, supported by an echo-sounder to gather bathymetric data (water de...