Castles and Coprolites

Phytoliths from Catalhoyuk TP Area The reeds decay, the wheat decays, and all The silica preserves within the ground. Remains of binding, and mats that lie beneath Many a summer’s children dead and gone A type of immortality - Organics wither slowly in time’s arms Here in the quiet depths of the earth A white impression yet shows what once has been A hidden record of the past Deposited, now soon to be revealed. Behold! This opal shadow, once a plant; A fascinating glimpse into past choices For fuel and crafts and fodder we can see Phytoliths from Catalhoyuk South Area A diverse array of use other than food! I asked thee “show me your secrets” Then didst thou grant mine asking with a glance Through concave lens of ‘scope Opal shapes, reveal the truth Of all that was, in ashes.

I'm pleased to announce that we have had two session accepted for the 7th World Archaeological Congress . The first is a poster exhibition of micromorphology images in collaboration with Earthslides.com, which I talked about last month , Hidden Worlds - Revealing the Microscopic Archaeological Record . The second is a symposium, Integrated analytical approaches to investigating ancient diets , and we are now accepting paper contributions, for more details check out the call for papers here .

BioArCh PhD candidate Harry Robson excavates Flixton Back out in the field, at long last, on a day trip with fellow micromorphologist, Helen Williams (PhD candidate at the University of York). This is a bit of a change for me; normally heading off on field work involves long journeys in hot foreign places, but today I had to go no further than an hour down the road to Flixton, Scarborough. Not such a long journey and fortunately the weather was great. I’m not going to say hot as the last place I went to that was ‘hot’ was 40 ° + ( in the 100 ° s), and I think if it ever got to that temperature in the UK it would literally be breaking the record.  And an added bonus to local fieldwork - a nice cup of Yorkshire tea afterwards with Helen's parents! As I mentioned a few months ago , I will be joining the Star Carr project next year as a part-time microarchaeology specialist, which will involve advising on micromorphology, geochemistry and phytoliths amongst other things....