Ossamenta

This was the first PZG (professional zooarchaeology group) meeting since my move to Sweden last summer, and I really enjoyed seeing my ex-colleagues again. The meeting was held in Cardiff, where I had never been before, unless you count changing from train to regional bus for a living history event a few years ago. The city centre is fairly compact and can (as evidenced) be seen in two hours, including a visit to the castle, but excluding the art and natural history museum. I can recommend a visit to the castle, not for the actual remains of the Norman castle, which is probably only exciting if you're really into Norman castles or never seen one before, but for the 19th century rooms. They were described as state rooms for the marquesses of Bute, and I went in perfunctory, seeing as I had after all paid for it. But wow! This was not some generic 'seen one, seen them all' fancy rooms for nobles to impress other nobles, but rooms done in total neo-gothic style! I particularly liked the library and the so called Arab room.


Intarsia details from a bookshelf in the library. Click to embiggen.


The actual meeting was in two parts: first several short talks on bone assemblages from feasting - or possibly not feasting! - and then a lunch break at a nice pub nearby. Somewhat of a student pub rather than "traditional", but they served good food and had a beer garden, so no complaints from me.

The talks discussed how to define "feasting", apparently an impossibility if you want to have a definition that can be useful in archaeology. As with all human activities, there are A LOT of variations and exceptions to rules. For example, one feasting definition includes food waste remains from animals not normally eaten to be one marker of "special" meals, but then, how do you exclude animals eaten in times of starvation when you can't be too picky about where your protein comes from? Also, if you define feasting too vaguely, it becomes too all-encompassing and therefore useless in regards to archaeology.

The talks also included two new PhD students talking about their research: Bettina Stolle from Stockholm on late Iron Age/Viking Age ritual-profane deposits, and Thomas Fowler from Nottingham on rabbits and hare. The latter is part of the Easter E.G. project, and will discuss introduction of brown hare and rabbit to Britain as well as distinguishing between brown hare and mountain hare.

We also had an interesting case study from Scotland, where it really goes into what I label "weird shit": a pit with a cattle skull + mandibles and three articulated cattle feet but with the final toe bones missing. As they excavated they found that the fourth cattle foot had been wedged into the cattle's mouth, possibly inserted from the back of the throat rather than from the mouth. No-one in the meeting had ever heard of something similar, so who knows what the reasoning was behind this action? Weird shit indeed.

The final morning thing was an outreach/creativity session. I really liked the creativity idea - useful for people who say they aren't creative, as it really forces you to think outside the box. The idea? One minute to come up with "101 uses for a dead rabbit" - luckily it's a magical rabbit, as after you've done one thing to it, it becomes whole again. We came up with: (several version of) food, lucky rabbit foot, draught excluder, hand puppet, fur hood, selling the bones as fashion accessories to hipsters, including it in a skeleton reference collection (of course!), reference data for Thomas (see above), and several other things I can't remember. We got far less than 101 uses though.

The afternoon session focussed on practical bone and antler working. Some of us leapt with great pleasure on 'making an antler ring' (the Cardiff archaeologists have done that as an outreach thing on several music festivals), and others, myself included, looked at tools and replica objects and talked to the two craftsmen -one an archaeological illustrator with this as a hobby, and the other a MSc student. It's always good to get some practical feedback on things. For example, many articles claim that antler was soaked in water before working as that renders it soft and pliable. The craftsmen said that a little spit was enough - if you soaked the antler the collagen became so soft that it became impossible to carve; just got the blade all gunky. Another thing I learnt was that it's not necessary to fill ring and dot-motifs or other carvings with tar or resins to colour them, just skin oil + dirt from normal use will do that very quickly.


Hand drills and replicas of antler artefacts. Click to embiggen.


After the meeting my holiday continued: I visited a friend outside Cardiff, and then four days in London for research and touristing (unfortunately coinciding with a 30°C heatwave - at least the British Library was cool), and then a weeked of dancing at the Oxford Lindy Exchange (probably the best dance exchange in the UK, not that I'm biased or anything :-) ).

And here I thought that I could go through my Flixborough books tonight and write up the section on Flixborough so I didn't have to take them to the office (the library don't have any of them, and they weigh a fair bit (A4 size books, total width c.10cm)). But no. I need more time - which I don't have as it's close to midnight and I'm oh so tired.

So, guess who has to carry a bunch of heavy books to and from the bus tomorrow?

And I'm back! Well, truth be told I've been back for a while, but life - both at work and off work - has been quite busy and evenings have just gone too quickly. TL;DR version: It was great! Fully recommended.

