And finally...

Last night was my very first appearance on television in a local regional news programme on BBC. The slot didn't disappoint, with atmospheric music, helicopter shots of sweeping landscapes, re-enactors in a bloody battle scene, and moody midnight shots in a graveyard.

It's a shame that we didn't manage to get our results done in time for the finished piece. It's a bigger shame that I didn't get my roots done before filming, and that my overriding feeling coming away from it was "why can't York University afford any chairs?".**



** In all seriousness, the filmaker did a lovely job, and it was a fun project to work on. We'll be writing it up soon!


*

My job is weird because...

...today I am x-raying joints of pig that have been bludgeoned by replicas of Egyptian weapons (daggers, axes, maces).

What I have learned is that even meat that is only a few days old can permeate your nostrils in an unpleasant way that you'd not thought possible. Barbecues are not top of my list right now.

Caution: Actual Archaeology Content

This last weekend me, two colleagues, and some intrepid volunteers went to carry out some geophysical and topographical survey on a prehistoric site up near Lockerbie. It didn't start well, when I realised that my tiny Toyota Yaris didn't fit the Bartington magnetometer in his less-than-capacious boot. Cue a traumatic evening trip to Halfords to purchase roof bars. The next morning we realised that jute twine probably wasn't the best method of attachment for a three hour journey, and that four people, their luggage, Barty, the resistance meter, and the DGPS and tripod would be a bit of a squeeze. Still, to give everyone their dues, we got it all in, and Rolf (Yaris) made it all the way to Lochbrow farm with minimal issues, bar a couple of hills.



Once there the weather was predictably dire, but we braved the cold and wet, and the beginnings of Hurricane Katia for the advancement of science.

The site was found via cropmarks by Kirsty as part of her PhD thesis, and also fell within an area predicted by Dot as likely to contain prehistoric activity. So, we dutifully attacked it with all the methods known to man, in the hope that the timber cursus we already knew about, and its context, would be elucidated somewhat. Luckily for us it was, along with a few surprises, both positive and negative, which we'll be writing up soon for your delectation.

A day in the life...

Yesterday I took part in the Day of Archaeology. This was a great project and I've really enjoyed reading the posts. It was also nice that folks I've met at various points in my life: Rome, Canada, etc, turned up as contributors.

In case anyone wants to hear about the sorts of things I get up to of a day, my post is here.

Summer hiatus

This summer has probably been one of the most action-packed of recent years. Back in the days of university and, in particular, the dreaded thesis (*shudder*), summer holidays were in short supply and I think I went about 6 years without one (not counting parental visits).

This year, though, I've been operating the 'change is as good as a rest' policy, as I've been travelling all over, but not actually having any proper holiday time. I left Newfoundland in mid June to return to my alma mater. This was originally supposed to have been to prepare for our fieldwork in Libya, but due to a hiccup with Visas we ended up organising a field season in Croatia instead. A week after I arrived in Birmingham I began the 3 day drive to Hrvatska, accompanied only by a vast array of machines that go *bing*, and a passenger with a great knowledge of Roman North Africa and early Christian churches, but no driving licence.

What followed was an epic catalogue of disasters. We should have known something was up when we were met in Germany by torrential rain and roadworks. It seemed the entire road network through Germany, Austria, and Slovenia was under construction. Still, we made good time and arrived in Split only to get horribly lost in the one way system due to the 'European' coverage sat nav - Mrs Miggins - only operating as far as the Austrian-Slovenian border.

The first couple of days we went out to Sveti Spas in the Cetina Valley, only to be met by the bura (the wind that is alleged to send you mad) and some rather wet weather. Whilst not generally an obstacle for the archaeologist, when 3D scanning it is generally not helpful to have your targets blowing over and the laser bouncing off of raindrops. Serves us right for having too much whizzy equipment. We left one scan short of completing the church.

A rare break in the weather

The rest of the fieldwork, though, consisted of work in the city of Split which was great, if a little difficult working through the tourist throngs and avoiding lightning strikes during one of the worst Mediterranean summers in decades. It also involved a fair degree of extreme archaeology, and my vertigo was a bit of an issue on a number of occasions.

