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Investigating the Profession and Research
Browsing All posts tagged under »Archaeology«
Refugees are not just for Christmas – how “advocacy” is going to cause harm
This is a story about how the war in Ukraine was used to gain attention, without apparent regard to the harm it is/will cause. While I do share some information obtained while working as the Deputy-CEO of FAME, everything presented here are my own thoughts and not that of any of my employers. Bad Ideas […]
How can we improve the legacies of archaeological community engagement in place making?
July 1, 2020
Engaging local communities is part of the remit of many development-led archaeological investigations, whether through open days, site visits, active participation, school outreach and evening talks. This engagement varies but its underlying aim is to support the understanding and enjoyment of the communities’ local historic environment. However, this is almost always short term, project focused […]
Early Career Researchers in Archaeology
June 26, 2020
This session is designed to highlight early career researcher’s work in various area of archaeology (including Marine/Maritime,Finds and Heritage Management) and to look at collaborative research being undertaken by early career professionals in the academic, public, commercial and voluntary sectors. Papers may focus on specific sites, methodologies, processes, artefacts or indeed, personal career journeys. The […]
Offshore development: creating a legacy for marine archaeology
June 19, 2020
In 2011 the UK Marine Policy statement clearly stated a view, shared by all UK Administrations, that heritage assets should be conserved through marine planning and that, opportunities should be taken to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of our past by capturing evidence from the historic environment and making this publicly available. Coupled with […]
The Creation, Contestation and Transformation of Landscape
June 12, 2020
Since its inception as a scientific discipline archaeology has dealt with many challenging theoretical concepts. Among these the idea of landscape have seen significant debate from its earlier conception in processual archaeology. Today the study of landscape is accepted as an interdisciplinary field within archaeological research that brings together concepts and methods from a wide […]
Integrating Theory and Science in Archaeology
June 10, 2020
Within archaeology a degree of epistemological division still persists between ‘two cultures’ – with science and theory often poorly integrated in archaeological studies. However, as we experience archaeology’s third scientific revolution, driven largely by the increased application of biomolecular methods, the theoretical power of scientific and technological data is becoming increasingly apparent. As such, it […]
Fighting for our Finds from Discovery to Display
June 5, 2020
This session will focus on artefacts, and their journey from discovery to display. We invite papers that discuss this journey and the biases affecting finds and how they are interpreted, used and/or displayed. Practical frontiers are encountered when caring for our artefactual past as curators, while finds specialists often encounter the interface between the hobbyist […]
Public Heritage: Negotiating Best Practice
June 3, 2020
The historic environment of Britain includes rich and diverse sites and landscapes, with materials and archives curated by a range of organisations. As archaeologists working in across sectors in Wales, we are interested in how public heritage best practices are developed across different regions and countries in these islands. There are many stakeholders in public […]
Creative Frontiers
May 29, 2020
Applying Theory to foster discussion beyond research, is to build perceptions in society. (Kavanagh, 2018) Influencing perceptions is a role attributed to public intellectuals, yet archaeologists appear to be absent from inhabiting such a stage (Tarlow and Stutz, 2013). This session seeks to question if this is actually so, when our collective and individual works […]
Location, Location, Location: Constructing Frontier Identity
May 27, 2020
“Where are you from?” That is one of the first questions asked when you meet someone new. Your answer informs your new acquaintance of your cultural background and current geographic affiliation. Your identity is at least partially informed by where you live, or where you originated. A geographically defined identity is recognizable in the archaeological […]
Steaming Plant or Steam Punk? Researching Industrial Archaeology and Heritage in the 21st Century
May 22, 2020
This session seeks to build on the discussion of a decade ago about the role of industrial archaeology and industrial heritage research and fieldwork. This lively debate was captured in the 2009 Horning and Palmer edited volume ‘Crossing Paths or Sharing Tracks? Future directions in the archaeological study of post-1550 Britain and Ireland’. There are […]
Archaeology for Change
May 20, 2020
As archaeologists we are surrounded by change – trained to read changes in the landscape, in contexts and to adapt to changes in the techniques and methodologies used. We piece together changes through time in past societies, attempting to understand how communities lived, worked together, and increasingly, its relevance of understanding our society today. Often […]
Beasts, Birds and Other Fauna: Animals and Their Meaning in the Early Middle Ages
May 15, 2020
