Castles and Coprolites

A couple of months ago, I was invited to become a Fellow of the Geological Society of London . It was a nice moment of recognition, and one I was very happy to accept. At the same time, I’m also aware that this is not entirely unusual - learned societies are, understandably, looking to broaden their memberships, and a Professor of Geoarchaeology is an obvious easy win. Still, there is something genuinely meaningful about being welcomed into an organisation with such a long and influential history. The Geological Society of London, founded in 1807, is the oldest geological society in the world, and one that has played a central role in shaping how we understand the Earth. It has been home to many of the figures whose work underpins not just geology, but also archaeology, palaeoecology, and environmental science more broadly. To be part of that lineage, however loosely, feels significant. I am especially happy as the Society actually is closely linked to the history of my own research. C...

The arrival of new thin sections is always exciting, but always daunting at the same time. Sediment micromorphology has to be one of the more challenging geoarchaeological techniques, simply because of the huge variety in the types of material you can encounter, and a deposit from one site never quite looks the same as one from another, even when they are related to similar activities. The samples from Case Bastione were collected to investigate formation processes and activities of a number of features in the Bronze Age settlement, including a large 'burnt' layer, and some strange pit deposits. The most striking thing about all the samples is the ubiquitous presence of these teeny tiny little creatures - my educated guess is that these are tiny foraminifera of some sort , present within limestone/chalk or another carbonate material (I need to do some research on Sicilian geology!). What is slightly confusing is the presence of a spherulite like appearance within the shells in...