It's higher than it looks.

Being so reliant on technology is also a problem when the processing software licences run out the day you arrive, and your colleague drops the hard drive on the floor causing a strong burning smell and smoke. The nail in the coffin, though, was the news that our GPR specialist had contracted swine flu and was unable to travel. This meant double shifts for the poor geophysicists who were already starting at 5am.

Aside from the various setbacks, the trip was successful and good results were had by all. The drive home was not too horrendous and I treated myself to a marvellous massage once back in Brum. I still reckon I could have charged it to the project.

There then followed 2 weeks of data processing and a huge number of curries, whilst I awaited the arrival of my new Canadian work permit. Lunching with the ladies every day was a real treat and gave me time to catch up on the gossip, and I passed my 32nd birthday with no major incident.

Staying at the Pinder-Wakelam Hostelry was a delight and I still can't believe they put up with me for so long. If only all B&Bs accepted DIY odd jobs and occasional singalongs as payment. I also squeezed in a trip to see the folks in Wales and also one to Bristol where I failed to go see the Banksy exhibition due to the extraordinary queues. I did go to the marvellous Windmill Hill City Farm, though, with my dear brother and nephews. It's sad to hear that the farm is in financial trouble as it's a top notch place. A quick catch up with Trish and Olly gave me my first taste of Settlers of Catan, and I can now safely concur that it is rather ace, especially as I won.

Then via London where I met up with the lovely Jo Weeks, soprano extraordinaire, and then abused the hospitality of published author and common-law-brother-in-law Mr Paul Herringshaw. What circles I move in.

Once back in the New-found-land I volunteered to go digging on the Signal Hill historic site. As a combination of climbing a massive hill every morning and not having excavated in about 8 years, it was a bit of a shock to the system and I spent most evenings popping ibuprofen and whinging to Liam. This is particularly annoying as I am also no fitter or lighter than when I started. It was good fun though, and a real change to (1) actually find stuff (being an historic site stuff has had less time to degrade and material culture is a bit more profuse), and (2) get back to basics after the technological orgy of the Croatian field season. There's certainly a lot less potential for catastrophe. An added bonus was that the site was well-placed for whale spotting, as I saw three (a single and a pair), puffing away just off the coast. I also apparently made an appearance on the CBC news, though lacking a television I was unable to bask in the glory such fame brought.

A long way above sea level.

Today was my last day as backfilling is tomorrow and, as a volunteer, I am excused duty. I am now back to my normal life of emails and obsessively checking Facebook. Posts after today will return to the usual inane comments on my latest knitting project. That is all.




*

7 things...

My brother is evil, and has tagged me in a meme. But, I love procrastination so here goes:

***

1) Unlike my brother's seemingly amazing athletic ability, I achieved the worst time in the year for the 1500m when I was 15. I took an incredible 32 minutes.

2) On my first weekend in Rome I accidentally drunkenly stalked Harrison Ford, then stood back and watched whilst my friend Sophie shook his hand saying "it's fucking great to meet you, I'm a real archaeologist" (*cringe*). I thought every weekend would be like that, but I never saw another famous person for the two years I was there.

3) Continuing on the 'star' theme, I (and my brother) once met Zammo from Grange Hill in the queue to go down a mineshaft whilst on holiday in Yorkshire in the mid 80s. I think he was with his parents and a bit embarrassed. I have photographic evidence.

4) I am in the slow readers' club.

5) Despite being in the slow readers' club, I have some VERY IMPORTANT* academic publications which appear on Amazon: here and here, and a chapter in here. I never tire of googling myself.

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*The only people who have ever cited me, however, are my friends... for a joke.
--

6) I can roll my tongue (in both senses), can only just cross my eyes, can only raise my left eyebrow, not my right, and cannot wiggle my ears. I fear this has stunted my development in many areas of my life.

7) I am never happier than when watching shit on tv. By shit I mean most sci-fi and primetime dramas, not reality tv and daytime soaps. I could be lying though, eating is also top. Ok, I am never happier than when watching shit on tv, whilst feeding my face with fajitas.