In the Early Middle Ages (the period from 6th to 12th century) animals accompanied human societies. Birds started every day with a choir of their songs, big mammals were hunted (or bred) for meat and skins, and dogs were kept for protection. Several animal species held important roles during the various pre-Christian rituals, and after the conversion […]
Comics, Community and the Past
May 13, 2020
Over the past few years, a number of innovative projects have used the unique combination of storytelling and visualisation of comics to explore, connect or re-connect communities with various aspects of personal, communal, folkloric, archaeological and historic pasts: The Oswestry Heritage Comics, Little Histories, Magic Torch Comics, Graphic Lives, Haawiyat, Prehistories, etc. As archaeology seeks […]
Opening Pandora’s Box: Europe and its Colonial Ruins
May 8, 2020
The common understanding is that European colonialism is something from the past, now that the dust has cleared… Has it? Colonial buildings and monuments in the former European colonies are being restored for heritage tourism programmes, many of them enlisted as World Heritage. Yet, the contribution of indigenous communities to those countries’ past (and present) […]
Queer Frontier: LGBTQ Research and Experiences in Archaeology
May 6, 2020
It has been eighteen years since Thomas Dowson (2000) argued that the past is presented and written in a heterosexual manner and that LGBTQ archaeologists often feel under pressure to separate their sexuality and/or gender from their work. Where are we now? How do LGBTQ archaeologists experience, navigate, and challenge the discipline? Is the […]
Haunt This Place: Fantasy, Archaeology, and the Ghosts of the Land
May 1, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info The landscape looms as a character in the depths of our imagination, mercurial and trickster in nature. It can be home, warm, welcome, fertile, mothering – […]
‘In the Mix’: Recalibrating Music, Heritage and Place
April 29, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info Musicians create works to reflect on and document place, landscape and identity (think Sibelius, DJ Kool Herc, The Watersons). Place-makers, designers and architects recognise and draw […]
Archaeological Movements in Theory and Practice
April 24, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info Recent scholarship across a range of disciplines has begun to unpick the relationship between body, mind and material world (Ingold 2011; Malafouris 2013) Building on the […]
(Not) The Final Frontier: Charting New Courses for Frontiers Theory
April 17, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info Roman frontier scholarship stands at a crossroads. Recent scholarship has been innovating approaches to Roman frontiers which far exceed the traditional boundaries of the field, yet […]
Rethinking Transitions
April 15, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info ‘Transitions’ – their scale and scope – are some of the most hotly debated topics within the discipline of archaeology, particularly regarding the interpretation of how […]
Practising Creativity: Experimentation, Mistakes and Successes in Art-Archaeology
April 10, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info Archaeological materials, recording techniques and methods have influenced diverse work by artists across a range of media, and archaeology has been, practically and theoretically, equally influenced […]
Relational Approaches to Past Hunter-Gatherer Worlds
April 8, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference, but this time – 2018’s: Session Info Over the past few decades there has been a shift in the way hunter-gatherer worlds have been studied. Whereas research throughout much of the 20th Century […]
Archaeology, Heritage and Well-Being
April 3, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info The concept of therapeutic landscapes was developed by Wil Gesler in the early 1990s, building on contemporary theory in the field of cultural ecology. It has since expanded to become a […]
The Wind in the Willows: Employing the Narrative in Environmental Archaeology
April 1, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Scientific communication is often presented as logical and empirical (context-free). The facts, however, do not speak for themselves and context serves a very necessary function in providing meaning for data. Honestly, […]
Temporalities Otherwise: Archaeology, Relational Ontologies and the Time of the Other
March 27, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Archaeology as ‘undisciplined’ practice (Haber 2012; Hamilakis 2013) emerged from the acknowledgement of its disciplinary entanglements with the philosophical and epistemological tenets of Western modernity and necessarily also with its ‘darker […]
Time and the Maritime: The Temporality of Coastal Zones
March 25, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Coastal regions are dynamic spaces and people’s interactions with these areas have played a large role in shaping societies, cultures, and technologies (Cordell 1989; Fitzpatrick et al 2015; Rainbird 2007), as […]
Global Perspectives on British Archaeology
March 20, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info With the exception of a small number of world-renowned examples (Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall), the majority of British archaeological sites receive very little attention on the global stage. Occasionally some achieve momentary […]
