Castles and Coprolites

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....

Fair Star Carr, we weep to see You fade away so soon: As yet the archaeologists, Have not unearthed your boon. Stay, stay Until the field seasons Have run Unto their final year; And having found your secrets, we Will leave you with good cheer. We have five years to study you, Three seasons yet to dig                The dryland and the lake, Find bone points, and antler picks. We’ll try Before the land acidifies, To take Soil samples, pollen cores; So many Mesolithic clues Beside the relict shores.    We started planning the geoarchaeological aspects of the new Star Carr excavations this afternoon. The latest round of research at the site begins this year with Nicky Milner's 5 year ERC project. It looks like it will be quite challenging from a microarchaeology perspective, not least because of the peaty sediments which are notoriously difficult to thin section! But I do like a challenge. My invo...