David Roberts

Image shows a stylised set of historic buildings above an archaeological landscape filled with buried ancient objects. The text reads "The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) is a leading educational charity dedicated to championing and promoting engagement in archaeology and supporting grassroots archaeologists across the UK". The post promotes University Archaeology Day on Monday 27th October 2025 at the British Academy in London, and the QR code links to a website where free tickets for the in-person event or for the virtual livestream of panel sessions can be booked.

We don't just have university departments represented at University Archaeology Day #UAD25! The CBA @archaeologyuk.bsky.social will also be there and contributing to our panel session talking about the huge range of careers you can pursue with an archaeology degree!

Are you a student at a UK university and looking for support to come to TAG York? Did you know the Royal Archaeological Institute Cheney Bursary is available to support you?

You can find more details here: www.royalarchinst.org/grants/bursa...

@royalarchinst.bsky.social

St Fagans: Thieves in four-minute raid on museum gold Two thieves stole 'irreplaceable' gold artefacts in a targeted attack on St Fagans Museum in Cardiff.

Update - this is terrible. Clearly meticulously planned.

#Archaeology 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thankyou!

Art meets archaeology in new exhibition about Wiltshire landscape - BBC News Artist and archaeologist Dr Rose Ferraby's exhibition aims to show Wiltshire's influence on art.

The exhibition at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes consists of screenprints, paintings and relief prints, alongside books, lithographs, prints, paintings, drawings and maps drawn from the museum's own collection.

Thanks to CBA for two nominations for Teffont Archaeology! Delighted to see our efforts to engage people from all backgrounds and demographics in archaeology, and our training and skills work, for everyone from carers, to volunteers, to positive action placements and students, recognised like this.

Volunteers with replica skeletons laid out on tables listening to Dr Davies Barrett during a practical exercise.

Just back from our final Teffont Archaeology workshop! Double header of human remains by Dr Anna Davies Barrett, plus three talks. Nearly 150 volunteers engaged in under 24 hours... exhausted! Thanks to NLHF for funding, and to our hosts in Teffont, Bowerchalke and Horningsham for the talks!

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

Photo of page from Guardian Weekend magazine showing Patrick’s 13-year-old daughter Milly and the starting words of a long feature story about her battle with Lyme Disease which was missed by the NHS for years.

If you pick up the Guardian Weekend Magazine today, please read about my daughter Milly’s battle with Lyme disease. And if you’re feeling bold, drop your copy into your local GP. There are thousands of Millys out there. Most are currently not helped at all by the NHS or, worse, not believed.

It's been fab!

Our local market has put up a lovely crocheted St George cross, which sadly they've had to put a sign next to saying it's in support of the Red Roses.

Amazing, inspiring Rugby World Cup final between England and Canada. Fantastic performance by the Red Roses under huge pressure. Perhaps they and the Lionesses are a better and truer vision of today's England than the standard negative, backward looking, exclusive media narrative..

Early career fellowships in cultural and heritage institutions: 2025 Apply for funding to conduct research at participating cultural and heritage institutions.

AHRC Early career fellowships in cultural and heritage institutions are open for applications! Work in a major cultural or heritage host organisation on a co-designed research project. Apply by 10 Dec 2025.

More info:

Brilliant, thankyou! Evaluation survey coming out to you imminently, please feedback :-)

Just a reminder to the museums sector, UK national minimum wage for over 21 years old is £12.21 per hour, or at 40hrs per week, £25396...

The new TOC from academia dot edu. By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.

And ran out of room in the last post, but also to our venues at CAER, Cardiff University, Exeter University, and the wonderful @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social .

Massive thanks to our trainers, Rachael Seager Smith, @littlebonelady.bsky.social and @jeremyfoot.bsky.social for such committed, enthusiastic and thoughtful work on this, our coordinators Jeremy and Edrys for ensuring all went smoothly, and collaborators @caerheritage.bsky.social and CBA Wessex.

Animal bones in a Finds tray, laptop with animal bone recording guidance, on a table covered in trays of animal bones and paper resources. Photo courtesy CAER heritage

Feedback has been really positive so far; we're addressing skills gaps identified by the CBA and others, and building resilience by nurturing connections across groups in Wales & SW England. We've heard groups make new connections, begin considering improvements to practice, and raising aspirations.

Volunteers look at Toman pottery and reference books, and talk to each other, in a seminar room with pottery laid out across tables.

Today is the last day of our AHRC IAA funded Community Archaeology Specialist Training workshops; we've run 2 day workshops on each of Roman pottery, animal bone, and digital data in each of Cardiff, Exeter and Devizes, for volunteers from more than 14 community archaeology groups. 1/2

Blatant, gross homophobia.

As many, many people have predicted, by promoting the erosion of public respect for and then the actual rights of the trans community for more than a decade, conservative/far right are now feeling more comfortable to say all the other things that they think.

David Squires on … Nottingham Forest’s mythical quest for a new champion Our cartoonist tells the ancient Greek tale of one godlike figure’s pursuit of glory at the City Ground

Some cracking #ClassicalReception in David Squires football cartoon this week on … Nottingham Forest’s mythical quest for a new champion www.theguardian.com/football/pic...

AFAIK, UK govt expenditure on HE has always been comparatively low, and what is remarkable is how amazingly strong and effective our HE sector is. Imagine the turbo-charging of R&D if we got up to OECD average levels. And yet, even with a national Mission of economic growth...

Check out the latest @uor-research.bsky.social blog post to learn more about how REMADE's analysis of the Cunetio Hoard coins is revealing details of rebellion & uprising during the Roman Empire's Third Century Crisis 🪙

#AncientSky #Archaeology #RomanEmpire 🏺

Great article. If AI coding is so transformative where are the end products?

Reminds me of how archaeologists use proxies like coin debasement and shipwreck frequency to model the economic collapse of the Roman empire.

Two workshops in my AHRC IAA funded Community Archaeology Specialist Training programme, it's day 2 of Digital Data eith Jeremy Foot at @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social and day 1 of pottery with Rachael Seager Smith at Exeter University.

Really good to see collective plans coming to fruition!

Volunteers training on Roman glass in a large lecture and workshop space

Somehow I've ended up with 3 community archaeology training workshops running simultaneously today... Teffont Archaeology NLHF funded workshop on Roman glass by Sally and Elizabeth from the Association for History of Glass at Salisbury Museum, plus...

Because, unfortunately, his videos get a lot of traction, for my sins I'm now watching Rowsell's attempt at a 'debunking' of Sayer et al. 2025. I'm ten minutes in out of 60 I've identified what is 1 certain and 2 possible (tbc) major, basic factual errors on his part that directly hit his argument.

22, 2025 If I must starve, let it be with dignity in my children's eyes, not with my hands tied by silence. Let the world witness that I did not bow to the hunger but stood, even as the sky emptied and the earth closed her mouth. If I must starve, let it be while I still cradle my child's hope, not as a number lost in footnotes. Let the sea carry my name to shores that forgot my people, and let the wind whisper: she fed love when bread was gone.

If I Must Starve by Nour Abdel Latif
(from Reefat Writes Back)

Machine Bullshit: Characterizing the Emergent Disregard for Truth in Large Language Models Bullshit, as conceptualized by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, refers to statements made without regard to their truth value. While previous work has explored large language model (LLM) hallucination and...

“While previous work has explored LLM hallucination and sycophancy, we propose machine bullshit as an overarching conceptual framework that can allow researchers to characterize the broader phenomenon of emergent loss of truthfulness …” arxiv.org/abs/2507.07484