***


In order to share the meme misery, I shall now tag some more people (*evil cackle*), though I fully expect them to ignore it, as I should have.

Jeffers
Lisabellela
Alisonicoco
Marios
Rosie

Conclusive proof that the past exists

As an avid avoider of Timeteam I approached BBC's new archaeological drama series "Bonekickers" with some trepidation. Whoever thought the title up deserves a good kicking for a start.

It has always amused me when tv series appear that are based on a subject I (or others) know fairly well. The most recent example being ITV's Primeval, where animals from past eras pop through anomalies and cause mayhem (mostly in London though - so the majority of us are ok!). My other half being a palaeontologist took great delight in pointing out factual errors ("ooh they've scaled up that arthropod about 120%!"), and even I had a baulk at some of the dialogue - my favourite line being where Cutter (the Palaeo Prof) describes the appearance of cretaceous reptiles as "conclusive proof that the past exists". The boy L ended up writing a rather good review of it in the Palaeontological Newsletter (see page 56) which I would heartily recommend. He suggested I do the same for Bonekickers but, as I pointed out to him, I'd be too embarrassed as it was more likely to show up my lack of knowledge in certain areas...

Anyway, I've only seen episodes 1 & 2 so far but it does amuse me how random archaeological facts are crowbarred into the dialogue. "Stand in or away from the trench, not on!") shouted at a postgraduate (soon to be full time team member) who really should have known that in her first year undergraduate. Wafflings of Pitt Rivers' classification systems and, my particular favourite and very close to my own heart: 'Dolly' (the loveable drunken old pervy prof) waving a magnetometer at some female students and demanding they remove their underwired bras. This is something I have done on a few occasions but sadly with less panache. You've got to love it! It's utterly ridiculous, is kicking up a storm on the Britarch mailing lists, and is clearly attempting to appeal to the Da Vinci generation, but I have to admit I'm kind of enjoying it. Just as a guilty pleasure you understand... I may try out the Bonekickers Drinking game for episode 3.

The Joys of GIS

I've had an extraordinarily busy first quarter of this year. After spending 6 years chained to my desk for my PhD I have, since January, travelled to Rome, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Bern (and I'm not counting numerous UK trips as well). I might moan about my job but at least I get to see the world!

This last trip was to Switzerland where I gave a paper about the work I did for my thesis - all about modelling Roman agricultural systems using GIS. It's funny, sometimes I love archaeology and sometimes I hate it. I mostly hated it in the last few months of my thesis (understandably). I would far rather be tinkering with GIS models or out and about on fieldwork than reading and writing about it.

It's funny how I was attracted to GIS - I think it is purely on an aesthetic level. After having given up art and music formally after A-Level it's arguably the closest thing archaeology can get to being creative on a practical level. There's a famous quote (I forget who by) about GIS which argues that GIS is more than just pretty pictures. Whilst this is absolutely true, I think that when you can create images like these, it certainly makes the interpretation that much more interesting when there's something nice to look at!

He say ugg

I've just read about new computer simulations of Neanderthal speech based on their differing vocal tracts as compared to modern humans. (Hear it here, and read the article here).

That audio file confirms all my stereotypes about pre-modern man...

Vancouver Museum of Anthropology

Considering I am an archaeologist, there has been a distinct lack of archaeology-related postings on my blog. I even manged to turn my only archaeologically-related event into talking about crafting. The reason I was in Vancouver was not for a holiday (as some have assumed having seen my snaps), but to man a booth at the annual Society for American Archaeology conference. Here is proof:





Despite spending most days coercing unsuspecting students into studying in the UK, we did at least have a chance to see *some* things, and one of them was the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Being a Mediterranean archaeologist I know aboslutely zilch about North American cultures but despite my lack of knowledge I was amazed by some of the artefacts they have there. If it's not Roman I'm clueless. (Saying that, if it *is* Roman I'm usually clueless too!) . Anyhoo, here are some of my favourites: