Castles and Coprolites

This week we had the annual research away day for the Department of Archaeology at Durham . It was the first such event I have been to since joining the department just over a year ago, and it was great to see the range of brilliant work going on across the breadth of the discipline. I presented a short provocation on what the future of archaeology might look like in an era increasingly shaped by biomolecular data.  We are unquestionably living through what has been termed a 'biomolecular turn' in archaeology. Advances in ancient DNA, proteomics, lipids and isotopic analysis have opened up extraordinary possibilities for reconstructing past lives, movements, diets and relationships. These methods have transformed the kinds of questions we can ask, and in many cases, the kinds of answers we can plausibly give. But they also raise important challenges. As with DNA evidence in forensic science, biomolecular data is powerful, but it does not speak for itself. It must be interpreted...

Last month I spent a day at the Daresbury laboratory for a RICHeS data day, to think about how we will manage data for our facilities and make it accessible. This is a daunting task, but a challenge I am excited to tackle, working together with the Heritage Science Data Service team. One of the highlights of the day was touring the Visual Computing Labs. Seeing full laser scans and digital models of entire cities (in this case Liverpool) was genuinely awe inspiring. These aren’t just impressive visualisations, but complex data‑rich representations that can be interrogated. In archaeology, where we constantly move between scales, from microscopic residues to landscapes and infrastructures, the potentials are endless. What might we learn and better understand if we can apply these technologies to ancient cities? Another highlight was seeing virtual museums integrated with a treadmill system. The user sees a virtual environment and feels as if they are moving through it. It felt like an...

  I’m writing a book! “Archaeological Excrements and the Study of Foodways”, for the CUP Elements series, has been occupying most of my brain for the past few months. The heavy writing is now finished, which means I’ve reached my favourite stage, preparing the figures. In other words, an entirely valid excuse to spend quality time at the microscope, revisiting some old friends in the slide cabinet. This week’s nostalgia trip took me back to 2012, when I’d recently finished my PhD and was working as a research assistant. At the time, I’d started a small pilot study at the brilliant Boncuklu site in Türkiye. The idea was to compare the midden deposits there with those from Çatalhöyük, that were the focus of my PhD. Unfortunately a postdoc never materialised to take this project further, but writing the book has given me the perfect opportunity to look at these slides again properly. They are very different to the Çatalhöyük middens, not only in terms of taphonomy, but in the actual ...