Category: Archaeology
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Second-hand Stories: An Archaeology of Thrift Shops
One of my biggest guilty pleasures is watching YouTube videos – especially when I should be doing something else, like writing up my PhD dissertation (oops). Perhaps one of my favourite category of YouTube vlogs is the the “low-key thrift store video”, where the host of the channel takes the viewers to their local Goodwills
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Bones That Look Like Other Bones: Rodent Bones VS Bird Bones
Today’s comparative mini-post comes from a question I received from Trisha J. (thanks Trisha!), who asked for a bit of a comparison between rodent and bird bones. Now, while I have written about both rodents and birds before, I’ve never actually compared the two in one of these posts – which is a bit of
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OM NOM NOM (Part Two) or Did I REALLY Use That Same Old Bad Joke To Introduce A Post on Butchery
Okay…I know I said that I wouldn’t use that extremely bad, extremely old joke to introduce a blog post…but this one is basically a companion piece to the previous OM NOM NOM post on gnawing, so it doesn’t count…I think. Well, I promise I won’t use it again after this, okay? Okay. Anyway, let’s talk
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Does this Artefact “Spark Joy”? Marie Kondo as an Archaeological Framework
First, a confession: a few years ago, I did read Marie Kondo’s book and attempted to use the KonMari method to wrangle my large collection of “stuff” that I had managed to cultivate after only a year of living in the UK. Turns out, I am secretly a hoarder and everything sparks joy, so it
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Anarchy in the UK…Archaeological Sector? A Brief Introduction into an Alternative Approach to Archaeology
Today’s blog post comes from a paper I presented at the 2018 Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference – you can find the full text here. If you think about the word “anarchist”, you probably have a very specific image that comes to mind – some sort of “punk” masked up and dressed all in black, probably
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Fighting the Same Fight: Archaeology, Heathenry, and the Alt-Right
Heathenry is a particular movement within neo-paganism that draws upon Nordic mythology and folklore. It is arguably one of the largest alternative spiritualities practiced today. And, unfortunately, it also houses a large population of white supremacists. To understand this phenomenon, we must first look at the roots of Heathenry as a neo-pagan practice. Arguably one
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“Start at the Beginning, and When You Get to the End, Stop” – The Archaeology of Time
At the time of writing this blog post, we are only three days into 2019. I’ll be honest – I’ve experienced 25 years on this planet and I still make New Year’s resolutions. The usual ones, of course: exercise more, consume less sugar, etc. And, of course, these resolutions usually make it until mid-February before
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Vampires of Skyrim (and in Real Life Archaeology): Yesterday and Today
In the Elder Scrolls video game series, there are many fantastical creatures and monsters inhabiting the world, both friendly and hostile to the player character. One of these monsters (or perhaps that’s a bit too judgemental?) is the vampire, whose curse (or blessing?) is passed to others through a disease called “sanguinare vampiris”, also known
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“I Love Dying and Being Dead” – Late Capitalism and Modern Perceptions of Death
Lately, archaeologists have been a bit concerned about memes. No, not because they’re trying to perfect their comedic skills – rather, there’s been a relatively recent rash of popular memes that were derived from several big archaeological finds. For example, a nearly complete human skeleton was recovered in Pompeii, originally interpreted to have been crushed
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OM NOM NOM or Did I Really Use an Old, Bad Joke to Introduce a Post on Gnawing?
Hi, welcome back to the early to mid 2000’s where we still use jokes like “om nom nom” unironically! Just kidding, I won’t subject you to bad jokes like that for this entire post. Anyway, it’s come to my attention that for a blog called “Animal Archaeology”, I don’t really write that much about the
Animal Archaeology 