@roopekaaronen.net has offered to make gifs of some rondelles, I just need to standardised the images!
Spinning tops are so cool! One of the (v. exciting) things we discussed is whether some Magdalenian rondelles could have been spinning tops… the form and designs certainly fall within the range of known tops! Does the worldwide use of spinning tops suggest deep time origins? 🌀
📷: Cattelain 2012
New paper. Recording the female experience of UK archaeology 1990-2010. Anne Teather and I document how an industry EDI agenda evolved in the 1990s and was dismantled, uncovering the ramifications of that for women archaeologists over the next decade.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#openaccess✅
Incredibly exciting news! I excavated at Barnham for a couple of seasons and the focus was always on trying to find the “smoking gun” for controlled fire use (despite finding many burnt flints) - amazing that the team has now (finally) got what they’ve been hoping for! 🔥
Im Stadtmuseum Mühlheim (Offenbach/M.) ist derzeit "Europas ältester Farbtopf" zu sehen; mit neuen Einblicken in d. Ursprünge von #Kunst & Kreativität hat eine Studie von @au.dk & #RGK_DAI die früheste bekannte Verwendung #blauen #Pigments in Europa identifiziert:
🏺 www.dainst.org/newsroom/nos...
Our December issue is out now! Featuring great #archaeology such as:
🔵 The oldest blue mineral pigment use in Europe
⛰️ Mesoamerican mountain monuments and water worship
🐚 Playing the shell trumpets of Neolithic Catalonia
& much more! 🏺
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
New open access publication: Moving to Stay in (a Woman’s) Place: Was Patrilocality the Dominant Mode of Postmarital Residence across Later European Prehistory? Current Anthropology.
Thanks to Wenner Gren for funding the workshop it emerged from!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
I’m running a course on gender in prehistory next semester and this has been added straight to the reading list! 😍
Say hi to the York folks from me! Hope the event goes fantastic too!
Ser et super interessant foredrag af @felixthehauskat.bsky.social og Mikkel Schierup i aften (og lærer en masse dansk ordforråd for palæolitikum samtidig!)
#FindsFriday Researchers found traces of blue pigment on this 13,000-year-old artefact from Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany. It questions the idea that Palaeolithic artists only used red or black, painting a picture of a more vibrant Ice Age world than previously imagined.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Thanks for sharing! 😊
Höhlenbilder aus der Altsteinzeit sind immer nur Variationen von Rot und Schwarz. Aber anders als bisher angenommen bedeutet das nicht, dass die Menschen blaue Farbe gar nicht nutzten. #palaeolithic @izzywisher.bsky.social www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft...
RIP #JaneGoodall - one of the modern pioneers of profound interconnections between people, animals and ecosystems. Her life was lived through science, compassion and tireless advocacy for the multiple values of nature - leaving a legacy that will endure for people and planet.
Heartbreaking news, I remember being deeply inspired by her work as an undergrad. Truly a pioneer who no doubt inspired many generations of women.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...
Wonderful video by @antiquity.ac.uk summarising our research!
NEW Archaeologists find the earliest evidence for blue pigment use in Europe, dating back ~13,000 years and questioning the long-held belief that Palaeolithic artists only used red or black.
Strap in for a colourful #AntiquityThread 1/10 🧵
🏺 #Archaeology
Amazing, I hadn't seen this one!
And some lovely coverage by @spoke32.bsky.social for Science! Check it out 👇
This all started with @felixthehauskat.bsky.social showing me a "lamp" and snowballed into the mother-of-all side projects! HUGE thank you to the heroic efforts of everyone involved (from no less than 5 countries, and many more institutions) - and supported by the IPERION HORIZON grant.
Does this imply a more deliberate use of colour in the Palaeolithic? We hope our research will open up new avenues for exploring this. Our stone is rather... unremarkable, and we plan to re-examine some of these (boring) stones in future work to try and expand our knowledge of Palaeo-palettes!
We suggest they were using it for archaeologically-invisible activities, like body paint. In later prehistory, azurite is found in female burials and on cosmetic applicators at Çatalhöyük (but not used for wall paintings) and decorates the hair/eyes of Bronze Age female figurines from Greece.
Blue is a colour that is absent from Palaeo art, which is usually reds and blacks. It's been assumed this is due to resource accessibility. BUT azurite occurs in near-surface deposits and we know there is some mining for certain materials around this time. So if not art, what did they use blue for?
Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵
Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺
doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
your periodic reminder that “archaeology isn’t political” is a political statement
Happy Monday!
Here’s an ancient amber bear carved about 10,000 years ago!
This magical find washed up on a beach at Fanø in Denmark from a submerged Mesolithic settlement under the North Sea.
National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. 📷 by me
#Archaeology
🚨DEADLINE ON FRIDAY!🚨 Do you do art-related archaeological research? Are you itching to discuss how we identify individual artists in the past, or the agency art had in societies? Then make sure to get your abstracts in for @tag2025york.bsky.social! You can send them to me at: izzywisher@cas.au.dk 🏺
Oh!! How is Nicky doing? I do miss York - it’s been too long since I was last there!
