Donna Yates

Read all of antiquities dealer Michel van Rijn’s odd and amazing early blog online here. It is spectacular. #artcrime #archaeology www.anonymousswisscollector.com/2025/11/read...

Through the narratives of violence and control in auction sales of Pacific cultural objects, I consider consumer desire: "Marketing, Narratives, and Consumer Desire within Auction Catalogs of Cultural Objects" out now, Open Access, in Advances in Archaeological Practice. doi.org/10.1017/aap....

Colleagues at Maastricht University. I'm running for University Council. I would truly appreciate your vote. Take a moment and vote here: elections.maastrichtuniversity.nl and if you would like to see the platform I'm running on, here: leadmaastricht.nl

I'm sitting here thinking "What is a summer salary?" Like...if you don't get a grant one's summer is just not paid? The university doesn't pay research time...but gets credit for that research?

About 20 years ago I was going to a club in Germany and the bouncer was sitting there reading that book. I told him "OH! I'm from there!". He looked at me with some degree of horror. "I used to work at the theater that Baby got shot outside of, it's a real place..."

A film that takes place where you’re from

Frankly I'm surprised that I didn't know about this already. Also, this is not what I am supposed to be writing about this afternoon...

The internet tells me that "Rexy" is a thing for Coach. If anyone knows of something written about Coach's association with T. rex, please share! I need to read this.

Hi @tetzoo.bsky.social, did you take these photos? Would you mind if I saved them for my research? I can check with you/cite you if I would like to publish them. I've been writing about T. rex at high end auctions and art fairs, now they are at the luxury handbag shop...

Holy heck, and this is being used to sell luxury handbags? This is very my research times a million.

Well I've just submitted my application to create a new UNESCO chair in Global Heritage and Emerging Crime. Let's see what they think!

I’m looking to hire a postdoc (100%, 22 months, salary significantly above the standard postdoc in Austria or Germany). The position is set to begin on 1 June 2025.
The project explores how biases in the fossil record affect our ability to use past biodiversity data for modern conservation. 1/3

Today, I'm on strike.

🟥 Maastricht University is on strike today to protest devastating cuts in higher ed 🟥

👉 Show up @ Vrijthof @ 12:30!
👉 Bring your colleagues!
👉 Post your photos & tag us!
👉 Help us to spread the word - share this post!

#WOinACTIE #DefendMaastrichtUniversity #KabinetSlooptHogerOnderwijs #StakingHO

Today is not just about UM but also about Limburg and education in NL!

You are still in time to convince colleagues and students to join. Does somebody need convincing? That is why WOinActie created a video series addressing the key questions. Visit the video series here: edu.nl/paw8e

#WoinActie

The strike in Maastricht is on, come and join us! 🟥 Organised by FNV, AOb & MOSA. Here's the plan:

🕛 12:00 Meet & walk to Vrijthof
🎶 12:30 Music + free fries
📢 13:00 Speeches & music
🚶‍♀️ 14:00 March through city
🛍️ 14:45 Strike market

Full info & updates 👉 edu.nl/xaa3q #WOinActie

Wow, look at that rant. I guess I'm even more put out about this than I thought. Every poor paper I have to peer review is time that I can't get back, and it is time that I'm not writing about these postmodern agentic fossil teeth.

And look, I'm no saint. My papers are crazy. I pity the people who have to peer review what I am writing now (I'm wading through Deluzean assemblages of megalodon teeth towards scarcity signals and buyer desire). But I always believe that there is a (bonkers) value to what I submit. I stand by them.

This means that I mostly know who wasted my time by submitting a poor paper that I had to spend time to look at as a peer reviewer. It is hard to fight off that bad impression.

I guess one more dark aspect of being in a small field is that even with double blind peer review reviewers can usually tell who (or what project) produced the paper at hand. I find myself quite put out by these weak papers (especially ones riddled with deep errors and mischaracterisations).

I can imagine someone now saying "the editors should be stepping in", but editors are not experts in all things: they can't always see what I see (i.e. that this is regurgitated or lacks rigor in my field). I guess I wonder, did people just not submit before? Did some social pressure hold them back?

Meanwhile we are in a "peer review crisis" where journals struggle to find adequate reviewers willing to look at any paper, be it strong or weak. And who can blame the peer reviewers? They aren't compensated for their time and these papers make you feel like your time has been wasted.

The resulting publication is useless and will never be cited or read by anyone, but it doesn't exist to be read, it exists to tick the funder's box during the midterm and final reviews.

The other issue: 2. the number of EU-funded consortia projects that have something like "8 peer reviewed academic papers" as a deliverable. To tick the box, it seems, the projects might be tempted to package and repackage junk and try it on at journals until one publishes.

And it's true: it is hard to get a job post PhD without a publication history. But on the other hand, I look at the publications of everyone I consider hiring and read them: bad publications would ensure you aren't hired by me. So...why isn't the supervisor helping? Where are they?

Maybe this isn't an uptick for anyone but me (I could be being asked to review more), but I wonder if this connects to two things. 1: a growing belief that PhDs and even MAs must *publish*, and a weakness on the part of their supervisors to tell them whatever they wrote isn't publication worthy.

I tend to see these as a peer reviewer, and I do my job in that respect, but those that I and other reject just end up farmed to somewhere else eventually with no changes. I once was asked by three difference journals sequentially to review the same weak, unchanged paper.

I've also been upset by what feels like an increase in papers on antiquities trafficking/looting/markets submitted to journals that are no rigorous, are unaware of past (or the most recent) research on the topic, that lack coherent focus or purpose, and that uncritically repeat fallacious claims.

People interested in antiquities trafficking research, take a moment to read "In Want of Methodological Rigor: A Critique of Suber et al. (2022)" by Michelle Fabiani and @dremilinesmith.bsky.social. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Two men charged after 'high value piece of art' stolen Both men are due to appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on Friday

Belfast: Two men charged after 'high value piece of art' stolen