Longer version:
The MSc courses (plural, as they also gave me the schedule for the general Masters skill module, which turned out be be in turns useful and not applicable) were all on Mondays: mornings and afternoons. The first week I used the time in between to randomly walk the centre of York, to get my bearings. As York still has most of its medieval street network, it took a little while, even considering that I have a good sense of directions. And it's a really lovely town. Reminds me of both Oxford, Cambridge and Lund.

Housing wise I was very lucky, and could stay with a friend's friend's friend not very far from the city centre. Such a luxury to be able to walk to work! Otherwise housing might have been a bit difficult. Most ads I saw online had a minimum of six month's stay, which doesn't work if you're only there for a single term (i.e. ten weeks).

The Ancient Biomolecules course covered most things (DNA, isotopes, proteins, lipids), and thankfully with the assumption that most of us were coming at it from a humanities background rather than science, so they started with a quick basic recap. With only one class per week, it was a lot of reading. They put up the powerpoints on the university intranet so you could go back and check, but as someone who hadn't taken either biology nor chemistry since the age of sixteen, I could have done with a somewhat slower pace. There were also two essays, one not graded - probably so that anyone who didn't get what the teachers were at post-grad level after could be set straight, rather than magnificently fail on that second essay with counted for 100% of the marks for the course. We could choose our own topics for the second essay (with approval from the course teacher), which I thought was really nice. So much better to pick a topic that you are really interested in, rather than being forced to learn something that you either find very difficult or find totally uninteresting. So I played to my strengths and chose to write about zooarchaeology and biomolecular methods. It all went well until I checked my word count* and realised that I had to do some serious editing in order to fit in that last section. And that was something that the examiner picked up as well. Still, can't complain, I got 69! So so close to the magical 70, which turn the grade into "distinction". (For readers elsewhere: The UK university grading system technically runs from 0-100, but where most students will land at 50-70. If you get over 80 you could probably get your essay published with few edits.
*: Luckily the bibliography wasn't included in the word count (although title and chapter headings were), as mine ran for 6.5 pages!

The Masters' Skills module was everything a Masters student would need in order to write their dissertation. Of course, covering _all_ archaeology Masters students, there were sections which were irrelevant to some, and excluded sections that other students would have needed. But I had some good use of Maximizing your MS Word skills (taught by a professional editor who deals with MS Word manuscripts all day long) and discussions on reference databases like Endnote. Less useful classes for me were Using archives, Image depositories (of course if I would do something on British archaeology, they would probably be very useful). The data management and statistics could be an entire module on its own (and apparently previously they had done that one in two classes rather than in one).

Some days I took the bus to the main campus (Archaeology is in Kings Manor in the city centre (Kings Manor being appropriately 16th century; however the archaeology building is 1970s concrete...)) and the BioArCh labs to get some hands-on experience of protein analysis of parchment. It was very fun, and I wish I had had more time for this. The campus itself is quite a labyrinth of paths between various colleges, departments and student housing (almost all 1960s concrete). The big lake in the middle is home to several waterfowl, so if you are afraid of geese (or moorhens, ducks and coots) I would not recommend a visit. Also, there is goose poo everywhere...

But all was not studying! (although I must say that the persons in Sweden who told me that this would be an excellent opportunity for me to write my methods chapter as there would be few distractions and I could get that over and done with, were wildly optimistic on the amount of studying/writing that was needed for the course) I managed to see Whitby Abbey (unexpectedly timing it with the first Whitby Steampunk Weekend!), Durham, Harrogate, Leeds (incl. Kirkstall Abbey and the Leeds Armouries), Saltaire, Manchester and Fountains Abbey. Whitby was fabulous, and I'm so thankful for the café near the abbey ruins as after half an hour running around with the freezing wind straight from the North Sea I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. After cradling a cup of hot tea they were much happier. That wind had eroded so much of the stones of the cathedral that it looked really weird! Like a piece of modern art in a way (see thumbnail below). I only wish I had had more time in Whitby. But that's the problem with depending on public transport, as the York-Whitby buses weren't that frequent.


Whitby Abbey. (Thumbnail: click to embiggen)


Whitby Abbey


Whitby Abbey: a real close-up of some pillars

Durham is a small town around a huge cathedral and castle, and a university on the outskirts. I fully recommend (read: insist!) a visit to the cathedral and the Norman chapel in the castle for anyone interested in c. 12th century architecture and imagery.

Harrogate is alright for a day visit, but failed to leave much impression on me. I guess it's different if you live in the area and you have shopping- or socialising-reasons.

Saltaire is tiny, but definitely worth a visit for an afternoon out. Walk along the canal, go the the Saltmill and see the artgallery, browse the excellent bookshop, look at pretty jewellery, and have tea/cake or lunch.