Periodization, Time and Fault Lines: The Fifth Century AD
March 18, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Most archaeologists and historians would agree that the fifth century AD is a fundamental time in the history of Britain and Western Europe. It marks the break between Classical Antiquity and […]
Walking the Archaeological Walk: Walking and Thinking in Archaeology
March 13, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info The movement of walking is itself a way of knowing’ – Ingold and Vergunst 2016: 5 Much of archaeological practice takes place on the move. We fieldwalk and survey on the […]
The Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of the Deposition of Earlier Objects in Later Contexts
March 11, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Prehistoric and later societies’ perception of the past has received increasing attention over recent years. One practice that has received relatively little attention, however, is the association of already ‘old’ objects […]
Parsing Posthumanism
March 6, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Posthumanism encompasses a variegated array of theories and critiques from the humanities and social sciences. From new materialisms to object oriented ontology and from symmetrical archaeologies to the new animist approaches, […]
Theorizing Visualisation: From Molecules to Landscapes
March 4, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Visual representations have been seminal to the generation of archaeological knowledge since the birth of archaeology. Nowadays archaeologists of all branches and theoretical orientations deploy, on a regular basis a wide […]
Futures of the Past: Everyday Landscapes and the Archaeology of Anticipation
February 28, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info The aim of this session is to explore how people in past societies manipulated temporality in the landscapes that they created by asking how we can understand anticipatory actions. Studies that […]
A Look Forward at the Study of the Mind in the Past
February 26, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info The views and approaches for conducting mind-related research in archaeology have gone through a number of transformations over the past few decades – enough to give us pause to see that […]
My Chemical Romance: Keeping our Theoretical Heads in the Face of Seductive Methodological ‘Certainties’
February 21, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Over the past twenty years, archaeology has benefited from a raft of new and improved scientific dating methods, allowing us to be more precise than ever before about the dates of […]
Historical Foodscapes: Reconstructing Social, Political and Historical Dynamics Through Diet and Food Consumption
February 19, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Food is a crucial aspect of living, biologically it provides the energy and nutrients which enable the vital physical processes necessary for life, but there is much more to food than […]
Time and Temporality: Twenty Years on From Time, Material Culture and Being – Ways of Thinking About Narrative
February 14, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info A number of key publications in the 1990s addressed the theme of time in archaeology, including works by Tim Murray, Julian Thomas, and Tim Ingold. Specifically, the publication 20 years ago […]
Stuff and Nonsense? Theory and Medieval Material Culture
February 12, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Ten years ago, the Society for Medieval Archaeology sought to tackle the difficult relationship between Medieval archaeology and archaeological theory with a series of sessions at TAG in York and Southampton. […]
Dykes Through Time
February 7, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info In stark contrast to Roman archaeology and despite their magnitude, linear earthworks have been marginalised in investigations of the Early Middle Ages (c. AD 400–1100). For example, among the 52 chapters […]
Shamans Through Time
February 5, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Shamans are religious practitioners who occur across the globe. The word ‘shaman’ comes from the Tungus tribe in Siberia and it means spiritual healer or one who sees in the dark. […]
Why do Undergraduates Hate Archaeological Theory? Improving Student Experiences of Learning Theory
January 31, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info The QAA Benchmarking Statement for Archaeology states that ‘the vitality of theoretical debate within the subject is one of its intellectual attractions as an HE subject’. Yet, anecdotally, the ‘theory module’ […]
Parallel Worlds: Studies in Comparative European Archaeologies
January 29, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info All too often we as archaeologists are solely engaged with the study of particular periods of the past or particular places. Our work is, perhaps necessarily, rooted within specific intellectual frameworks […]
(S-ite)rations: Memory, Forgetting and the Temporal Architecture of Place
January 24, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Place is constructed through located practice; through ongoing engagement, it is in a constant state of becoming. Place presents and draws together multiple temporalities, allowing the emergence of conceptions, articulations and […]
Saving Time: Conservation as a Means for Preserving and Advancing Archaeological Context
