Archaeological rats

We're looking for a post-doc in mathematical modelling to join us on the RATTUS project here in York! Come and model rat populations in networks of historical settlements, working with @anaspene.bsky.social and colleagues in archaeology, biology, and history. jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

If you like maths, space, time, data, rats and medieval Europe, this postdoc is for you! Apply to join me and the RATTUS team in York for two years of interdisciplinary modelling fun: jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

ACCE+ DLA programme: Faunal sex-selectivity in ancient hunter-gatherer societies: insights from protein-based sex identification at University of York on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - ACCE+ DLA programme: Faunal sex-selectivity in ancient hunter-gatherer societies: insights from protein-based sex identification at University of York, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD position on protein-based sexing at York, Faunal sex-selectivity in ancient hunter-gatherer societies: insights from protein-based sex identification, see further information here www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Very cool! We're working on refining the timing of rat decline/extirpation and also controlling for biases in research effort - perhaps we should talk?

Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain* Abstract:. The 2019 discovery of Yersinia pestis ancient DNA at Edix Hill in Cambridgeshire unquestionably confirms that plague was present in sixth-centur

For those of you who (wisely) haven’t been on Twitter lately and may not know, I recently had an article come out in the EHR on early medieval British plague and its broader historiographical implications. Just message me if you don’t have access and need a pdf!

academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

A presenter (Rachel Winter) stands at the left of the frame in a black top, speaking into a microphone. She is showing an acknowledgements slide that lists numerous collaborators and displays logos of participating institutions including the University of Groningen, York, and Reading.

🌅 Day 3 of #IZAZ2024 kicks off with Rachel Winter discussing the use of palaeoproteomics for understanding marine historical ecology. Your correspondent battled Paris RER delays and only made it for the final slide! 🐟 #archaeology #ZooMS Luckily she is heading to Copenhagen to work with in 2025!

A presentation slide showing the title 'Exploring the Possibilities of Sturgeon Identification via ZooMS' with an illustration of a sturgeon at the top. The slide lists authors from multiple institutions including the Universities of Belgrade, York, Copenhagen, and Novi Sad. The IPERION HS logo and institutional logos are displayed at the bottom. In the top right corner is the IZAZ 2024 conference logo. The presenter, smiling, is visible at the bottom of the frame

🐟 Now at #IZAZ2024: Teodora Mladenović presents groundbreaking work on sturgeon identification using #ZooMS. These endangered ancient fish have been crucial in European history, but their archaeological remains are notoriously hard to identify to species level.

A presentation title slide from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology showing 'Fish in the Oasis: Zooarchaeological and ZooMS insights into fish exploitation along the Ancient Silk Road in Central Asia' by Carli Peters, Noel Amano, and Robert Spengler. The presenter, Carli Peters, is visible speaking at the bottom of the frame.

🐟 Fascinating talk coming up at #IZAZ2024 by Carli Peters et al. on fish exploitation along the Ancient Silk Road! Looking forward to seeing this research when it's published. #archaeology #ZooMS.

A presentation slide showing a series of labeled baleen whale artifacts (in yellow/gold coloring) alongside a map of Europe with coastal sites marked in red. The artifacts appear to be worked whale bone or baleen strips, each with a 'DAG' catalog number. The presenter, in a burgundy shirt, is gesturing while speaking.

A fascinating large piece of archaeological detective work: using ZooMS to identify whale species from worked artifacts across European coastal sites. Each specimen helps reconstruct historical whale populations and human-whale interactions! 🐋 #archaeology #IZAZ2024

Sam Presslee speaks into a microphone while presenting a slide titled "Micromammals in the ZooMS DB". The slide shows that there are currently 33 micromammal species in their database from Africa, the Americas, and Europe. It displays photos and scientific names of 12 new species being added, including the Turkestan rat, Orkney vole, field vole, pygmy shrew, common shrew, Eurasian hedgehog, guinea pig, wood mouse, yellow-necked mouse, edible dormouse, hazel dormouse, grey squirrel, and red squirrel. The slide also lists additional species they hope to add in the future, including the Indian gerbil, short-tailed bandicoot rat, European hamster, and Southern water vole.

If you have any bones for @archaeorattus.bsky.social to build their database, let them know!

two laptops open on a train table, with some coffee cups

Sam & David are heading to the ‘Integrating ZooMS and Zooarchaeology’ workshop in Paris, to talk about how ZooMS collagen fingerprinting fits into our workflow for studying tiny rat bones - alongside zooarchaeology, radiocarbon, aDNA, and isotopes.
Here we are doing our homework on the train...

SEACHANGE is now here! @seachange-erc.bsky.social
Very cool ERC-Synergy project looking at human impact on marine environments, via archaeological & historical datasets on the one hand and offshore coring & palaeoecology on the other.

Meet the team - Alice Hi all! I am Alice and I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the RATTUS project. I am working with Michelle Alexander and Eric Guiry to ...

More new followers- hello! As an introduction, I am currently a PDRA on the RATTUS project (@archaeorattus.bsky.social), applying isotope analysis to archaeological rats. If you want to find out more, heres an intro post I wrote for the RATTUS blog: the-rattus-project.blogspot.com/2024/09/meet... 🏺

Zooarchaeology, ZooMS, radiocarbon, aDNA, isotopes and historical research, all capped off with some population modelling. It's all very exciting. Stay tuned for updates!

What you *can* expect are updates from the RATTUS team on what is (IMO anyway) some really very cool research. Piecing together scattered records of tiny, seemingly insignificant bones and using them to tell stories about the broad sweep of human history across a continent and two millennia.

So from now on this is a Proper Project Account, rather than my own super-niche brand of personal rat/archaeology ramblings that some of you might remember from Twitter. That's probably for the best.

RATTUS Project Rats and the Archaeology of Trade, Urbanism, and Disease in Past European Societies 2023 – 2027

So here we are. A lot's changed since I (David) stepped back from Twitter a few years ago. For a start my rat work has grown into a major research project, RATTUS, thanks to the ERC & UKRI - see sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/rattus/

Hello world.