Author Archives: Emily Victoria Johnson

Forensic Archaeology Practical

Students ready to head off to the site

If you went down to the woods on Friday you were in for a big surprise – around 30 white-suited undergraduates digging for skeletons! It was the Introduction to Forensic Archaeology practical session, a day long excavation providing the students with a practical exercise in the location and recovery of buried human remains. The students were first given a brief on the scenario and then were trudged up to the suspected burial ground – a wooded area on the edge of the university campus where plastic skeletons had been buried in previous months/years. Here’s a few pictures from the day!

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Research Seminar #16: “Peopling the Past” by Alex Bayliss

Prof. Bayliss (Historic England, University of Stirling) presented an entertaining overview of how the application of Bayesian chronology to archaeological research has the potential to provide specific information and considerably narrow date ranges. She expounded the importance of constraint by using the information already known about a site to provide limits for modelling.

This is because the mathematical model has to incorporate what might seem to be obvious information to us, in order for it to recognise and discount parts of the sample date range that do not fit. For example, putting into the model that a structure’s destruction date must come after it’s start date seems a pointless statement to us, but without this information the model will produce a date range that extends to cover all possibilities.

Bayes’ theorem for Archaeologists

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Creating Replica Bronze Swords with Matt Knight

Matthew Knight, the envy of the PhD office.

Following the success of my funding application before Christmas, I finally embarked on the first of my experimental productions this week. I spent two days working with a brilliant metal-caster, Neil Burridge, in producing replicas of a broken sword from a Bronze Age hoard from St. Erth, Cornwall. Two successful castings were produced and worked in preparation for use and destructive experiments to be undertaken at a later date. Continue reading

Research Seminar #15: “Anthropogenic Impact on Columbian and Ecuadorian ecosystems” by Henry Hooghiemstra

It was pollen diagrams galore on Friday when paleo-ecologist Professor Henry Hooghiemstra came to talk to us about Anthropogenic Impact on Columbian and Ecuadorian ecosystems. In a fascinating talk Hooghiemstra took us to many ecological zones of Columbia and Ecuador, from the high Andes to the savannah and tracked the human impact on these landscapes.

Deforestation in the Andes (credit: H. Hooghiemstra)

Deforestation of high altitudes in the Andes (credit: H. Hooghiemstra)

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NeoMilk Project Meeting

The University of Exeter’s Archaeology department recently played host to a team meeting of the NeoMilk project, in which Professor Alan Outram and his PhD student Emily Johnson are heavily involved. The NeoMilk project investigates where and when (and indeed why) dairying arose in temperate Neolithic Europe, through lipid residue analysis of pottery and faunal analysis of carcass processing and husbandry practices. Another vital element of the project is the chronicling, mapping and correlating patterns of environmental and cultural change related to animal management and milk use.

Dr Roz Gillis presents some of her work on mortality profiles in the morning session.

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Research Seminar #14: “How far removed is the commercial archaeology market from academia?” by Taryn Nixon

Last week we had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Taryn Nixon to speak at our departmental seminar. Taryn is the CEO of Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), who operate commercially through development-led archaeology. Her talk concerned some of the major work MOLA have been doing in London, how it links with various research agenda and how it might be similar or different from the roles academics play at universities. Alongside their commitments to developers, Taryn was keen to emphasise the role MOLA play in establishing links with the heritage of a place and the local community.

As part of this she presented “3 Days in the Life” of a particular case study: the Bloomberg Place project in Walbrook, Central London. This site was first excavated in 1954 during the post-war development of London when a Roman temple was discovered: London Mithraeum. This temple was dedicated to a mysterious Roman cult from Persia celebrating Mithras and instantly caught national attention with over 400,000 people lining the streets to visit the excavation. At the time only a single archaeologist worked on site alongside the construction workers.

Temple excavation 1954

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“The Great Human Race”: Dr Hurcombe on the challenges faced by Homo habilis

humanrace

Credit: National Geographic

Watch out for “The Great Human Race”  which premiers February 1 at 10/9c on the National Geographic Channel. The programme features Bill Schindler, an anthropologist and experimental archaeologist in the US, as one of the co-presenters.  Exeter University’s Dr Linda Hurcombe, as a leading figure in experimental archaeology and primitive technology, was asked to comment on some questions in the lead up to this series being broadcast. This posted message forms part of an ongoing virtual roundtable discussion.

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Research Seminar #13: “Looting and Archaeological Destruction in Syria” by Emma Loosley

On Friday the 22nd January we were delighted but apprehensive to welcome Dr. Emma Loosley, Associate Professor in Theology and Religion, back to our department to talk about destruction of monuments in the Middle East. This extremely current and distressing issue was sure to evoke some strong emotions from the audience.

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Advanced Zooarchaeology Fracture Practical

One of the advanced osteology courses available to archaeology master’s students is Advanced Zooarchaeology, which aims to provide a sophisticated appreciation of the theory and practice of zooarchaeology and how bone assemblages can be interpreted. As part of this course students have been participating in a practical session on Fracture and Fragmentation in faunal assemblages. The students were split into three groups and given three different assemblages to work on – a waterlogged Iron Age site, a medieval castle and material from medieval Exeter.

Intrepid MSc Bioarchaeology students having fun working with archaeological animal bones.

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Research Seminar #12: “Characterising the Rural Landscape of Roman Britain” by Neil Holbrook

Records by Region, credit: Roman Rural Settlement Project

On Friday 15th January our Departmental Seminar Program kicked off with Neil Holbrook of Cotswold Archaeology talking to us about the fascinating Roman Rural Settlement Project. This project, undertaken in collaboration with the University of Reading and funded by Historic England and the Leverhulme Trust, was conceived partly in response to the almost mechanical excavation, publication and discussion of Roman Rural Settlements, due to the perceived similarity of the sites. The project aimed to highlight the differences in life experience of people living at rural settlements.

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