Kate Britton

Spotting her first MALDI plate! Thanks to @archaeoprotein for offering this wonderful training opportunity to @Sarah_Barakat_ and helping us develop our ZooMS capacity @UoA_Archaeology - and for running our first PALaEoScot samples with us! @ERC_Research @UKRI_News funded

Jumping ahead to the Neolithic and northwards to Cumbria with Sally Taylor at the Europa meeting. Spatial relationships between monuments and enclosures in the uplands demonstrate shadowing but also respect of the cairns in time and space by settlements @PrehistSociety

(Very) Late to the party but enjoying it immensely - wonderful words @LeMoustier would recommend KINDRED to anyone interested in learning more about Neanderthals, visiting the other-worlds of the past, or learning more about the process of field and research archaeology

A memorable, creative and restorative week at Moniack Mhor for a writing retreat. Met some wonderful people, was fed like a Queen and broke out of the academic writing bubble just a little bit. @moniackmhor - like a spa for the brain!

This week #PALaEoScot has been testing this wee rock shelter, hopeful for signs of Scotland’s earliest archaeology. So far just some cracking lithology (literally) and a very friendly dog - but watch this space! 🦴 🦌 🦣 🪨 with @mesodeeside @UKRI_News

@WhatKatieDigs talking to us about the #PaleoScot project - it's fascinating! There are BEARS

This week we also had a full-day PALaEoScot team meeting & welcomed our new PhD student, Tayla! It was wonderful to hear updates on the incredible lithics, palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental work the team is doing, and to discuss what’s next & to have some social time too!

Two open PhD positions! Deadline end of June! Apply now!!

This week I’ve scoured letters at NMS for Pleistocene animals; celebrated Medieval life at an exhibition opening; & been immersed in prehistoric landscapes at the Europa in Reading. Archaeology is so rich and varied. Thank you to everyone who shared their knowledge & passion!

And now to the main event - the Europa lecture from Martin Bell - route-ways and paths as ‘entanglement made manifest’ for human and non-human entities. Movement is the ‘connective tissue between sites’ - inspirational! @PrehistSociety

For the penultimate talk at the Europa meeting we have Richard Bunning on trackways and water transport in the Somerset Levels - pondering how humans navigated and understood the very different worlds of marsh land, wetland, high ground and sea @PrehistSociety

Great coverage of the Edinburgh’s First Burghers exhibition in the Scotsman - it has been brilliant to see this @HistEnvScot funded work go from the lab to exhibition! @Orshi_Cz @Boothicus scotsman.com/heritage-and-r…

Staying on the theme of connections to other worlds at Europa and to Bronze Age landscapes in Wales and the deliberate deposition of weapons and other metalwork with (a virtual) Chris Griffiths @PrehistSociety

Now a ‘slice of Danish’ (his words), Niels Nøtkjær Johannsen on the fascinating landscapes and graves of Neolithic Jutland. More animals too - cattle burials, along with perhaps near-invisible carts that could have traversed local trackways in death as in life @PrehistSociety

Now landscape connectivity and lithics at @PrehistSociety’s Europa meeting with Nick Barton - wonderful insights into the Mesolithic, complete with refits, at Welsh lake sites

Closer to home again at the Thatcham Reedbeds with Catherine Barnett. Lovely to see multiple lines of env arch evidence integrated to paint such a vivid picture of these rich marsh environments that were centres of human and animal interaction in the mesolithic @PrehistSociety

The conference has moved to exotic Verona and the Middle Bronze Age Landscapes of Italy with Elisa Dalla Longa - the theme of rivers as connectors across landscapes is emerging as a common theme across many of the talks today - food for thought! 🐟 @PrehistSociety

Now for some landscape-level network analysis with Newcastle’s Tom Lawrence - making complex statistics for archaeologists is a skill! Some sneaky isotopes included too via the Coneybury as part of a connected landscape bringing together animals & people @PrehistSociety

Chantal Conneller on Mesolithic landscapes at the Europa meeting - with a lovely nod to Scotland, Lacaille and the work of @mesodeeside too! @PrehistSociety

Next up at Europa - plants in landscapes with Molly Masterson, not just their economic potential but as conduits of meaning and memory. Fascinating to think of wooden structures like those at Flag Fen being sensory mirrors for the felled forest itself @PrehistSociety