I wasn't very impressed with Leeds (bearing in mind I mostly stayed in the centre). The entire city centre seemed to be dedicated to shopping, drinking and eating, with few independent shops, and few other things. One exception was the Leeds Corn Exchange, with several independent shops and eateries. I was very impressed by the jeweller Stephen Roper. Not that I need more jewellery (*sits on hands*). Leeds Armouries were big, and I'm glad I didn't go there with someone who was very interested in arms and armours, as I would have spent the remaining part of that day reading a book and waiting for them to be kicked out at closing time. In short: the place is huge and has lots and lots of arms and armour from all over the world. I loved the Agincourt model and I wish I could have done all the figure paintings! Kirkstall Abbey was nice, although pales compared to Fountains Abbey.

Fountains Abbey is one of the largest Cistercian abbeys in England, and don't hesitate to pay the substantial entry fee - you will get a very good price/hour out of it! I thought one hour for ruin, bit of time for tea, but we stayed there four hours! And we didn't go into the adjacent deer park or parish church at all. I definitely recommend a visit, regardless if you're that interested in monastic ruins, as the landscape around it and the 18th century formal gardens are also worth a visit. Nearby town Ripon has less of interest, although the tiny Anglo-Saxon crypt in the cathedral could be worth a detour. There are no fancy carvings in the chapel, although the choir has 15th century misericords.


Fountains Abbey with snow drops. It may look like a big abbey, but you're only seeing a small part of it from this direction...

Manchester was a nice break from the Medieval. It's mainly 19th century, where nicely restored factory buildings (often now expensive flats) rub shoulders with utter ruins in the outskirts of the city centre. I can't personally see how so many buildings are derelict as the short distance from the centre of town would mean good property values and options for both business and housing. But maybe I'm thinking in terms of the south of England, where everything within reasonable commuting distance to London has had its price hiked up to unaffordable for most. I was only in Manchester for a day, and it reminds me a bit about Glasgow: not a town I immediately fell in love with, but a town I believe I could come to like and enjoy if I lived there for a while.

When I left York it was 15°C and glorious sunshine. The cherry trees were blossoming and there were daffodils all along the city walls. I came home to 5°C and damp mist and I wanted to go back straightaway...

Tomorrow I fly to York! (well, technically to Manchester...) I would be so much happier about it if a) I had finished the paper that was due this weekend, and b) if I had written up the grant report that's due at the end of the month. So now there's more paper that needs to be squeezed into my suitcase. Poor suitcase. I'm sure it had know what was going to happen to it, it would have hidden at the back of the shop when I came in.

But it will be fun. Admittedly tomorrow will be a very busy day, what with very early start, and then sorting out accomodation, finding time to finish writing the paper, and starting to finding my way around York. I've been there three times, but only for short durations, and it was a few years ago. Still, I doubt the city centre has changed much.

It's (technically) already November, and I'm having vague thoughts of doing NaNoWriMo this year. Well, sort of: no novel, but getting some words each day on one of my research related projects. I need to get on with writing, even if the text will later be re-edited, possibly to non-recognition. There's the sheep sexing project, my thesis (background stuff can always be written prior to the actual analysis), two hand-in papers for obligatory courses, etc.

However, I'm at home with a massive cold and I'm suspicious that if I don't get started asap, my good intentions will peter out. I know I'm a creature of habit, and if I can do some writing in the evening as part of the general routine, it'll be fine. Meaning: I have to break my habit of browsing the internet for too many hours each evening. And people wonder why I don't have Facebook - that's even more hours of interesting distractions!

Short-term plans:
- get better
- post-illness tidy-up/house cleaning
- write (she wrote hopefully)

Long-term plans:
- put away stuff properly so that the flat is acceptable for friends visiting. Added bonus: I feel so much happier in tidy places, meaning it'll probably be easier for me to be creative, both in academic writing and in my crafts.
- crafting in cafés with some hot chocolate (winter is coming...)

A week ago I stepped into the LUX house (theology and humanities) to meet my supervisor and get settled in. It's been the usual slow start - still waiting for a computer for example (luckily I have my laptop so I can do some work) - but that's not unusual.

I've been to the first meeting of the Research Group for the history-related PhD students. It's a very diverse bunch: from "proper" history to minorities' human rights and 2nd century Greek clothing terminology. Last year most PhD students were at the history department, this year there's only one. We will have seminars with the other universities involved in the group, a couple of courses, and there's lots of opportunities for networking both within Scandinavia and internationally. It looks like it'll be good.

It's still warm and summery outside, but I'm trying to resist temptation to go and have ice cream every day and sit in the sun with a cup of tea chatting away the day. I can't fall into bad habits as I have to concentrate on my research. And finish the sheep write-up... *cough*

Where has the month gone? It's already April, and over here in Oxford we've had a brilliant sunny spring Saturday. I went out for a walk to the town centre and back, stopping at the Town Hall for the popup exhibition which shows our finds from the huge Westgate excavation. I can't wait to get hold of the animal bones: it's not everyday you get the opportunity to do research on a medieval Fransiscan friary!

