Castles and Coprolites

This post is many years in the making! Back in 2018 I was on an excavation at a site called Cronk Guckley on the Isle of Man with my colleague Prof. Chris Fowler, a brilliant theorist and Neolithic specialist, who is co-director of the Round Mounds project. This is a great project with some really exceptional finds, including this beautiful jet bead necklace. The excavation finished in 2022 and we are now completing all the post-excavation analysis. The project is investigating the nature and timing of Bronze Age ‘round mound’ construction and how funerary practices evolved, on the Isle of Man and surrounding islands. These structure are large earthern monuments that were constructed over the top of a burial. The jet necklace is an exciting piece of evidence, not just because of it's beauty, but because it gives us insights into the people - the jet has been sourced to Whitby, so is great evidence for connections between the Isle of Man and mainland Britain in the Bronze Age, an...

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...

You wait a whole year for a blog post, then two come along at once etc. Following the existential musings of the previous post, I figured I'd better post some fun geoarchaeological stuff. I have been working with a number of colleagues on various projects for the past couple of years, that are loosely related, and fall under the general banner of Human-environment interactions in the Hadrian's Wall Landscape. Regular blog readers will remember in 2021 I talked about the new  excavations at Birdoswald . These have been progressing nicely, and we have uncovered all sorts of amazing finds and environmental material. I have also been working with Dr Eline Van Asperen, and Masters student Damian Rudge, looking at long term changes in the environment, and whether these relate to Roman or earlier activities such as lead mining. In 2022 we were awarded a small grant from the Royal Archaeological Institute  to collect some peat cores with the aid of local volunteer groups. Eline a...