Dr Matt Law

The purple cover of a large book entitled 'The Romano-British villa and prehistoric settlement at Low Ham, Somerset'. A blurb explaining the contents is on the back, along with sponsors logos. A reconstruction of the villa is the cover image. This image and all others from the book.

Our @antiquaries.bsky.social Low Ham book (myself, Roger Leech and @thepostexcox.bsky.social ) is now available OA - library.oapen.org/handle/20.50... - the first synthetic publication of one of Britannia's largest villas, with reports on strat, finds, & enviro remains, & fully contextualised. 1/10

An oversized model of a molar tooth cut in half with fearsome looking snakes eating one person and cooling around another inside

The Tooth Worm! People only really understood the cause of tooth decay in 19thC. Some thought worms caused this pain by gnawing into the teeth.This replica of an 18thC French Ivory of the tooth worm is in the Medical History Museum in Ingolstadt last year. Reminds me I need to go to the dentist…

Not at all corny!! These have been great contributions

Hello!
A little Sunday evening survey... 📝
We're looking for examples where info or resources concerning achievements of 🏺⛏️ #trowelblazing women in archaeology, geology or palaeontology have been removed or vanished from public sources in the past year due to external pressures...
Pls repost!

you have to internalize this. you make this place worse when you don’t. Oh no they’ll say I couldn’t countenance rebuttal! Who gives a shit? They are not speaking in good faith! Give your time to people whose debate is actually in pursuit of knowledge! Not reply guys! Do this every day!

I cannot stress enough that is some rando responds to something you reposted trying to draw you into a “but have you considered” discussion of it, they are not acting in good faith, and you just block. Please, embrace the blue sky way. block. block. block.

A set of museum drawers labelled 'bivalvia problems'

A place for everything, and everything in its place

1776: Black snails are still about, tho' the shell-snails have withdrawn for some time. Slugs keep-out all the winter in mild weather. It seems strange that naked snails should be more hardy than those that have houses to their backs.

Can anybody recommend an open geospatial dataset that might contain errors that my students can look at to assess data quality? I've got police crime data but I'm looking for more

Cubone 🥺

South Wales Police statement on the burglary at St Fagans Museum of History early on Monday 6th October.

How awful. There’s been a break in at the St Fagans Museum of History in west Cardiff. Artefacts have been taken including Bronze Age jewellery. I hope they are caught quickly. #heritagecrime

This looks so good!! Congratulations!!

📣 Calling all #ESHE2025 participants and hashtag followers!

Open Quaternary is looking to appoint a new Editor-in-Chief as @mlaw.bsky.social, @suziebirch.bsky.social and I step down after 10 years of shared service.

Apply here: openquaternary.com/announcements

Screenshot. King's College London page. Examples of effective practice The following scenarios follow the above guidelines and offer insights into ways that academic staff can use AI transparently and in an assistive capacity, always ensuring human oversight and judgment remain central. Scenario A – Scaling feedback while maintaining quality Lecturer A is responsible for marking over 100 essays within a two-week window. Conscious of the limitations this workload places on the depth of individual feedback, they adopt a hybrid approach using their university’s approved or supported LLM tool, Copilot. Without ever uploading student work directly, Lecturer A composes an anonymised summary for each student, noting which marking criteria were met and the approximate percentage achieved for each. They input this summary alongside the official rubric into Copilot, prompting it to generate supportive, criterion-referenced feedback. This feedback is then carefully reviewed, adapted, and personalised before being uploaded to the marking platform. Students are made aware of this process in advance and shown a demonstration, reinforcing transparency and trust.

Simply astonishing. Maybe Lecturer A should not have to mark over 100 essays in a two-week window in the first place? Invest in qualified staff and reduce impossible workloads FFS www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

A lovely review article (and my first dissertation citation🍾) on Scottish archaeological mollusc exploitation from @jenniferbones.bsky.social & @mlaw.bsky.social. Makes the point that culture ("taste" if you like) may be just as important as economic considerations www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/8/...

The Parliamentary Black Caucus condemns in the strongest terms the recent rise in racism, abuse and anti-migrant hatred that we have witnessed in many parts of our beloved country. Whilst all people have the right to peaceful protest, we are clear that racism, intimidation and violence have no place in our society and must be met with a clear and robust response from the police authorities. From people being assaulted and abused in public because of their ethnicity, religion or dress, to racist graffiti sprayed on buildings, to intimidatory and violent protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, this is an alarming time for many people, especially those from minoritised communities. We stand in solidarity with all those who are fearful, targeted or at risk.

The Government must show leadership. It must take urgent steps to reduce tensions, call out and challenge racist rhetoric and behaviour wherever it occurs, and take far more seriously the threat posed by the far right — which police have identified as the UK’s fastest-growing threat. We also call on the public to reject the divisive agenda of the far right, who are seeking to exploit recent tensions to spread anti-migrant hatred as well as mis and disinformation. This country is stronger when we stand together. We absolutely should have space in our country for informed discussions around migration, immigration and integration. This should be based on facts, compassion and most importantly, humanity. The Parliamentary Black Caucus believes in a patriotism that is inclusive, welcoming and proudly anti-racist — because only unity and solidarity will defeat the far right.

As Chair, here is our cross-party joint statement from the Parliamentary Black Caucus, regarding the rising threat of racism and violence from the far-right.👇🏾

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday.

I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric.

Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

'Scale of unite the kingdom march shows free speech alive and well in UK, says minister

This is, I believe, the first official word from the Government on what happened yesterday in London. Not only inaction in the face of violence and hate, but a celebration of it. I passed through London twice yesterday with my two kids & what Labour seem to be missing is that people aren't just...

Archaeologists Against Apartheid urgent call for action! We are not anonymous. We are members of both the EAA&global archaeological community and more committed than ever to holding our representative organisations to account and anti-democratic influences.

aaaeaastatementseptember3rd.tiiny.site

Fun idea: the government emergency alert test on your phone, but the alarm sound is a new song by U2

[An Archaeologist’s Guide to British Species] #104: Clover In 2025, I am continuing to blog an A-Z compendium of human interactions with species in the British landscape. A list of references for information used in this series can be found here. An index …

matthewlaw.wordpress.com/2025/08/24/a... 🏺🌱

😱 and this is the issue with the academy not building/ having the resources to build its own infrastructure…

Yum!

That's true!

Fair enough!

Oh wow! Do tell me more! I'm always happy to talk molluscs!

Awww thank you!

[An Archaeologist’s Guide to British Species] #103: Cloudberry In 2025, I am continuing to blog an A-Z compendium of human interactions with species in the British landscape. A list of references for information used in this series can be found here. An index …

matthewlaw.wordpress.com/2025/08/02/a... 🌱🏺

Congratulations!!

The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of the Ryūkyū Archipelago AbstractThis chapter provides an overview of the archaeology and historical ecology of the Ryūkyū archipelago located between Kyūshū and Taiwan. Geological

Is anyone with access able to share these chapters with me? doi.org/10.1093/oxfo... and doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...?