Edinburgh Archaeology

Our seminar this week is the Munro Lecture by Professor Agarwal info & 🎫 ⬇️ the lecture is free but booking is essential ☠️

Black and white photo of Barbara Laidler washing a stone on West Kennet Avenue. Photo ©Alexander Keiller Museum.

Black and white photo of Margaret Stewart at the Carse Farm excavation in 1964. Photo from: https://breadalbane-heritage.org.uk/about/history/margaret-e-c-stewart-in-breadalbane-heritage-society/

Fun fact about us for #InternationalWomensDay - our 1st graduating students were women - Margaret Crichton Mitchell (later Stewart), 1st ever class🥇in #Archaeology MA 1930, PhD 1934 (Childe's only PhD student) & Barbara Laidler our 1st ever BSc Archaeology (c. 1930s)! @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 🏺

Dr Sam Leggett @samleggs22.bsky.social featured here as one of the many inspirational women in research funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk #InternationalWomensDay @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

A 2,850-year-old mass grave in Serbia reveals a shift in prehistoric violence Our study has finally uncovered the circumstances surrounding the death of 77 people, mostly women and girls.

Our study has finally uncovered the circumstances surrounding the death of 77 people, mostly women and girls.

A 2,850-year-old mass grave in Serbia reveals a shift in prehistoric violence Our study has finally uncovered the circumstances surrounding the death of 77 people, mostly women and girls.

Interested to hear more about the recent paper by Linda Fibiger et al. on the prehistoric mass grave in Serbia? Then check out Linda and Barry Molloy's write up about it in @uk.theconversation.com doi.org/10.64628/AB.... #Gomolava #EdinArch #Archaeology #FindsFriday @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

Molecular memories – tracing early medieval migrations and diet Using multi-isotope analysis, Sam Leggett’s fellowship focused on the role of food and diet and its link to mobility in early medieval Britain and Ireland

Using multi-isotope analysis @samleggs22.bsky.social’s Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social focused on the role of food and diet and its link to mobility in early medieval Britain and Ireland.
media.leverhulme.ac.uk/feature/sleg...
#InternationalWomensDay

Screenshot of Dr Gardner's magazine article. Full alt-text not provided by author.

Dr Gardner’s research is featured in Archaeology Scotland Magazine (Winter 25/26)! It discusses how archaeology can be used to understand our historic & continued reliance on fossil fuels using the example of the oil industry in West Lothian 1851-1962. Check it out! https://tinyurl.com/mrvp3dcd 🛢️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Top Left: Photograph of V.G. Childe c. 1930s, Australia, Public Domain. Top Right: Photograph of Stuart Piggott, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2741252. Bottom: “Stained glass of Dr Robert Munro FRSE in Scottish National Portrait Gallery” By Stephencdickson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114215413.

TOMORROW's ArchSoc/Archaeology Research Seminar 🕰️ 16:15📍Meadows LT "Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh University until about 1990" by Prof Ian Ralston @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social ahead of our 💯 🎂 year as a department! #EdinArch #archaeology #Edinburgh #prehistory

This work was funded as part of @erc.europa.eu project “The Fall of 1200 BC” led by Barry Molloy @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social & an interdisciplinary team from institutions across Europe. Incl. publication co-leads @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social @ucph.bsky.social and the Museum of Vojvodina.

Buried together c. 2,800 years ago, the victims suffered violent deaths, in what researchers say was a planned act of large-scale violence. This was more than a simple ambush & that targeting these people was meant to send a grisly message to their wider community, the researchers argue.

Reconstruction of burial event: Sara Nylund

Women and children were deliberately targeted in one of the largest prehistoric mass killings discovered in Europe. The Gomolava burial sites in northern Serbia uncovered a grave containing the remains of more than 77 individuals, most of them women and children.

A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin - Nature Human Behaviour In this analysis of biomolecular and archaeological data from a ninth-century BCE mass grave in the Carpathian Basin, Fibiger et al. find evidence for the targeted killing of mostly unrelated women an...

‼️Published Open Access‼️ by joint 1st authors Dr Linda Fibiger @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social & M. Iraeta-Orbegozo in @natureportfolio.nature.com "A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin" www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

Mass killing uncovered at ancient burial site | News | The University of Edinburgh An Iron Age burial site has revealed evidence of an unusual mass killing event of women and children, and a detailed plan to bury the victims together.

This ERC-funded research is published in Nature Human Behaviour, and was carried out by an international team co-led by the School. Find out more, edin.ac/3OZJHFs #History #Classics #Arcaheology #Edinburgh #Research #Violence @edinburgharchaeo.bsky.social

As a geologist who likes to read about history and archaeology, it's always a pleasure to be able to contribute to research papers on those topics.

Congratulations to our former MSc student Luisa and my amazing colleagues Sophie and @drbutty.bsky.social on a very cool CT method paper with some interesting implications about osteoporosis in medieval Scotland #MedievalSky #edinarch

Figure 6 from the study: Average MCI comparison for the age groups of females and males of the present study (Scottish), Wharram Percy (English) (Mays 1996) and Velia (Roman) (Beauchesne and Agarwal 2014). Under a CC BY 4.0 License.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Assessment of intracortical porosity revealed variance in bone quality that cannot be captured via assessment of MCI alone. This research was funded by the Archaeology Research Support Fund @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social (@edinburgh-uni.bsky.social) 3/3

Fig 7 from the study: Two middle adult females with similar Ct.Po but different MCI and Ct.Ar/Tt.Ar values. Lines show MCI measurement points. This includes a complete spur due to a trabecularised pore in the second tomographic slice. Palmar is up. Scale bar = 5 mm. Under a CC BY 4.0 License.

