Nathaniel Erb-Satullo's Avatar

Nathaniel Erb-Satullo

@nerbsatullo.bsky.social

Arch Sci Lab Manager at UCL. Studies technology, innovation, and the weird cool things people do with fire. Also the Caucasus.

185 Followers  |  155 Following  |  38 Posts  |  Joined: 04.10.2023  |  1.9474

Latest posts by nerbsatullo.bsky.social on Bluesky

As someone interested in archaeological metals, this is quite interesting. It seems they have carefully considered diagenesis, but I don't know enough about heavy metal uptake into enamel/dentine to independently assess.

16.10.2025 09:41 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

In art history, does this have a connotation of "this is definitely a forgery" analogous to the connotation of "this was definitely looted" in the archaeology version?

13.10.2025 13:40 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ‘€

13.10.2025 11:05 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Was having a hard time coming up with something until the perfect one came to me:

"Said to be from"

13.10.2025 10:40 β€” πŸ‘ 30    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.

'Universities have collectively announced more than 12,000 job cuts in the last year, new analysis from the University and College Union (UCU) suggests.'

10.10.2025 05:56 β€” πŸ‘ 22    πŸ” 24    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 5

UKHE is a world class export sector, but has financial problems because the state both doesn’t want unis charging market rates to domestics and doesn’t want to subsidise them. To make up for this, unis have been forced to take on more foreign students, and the gov response is to punish them for it

04.10.2025 17:49 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Ah yes, wells. Famously flammable.

03.10.2025 09:57 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Good luck trying to smelt metal with that "furnace." πŸ€”

02.10.2025 16:15 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
AI-generated furnace image with multiple impossible/inaccurate features, notably any natural or forced draft, and a width far wide for its height. A structure like this would not be capable of smelting metal.

AI-generated furnace image with multiple impossible/inaccurate features, notably any natural or forced draft, and a width far wide for its height. A structure like this would not be capable of smelting metal.

Thrilled with the coverage our recent paper on copper metallurgy and iron invention is getting. Not so thrilled with this definitely-AI generated furnace image that was used to illustrate one of those pieces.

Link to our article: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

02.10.2025 16:15 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
A 3,000-Year-Old Furnace May Have Accidentally Started the Iron Age, Scientists Say This global shift may have come as a result of smelters looking for ways to increase copper yields.

My recent work covered in Popular Mechanics! Excellent furnace photo (not even mine).

www.popularmechanics.com/science/arch...

02.10.2025 15:56 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
This β€˜funny-looking rock’ holds 3,000 years of Iron Age secrets Experimenting with copper may have led to our eventual breakthroughs with making iron.

I'm all about "funny looking rocks"! Nice to see press coverage of my recent paper. www.popsci.com/science/iron...

26.09.2025 22:05 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Researchers have long suspected a link between bronze metallurgy and the invention of iron smelting, but direct evidence has been elusive. Our work help substantiate that link.

26.09.2025 09:54 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

We show that copper smelters in the Early Iron Age were deliberately collecting and adding iron oxides to the furnace to help them smelt copper. They recognized iron oxides as a discrete material and were experimenting with its behavior in at high temperatures in the metallurgical furnace.

26.09.2025 09:54 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

New paper out today, showing how a little known site first excavated nearly 70 years ago helps us understand the origins of iron. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

26.09.2025 09:54 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Currently writing the report for my @gerda-henkel-stiftung.de "Surviving the Crisis Years" grant, centred around our excavations of a LBA-EIA fortress in the Caucasus. It's amazing what we've accomplished in two years--so proud of my team! Photo: @shmills.bsky.social excavating the fortress gate.

23.09.2025 10:45 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

Got a question on Elgar wrong on my Life in the UK Test. Ironically, I only knew them from Peep Show, which I would argue is cultural knowledge essential to life in the UK.

23.09.2025 10:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image

I will never get over how sharply the Greater Caucasus range rises from the Alazani plain.

20.06.2025 13:37 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Very cool. We found an Abbasid dirham in my excavations in the Caucasus last summer.

14.06.2025 18:41 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Day 3: "I've made a terrible mistake, but it's too late to turn back"

28.05.2025 19:15 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Day 2: "OK, so this guy's Central Caucasian Culture is entirely different from the other guy's Central Transcaucasian Culture, but the Georgians' Lchashen-Tsitelgori Culture seems about the same (but not quite) as the Armenians' Lchashen-Metsamor sequence"

28.05.2025 19:15 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

A short drama in three parts:

Day 1: "Would be cool for this paper to make a quick diagram to summarize the different Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani chronologies and cultural groupings for the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, seems like no one has ever done it."

28.05.2025 19:15 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Wow, the Etruscans must have really liked khinkali.

06.04.2025 18:47 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
What can we learn from trafficked finds? Revealing the results of neutron tomography of Iranian swords | The Past Recovering an assemblage of trafficked prehistoric swords from Iran presented an opportunity to undertake scientific analysis of these weapons. The results ...

Nice piece by my PhD student Alex Rodzinka, covering our work with the ISIS Muon and Neutron Source. the-past.com/feature/what...

24.03.2025 11:39 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Our excavations at Dmanisis Gora have literally put it on the (Google) map. With a 5 star review! (and not by me). Google maps image was annoyingly taken during backfill, juuuuust too late to get us an end-of-season final photo from space.

22.03.2025 23:11 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Outsider Bronze/Iron Age specialist here. My biggest issue with these
terms is not confusion between Mesolithic/Epi-paleolithic, but that Mesolithic in European context means an entirely different thing than Middle Stone Age in African contexts.

05.03.2025 13:15 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

There are many great names for archaeological sites, but the the name of a Bronze Age copper mine way up in the Caucasus mountains, "Zaargash" goes so hard.

Sounds like the source for Sauron's copper supply.

04.03.2025 14:21 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
CBRL workshop highlights continuity of recycling practices through time AMMANΒ β€”Β TheΒ CBRL Amman InstituteΒ hasΒ recently organised a workshop led by Deputy Director of the CBRLΒ FatmaΒ MariiΒ titled β€œFrom Past to Present: Recycling and Reusing Materials in Antiquity and Today.”...

Dr Sainsbury (@vsainsbury.bsky.social) just got back from a fieldtrip in Jordan exploring sites & analysing glass. Whilst at the @cbrl.bsky.social she joined a workshop on #recycling through time. #womeninstem & made it into The Jordanian Times! www.jordantimes.com/news/local/c...

03.03.2025 16:42 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Far-right links and Putin praise: fears over Β£600m UK history theme park plan French family behind project visited Kremlin in 2014 to discuss building β€˜Tsarland’ in annexed Crimea

Britain’s carnival of reaction nationalist theme park is going to be built by French businessmen with links to the far right and Putin. It’s entirely fitting with the bombastic but surface level understanding of history that informs the resurgent British far right.

22.02.2025 08:41 β€” πŸ‘ 32    πŸ” 18    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 2

Amazing aerial shot.

13.02.2025 11:28 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Preservation in the coastal Andes is just bonkers. I'm perennially jealous. I feel the same way about the Taklamakan.

04.02.2025 11:01 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

@nerbsatullo is following 20 prominent accounts