January 22, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This is another one from the TAG conference: Session Info Modern conservation practices and analytical techniques offer an array of information for building archaeological understanding and interpretation. Conservation can be an integral part of archaeological practice, creating informed strategies for proactive […]
Failure is Not Fatal
January 17, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations, that I have filmed. This one is from the TAG conference: Session Info ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.’ – Winston Churchill Human success, rather than human failure, has been valorized in our understanding of […]
How to See Time: A Visual Culture Perspective
January 15, 2020
This part of my series of posts on conference presentations I have filmed. This one is from the TAG conference: Session info Time exerts a powerful influence on visual culture. Whether a whole landscape shaped by human agency, architecture, portable objects, or artwork, all visual media have a temporal context to which they belong, and […]
Unstuck in Time – Science Fiction, Speculative Futures and Archaeological Imaginings
January 10, 2020
This is part of my series of posts on presentations I have filmed at conferences. This session comes from the TAG conference: Session info Science fiction and archaeology are a classic combination in popular culture – long before Indiana Jones’ Nazi foes unleashed the forces within the Ark of the Covenant there were dire consequences […]
Animal Timekeeping: From March Hares to Donkey’s Years
January 8, 2020
This is part of my series of videos on archaeological presentations at conferences – usually ones I have filmed. Today is an interesting session from the TAG conference Session Info: Animal time infiltrates many areas of modern life, from being awoken by a dawn chorus of birds, to mourning the shorter lifespans of many of […]
Materiality of Time: Phenomenology and its Place in Archaeology
January 3, 2020
Every Friday and Wednesday I publish an post on conference presentations I have videoed. Today’s is from the TAG conference: Session Info: In the past two decades, phenomenology has enjoyed its use within archaeological theory. This vein of inquiry saw its most fruitful deployment within the archaeology of Neolithic Britain during the mid to late […]
Time and Transitions: The Hybridization Threshold
January 1, 2020
Happy new year. Here is a session we filmed at TAG that you might enjoy: Session Info Periods of transition are recognizable archaeologically for their jarring nature. These periods offer unique insights into conceptions of culture and community as individual and group identities respond and adapt. Particularly interesting are those transitions that occur through contact […]
Representation and Conflict: Reconciling the Philosophy and Practice of Heritage Values
December 27, 2019
This is a session we filmed at the TAG conference a few years ago. I hope you enjoy the videos. Session Details Values associated with heritage are multiple at any given moment. This challenge for heritage professions is made a moving target as values also change over time. Critical heritage discourse has long debated the […]
Histories for Prehistory: Narrative, Scale and the Particular
December 25, 2019
Merry Christmas. My gift to you is another session from the TAG conference that we videoed: Session Info Formal chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates in a Bayesian statistical framework has produced a series of much more precise chronologies for prehistory, as seen for instance in Gathering Time, the ERC-funded The Times of Their Lives (2012–17), […]
Scotland’s Community Heritage Conference 2018
December 20, 2019
A little break from the TAG videos, some videos from Scotland’s Community Heritage Conference: Conference info: Historic Environment Scotland, Archaeology Scotland, The Scottish Council on Archives and Northlight Heritage are delighted to welcome you to Stirling for the 2018 Community Heritage Conference. Now in its 7th year we are pleased to be holding this year’s […]
Writing and Rewriting the Transitional Body: The Changing Narratives of the Ancient Dead
December 18, 2019
A session from the 2017 TAG conference that we videoed. Enjoy all of the presentations: Session Info The physical remains of the human body have long been a source of curiosity, particularly the ‘transitional’ body; mummies, bog bodies, and even shrunken heads occupy a space somewhere between the living and the dead, and narratives that […]
Wibbly, Wobbly, Timey, Wimey… Stuff
December 13, 2019
A nice wee session we filmed at tag. Enjoy the videos of the presentations: Session Info Computer games, computer science, TV and films, and virtual reality have an interesting and complex relationship with archaeology and conservation. Questions on ethics, capitalism, consumption, interactions with artefacts and heritage, and presentation of the past all arise from this […]
Archaeology in Poetry, Poetry in Archaeology
December 11, 2019
Time, and particularly the problem of the recoverability of the past in the present, has been a major theme in poetry, at least since the emergence of romanticism. In Four Quartets, T.S Eliot explores the possibility of seeing ‘time past’ through the experience of particular places. George Seferis’s The King of Asine focuses more concretely […]
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Doug's Archaeology 
April 6, 2022
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