Castles and Coprolites

A little bit late this month as I've recently moved office and only just had my microscope camera software installed on my new PC. Incidentally this is also the reason I haven't added scale bars to these images, as I haven't had the chance to calibrate the magnification for the software (you have to tell the computer what the magnifications are by taking measurements of known lengths on a micrometer). The image to the left is at x10 magnification, the one on the right is x20. Here we are looking at some ashy deposits from the Babylonian city of Tell Khaiber, Iraq (being excavated as part of the Ur region project ). These are absolutely full of plant phytoliths and grass derived microcharcoal. The structure of these conjoined cell phytoliths is beautifully preserved. I have highlighted the multiple layers of plant tissue that are likely to be from reeds (a bundle of stems?). The stacked bulliform phytoliths are typical of reeds, and are often seen as individual cells. Here w...

I've just been notified of the publication of this great new paper via Google Scholar citations, as it cites my paper on lipid analysis of coprolites . That's not the only reason I'm writing about it mind you - anything dung related gets my attention, and this is one of the first papers to come out of the Ce ntral Zagros Archaeological Project , which I was involved with a number of years ago. The CZAP project aims to understand the origin and process of animal domestication and agriculture in the Central Zagros region of Iran and Iraq, and the team have also conducted ethnographic studies in modern villages in the area, in order to help interpret the archaeology. This paper by Elliot et al reports on a mix of ethnographic studies and scientific analysis of modern dung and plants. The authors look at the dung spherulites in modern samples of sheep, goat and cows - those little spherical particles that form in the guts of animals . Despite being used frequently to support t...