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Farewell to Bill. FE cuts mean we may never see his like again.

The Guardian has published the obituary for the inimitable Bill White today. Bill played a major role in my own education and interaction with the bioarchaeology of London, so it was a bit strange to see the life of a man I knew as an institution of the Museum of London laid out with a bit more perspective. While I knew him as the man who rolled his eyes (discreetly, of course) at some of the nonsense that gets put about as science in the world of bioarchaeology, I certainly never knew that he'd gone to school with the Who. I definitely remember his advice about wrapping up in the arctic cold of the (now, off-limits) MoL bone store, but what I never knew, and really wish I had, was that Bill was the product of the UK's now-dying further education system. Bill had been a successful chemist before he decided to follow his passion into osteoarchaeology. He changed careers and the course of UK bioarchaeology by following the same certificate type programme that my institution is

Current Archaeology - Awards voting!

 So it looks like our good friends at the Thames Discovery Programme have wowed yet another award-giving body-- they're up for Research Project of the Year from Current Archaeology ! They really go above and beyond in terms of bringing archaeology to the public, particularly to the london public, so why not click through and support them!

Comments on some stuff i read on the internet.

  I've just read the new piece over at Middle Savegery  on the trouble academics face trying to use collections with stern copyright restrictions. MS flags the inherent contradictions between two opposing forces in research, particularly arch and anth where much of the material is human-centred and just about guaranteed to evoke an emotional response in someone, somewhere. On the one hand, there are archives, collections, museums, and private individuals who are firmly invested in the sole proprietorship of the material they  hold: intellectual property is monetarized to fund its holder. These organizations are also frequently acting to protect individual anonymity by limiting access or reproduction rights. However (and this is the point where we all get a little agitated) all of these limitations seem to fly in the face of our missive to make our work accessible. Humanities don't get funded, grants don't get given, and your own relevance as an educator is questioned if you

Thames Discovery Outreach Day

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This past weekend brought a really exciting outreach opportunity through a host of collaborating institutions down at LAARC (the London archaeological archive research centre. or something along those lines). The Thames Discovery Project hosted a one-day seminar on the archaeology of human remains from the Thames foreshore, in conjunction with just about everyone involved with bones in the whole of London: Museum of London provided materials and their expert personnel from both the commercial Museum of London Archaeology (MoLa) and the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology , English Heritage staff, stalwarts from Birkbeck and local digs, and of course myself, as a bit of a UCL / Birkbeck twofer. You can check out the TDP's take on the day here , but I can safely say it seemed like a pretty good day. Lots of participation, lots of hands-on experience for the attendees, and a ton of questions for the experts--at least no one seemed bored! We heard about bodies on the foreshore, the ma
Well, here we go... This little narrative journey comes after  quite a bit of thinking about blogs, archaeology, and the professional repercussions (and benefits!) of diving headlong into new media.  The first question I had, of course is 'why'-- why throw yourself out there? What should you talk about?  And does anyone even listen?  Slowly, I've seen a couple different answers emerge. A lot of my time is spent flicking through other people's interweb offerings -- colleagues, friends, and even organizations are now all  multimedia presences in my life. I've been looking at the excellent Middle Savegery  for a while, as well as more targeted single-project blogs and websites like L-P Archaeology's Prescott Street dig site and the Thames Discovery site .  For me personally, the 'blog' format offers a chance for unfinished ideas to live a little,  and a chance for the little projects that crop up from time to get their time in the sun. This blog is for t