At the moment I'm working on a completely different site: a multi period rural site, ranging from the Neolithic to the Anglo-Saxon period. So far nothing stands out in particular. Perhaps once the numbers have been properly crunched I might be able to see some chronological changes in animal husbandry.
But one find stood out when I saw it: a bone tool made from a sheep metacarpal. I've seen such bones before - there were several from the East Kent Access Project as well as a small number from other Iron Age and Roman sites in Oxfordshire. Despite being relatively common, we don’t know what their function were. It has been suggested that they are textile tools and that the grooves comes from wear from yarn, but I’m not certain about that: can repeated use of yarn really wear such a small number of distinct grooves? I would instead expect general wear and tear all along the shaft, or a larger V- or U-shaped groove in one or both ends of the shaft.

What do you think, dear readers: have you any ideas what these bones were used for?





As an aside: Ideally one shouldn't write the identification code so prominently if the item may be photographed later, but this was a joint project, and the other company did the washing and marking of the finds (so I can't just walk across the office and tell them off). Mostly these things happen when the person marking is not experienced in spotting the important details of the object, such as writing over the pathology on an animal bone, or - my favourite - across the decoration of a bone mount! I'd like to say our people are better taught, but these things can happen in the best of places, particularly if people are tired and/or inattentive. But it's no disaster: if the metacarpal will be photographed for publication they'll just have to scrape the ink off.

Thanks to the joys of Twitter, I've just read about the discovery of a new Mesolithic burial site in Germany. The Mesolithic, i.e. Stone Age hunter-gatherers for readers not acquainted with European archaeological terminology, was my first favourite time period together with the Viking Age. Since moving abroad I've have had very little opportunity for anything Mesolithic - it seems to only exist as the odd flint scatter over here and not as the bone and flint rich settlement sites we had in southern Sweden.

The burial site is on a small hill near Gross Fredenwalde, Brandenburg, and contains the skeletons of nine individuals, among those a 6 months old baby - the youngest complete skeleton from this time period in Germany. One man had been buried upright in a pit, and radiocarbon dates showed that he had died several centuries after the others, suggesting that the burial site would have had some sort of significance for the later inhabitants.

Only part of the site has been excavated and I wonder if this is an isolated cemetery site or if there was a settlement attached to it, like the Skateholm site in Sweden? I guess only extended excavations will tell.

And now for the links, because you didn't come here just to get my brief summary:
- Quartär - the "proper" archaeological article, with more information than you can shake a stick at. (pdf, in English)
- National Geographic - if you want a brief report that still gives you plenty of information.
- RBB - German article, with video.

- If you are a student who wants to go to the Association for Environmental Archaeology's spring conference in Orkney (combineable with the spring PZG meeting and archaeomalacology working group meeting), but are short of cash, the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (ScARF) is offering seven bursaries (deadline 15 February).

- The deadline for Association for Environmental Archaeology's research grant is the 31st January. If you're like me, a member of the AEA and planning to do some environmental archaeology related research in 2016, don't forget to apply!

- There is a fully funded PhD on offer at York University, on Mesolithic bone tools and peptide mass fingerprinting for species identification (deadline 11 February). Post-MA me (2000-2001 or so) would have gone for it immediately, but I've not done anything Mesolithic in ages. Well, not since writing my MA dissertation. The project sounds really cool though! Best of luck to whoever gets it.

My plan for a quiet December, with time to finish some sewing and crafting projects before Christmas, has been totally smashed. Last Friday, I found out that Uppsala University in Sweden has announced one fully funded Ph.D. position in archaeology (in Uppsala) and one in osteology (in their Gotland campus). Both have deadlines in the beginning of January, so that's me writing and thinking proposals all December. I'm very tempted to head off to the library today to check out a book that sounds very useful, but it's supposed to be gale force winds and heavy rain in an hour or so according to the forecast, so it would be better to postpone the library visit until Monday or Tuesday evening.

I'm a tad bit concerned about the osteology Ph.D., though. I've studied at the Gotland campus one term during my undergraduate years, and while the town (Visby) is lovely, and I'd love to live there again, it is also a bit remote. Will there be enough relevant books in the university library, or do I have to fly to Stockholm or Uppsala on a regular basis to be able to do my research? Because that will eat up a fair bit of the grant. Well, I'll phone the university next week and ask a lot of questions, so there's no need to worry too much today. Perhaps I will dedicate this day to sewing and crafting and have a proper relaxing Sunday.