Figure 1 from the study: (A) Whole bone scan. (B) Diaphyseal volume of interest (VOI) scan of (C) tomographic slices of higher resolution for cross-sectional analysis. Under CC-BY 4.0 License.

🦴 This study introduces an updated protocol to assess the second metacarpal index (MCI) from μ-CT scans. The strong correlation between MCI & cortical area fraction indicates the efficacy of this parameter to assess cortical bone loss #edinarch #osteo onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 2/3

micro-CT scan cross-sections of metacarpals from the study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.70209. Credit: Luisa Less.

📣 Published #OpenAccess in AJBA @bioanth.org 📣 “The Use of Micro-CT Analysis of the Second Metacarpal to Assess Cortical Bone Loss in Archeological Human Skeletal Remains” by Luisa Less, @drbutty.bsky.social & Dr SL Newman onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 🩻 @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 1/3

Funders: CAHSS CiF
@edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Natural Science Foundation of China (41930323), Bureau of International Cooperation of Department of Science & Technology of China (14814036), Biological Sciences Research Council Institute Strategic Programme grants BBS/E/D/20211553 & BBS/E/D/30002275

By studying populations with detailed knowledge of their habitats & human management, this study offers insight into how new environments influence animal phenotypes. It also suggest potential methods for tracking domestication & historical interactions between 🧍, 🐑🐄🐷 & their environments!

Map of the locations where the Soay sheep studied in this research lived - St Kilda (a remote island off the outer Hebrides in Scotland) and in Newmarket, Woburn and London, England.

🗺️ This research shows how feral Soay sheep translocated from the remote Scottish Island of St Kilda to flat pastures in England exhibit significant changes in bone morphology. Using 3D geometric morphometrics they analyzed 🐑 metacarpal bones & found their feet changed shape with environment! 👣🐾

Two horned adult Soay sheep grazing, with logs in the foreground and fencing behind them. Photo credit: Robin Bendrey.

🧑‍🔬The authors include Y. Wang (Nanjing University); A.F. Mohaseb @mnhn.fr; T. Marchant & J.J. Schoenebeck @roslininstitute.bsky.social @thedickvet.bsky.social; Z. Timmons & J.S. Herman @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social & our very own Professor R. Bendrey @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 🐏 @soaysheep.bsky.social

Photograph of a Soay Sheep lamb with tags in its ears facing the camera, standing on grass. Source - A New Twist on an Animal Model Reveals Environmental Constraints on Selection. Gross L, PLoS Biology, Vol. 4/7/2006, e236. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0040236, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1479004

‼️Published @royalsociety.org Open Science‼️ "From rugged isles to managed pastures: morphological changes in Soay sheep (Ovis aries) metacarpal bones following anthropogenic translocation" @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social 🐑🐏 doi.org/10.1098/rsos... @soaysheep.bsky.social

Spatial distribution of sites included in the dataset. The size of the circle reflects the number of entries originating from a specific location, while colour intensity reflects their density. The map was created in QGIS 3.34 software using ESRI Terrain basemap.

Nested pie charts of the NEENA data. Distribution of the human and animal stable isotopic measurements in NEENA by isotope type and analysed component. Human data 76% collagen (d13C and d15N data predominantly, 1% d34S), 18% enamel, 6% other. Animal data 57% collagen (27% d13C, 27% d15N, 3% d34S), 41% enamel (19% d13C, 19% d18O), 2% other.

📣 New #OpenAccess Dataset 📣 led by @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social's Vera Haponava (PhD candidate), Prof Catriona Pickard & Ricardo Fernandes "The North-Eastern Europe and Northern Asia isotopic dataset of bioarchaeological samples (NEENA)" 🔗 rdcu.be/e2kNw 🧪 18700+ measurements! #IsoMemo #Pandora #NEENA

I can't wait to present our work on Central Brittany in Edinburgh. Thank you @guillaume-robin.bsky.social for the invitation.

🇫🇷 Thursday’s Research Seminar 12/2/26 @16:15 in the Meadows LT will be given by Dr Florian Cousseau (Durham) “Central #Brittany in the Middle #Neolithic: A Landscape Far from Empty” 🔗https://hca.ed.ac.uk/news-events/events/research-seminars/archaeology-seminars @hcaatedinburgh #edinarch #archaeology

Proud of my colleagues @earlymedieval.bsky.social et al. I saw the years of work that went into this firsthand.

Available NOW, free to read online, completely beautiful and packed with discoveries rewriting the end of Empire in Britain and beyond

☠️ The next Munro Lecture 12/03/26 is by Professor Sabrina C. Agarwal @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social 'Necropolitics in the collection: From colonial legacy to antiracist futures' FREE but booking is essential 🔗 http://hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-events/events/munro-lecture-necropolitics-in-the-collection

🦴 This week's ArchSoc/One Health Archaeology Research Group seminar will be by Simon Mays (Historic England) 'Osteoporosis past and present: Age-related deterioration in the nano-platelets of bone hydroxyapatite'. 🕰️📍 Thurs 5th February, Meadows LT, 16:15pm - all welcome! @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

Congratulations! 🎉 welcome to the #EdinArch crew!