This was only my second visit to Delhi during the monsoon. For the first couple of days, the rain was relentless, water logging the older parts of the city before running off into the surface water geomorphology.

Pleased to be back in India for the next couple of weeks. I’m working with Kamal Vatta at Punjab Agricultural University, along with the Department of Archaeology and Museums in Haryana and the Archaeological Survey of India to develop a stronger link between #archaeology and #agriculture.

Today’s cities are hotbeds of inequality. But what if they don’t have to be? Check out my new blog post for CfAS, which covers our recent @antiquity.ac.uk article that finds that inequality was low at Mohenjo-daro, and decreased as the city grew. www.archsynth.org/building-fai...

📰 Did the major Indus city of Mohenjo-Daro "defy the rules of history" by becoming more egalitarian as it developed? 🏺 #AntiquityResearch #ArchaeologyNews via @york.ac.uk www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Study reveals one of world’s first cities prospered as wealth-gap shrank

New research reveals that the 4,000-year-old city of Mohenjo-daro defied the ‘rules’ of history by becoming more equal as it became more successful.

york.ac.uk

In a new article for @antiquity.ac.uk, we find that a quantitative analysis of housing at Mohenjo-daro, one of the world’s first cities, reveals that inequality sharply declined over time. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro

cambridge.org

Archaeologist Carole Crumley talking about heterarchies, if you are looking to cite someone in addition to Mark Fisher wrt capitalist realism. The ability to dream outside of hierarchies and the state should be taught by every archaeologist. GOOD MORNING

Really pleased this collaboration with @carlyschuster.bsky.social is finally published! We lean on queer feminist theory to discuss kinship as a dynamic set of relations and map their flow around funerary rites - we see burials as cannily assembled, not simple mirrors of the living world

🏺How we can talk about kin in the archaeological record in a world where establishing genetic relatedness with aDNA is relatively routine and perhaps become somewhat domineering in the conversation.

Catherine Frieman@cjfrieman.bsky.social · 4mo ago

1/ Good morning, Europe! Now that you're awake, I'll make a little thread about what we are doing in this paper! This is part of a special issue on kinship in archaeology ed by @pennyend.bsky.social, Sabina Cvecek and Manaasa Raghavan. All the articles and the three commentaries are very worthwhile

Archaeology is a driver of scientific innovation. Rather than being a perceived financial burden, it is actually a high-value investment that can improve human health and environmental sustainability. 🏺1/7 doi.org/10.11141/ia....

Legacy and Springboard: The Untapped Potential of Archaeological Archives for Scientific Innovation

Archaeological archives form a public resource that enables the reinterpretation of original findings from archaeological investigations, provides the raw material for further research, informs mu...

doi.org

Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’? Talk this Thursday for those interested in Anthropology. youtu.be/MXHsj2sU5l0

Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’?

YouTube video by Institute of David Graeber

youtu.be

The special issue this is based on is now published - all papers are open access! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Penny Bickle@pennybickle.bsky.social · 5mo ago

To celebrate our upcoming issue on "Kinship Trouble" in the Cambridge Archaeological journal, we're hosting a virtual launch on publication day; 14th April, 4pm-6pm UK time. The event is co-hosted by the Royal Anthropological Institute and AGE. To join, register here: therai.org.uk/events/cambr...

What does an ancient civilisation built when it doesn't need palaces? Looking forward to discussing this question in a public conversation with the David Graeber Institute and Human Bridges project. Tune in if you are keen! #Inequality #Archaeology davidgraeber.institute/a-civilizati...

A Civilization That Thrived Without Palaces: Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’?

David Graeber Institute Archaeology & Architecture is a new monthly series organized by the David Graeber Institute and Human Bridges project. How have living spaces shaped

davidgraeber.institute

From ancient Egyptian temples to the colonial destruction of Benin City, our #AfricanArchaeology collection contains tons of free and #OpenAccess research from across the entire continent! Check it out at www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🏺 #Archaeology

African Archaeology

Explore a curated collection of our recent articles on the archaeology of Africa

cambridge.org

Come to a free online panel on #MachineLearning and #archaeology, this Wednesday 6.30 pm AEST: events.humanitix.com/machine-lear...

Machine Learning for Archaeologists | CAA Australasia Panel

Join us for a discussion of hot topics in machine learning in archaeology!

events.humanitix.com

What do archaeologists and ecological economists have in common? Both disciplines know that GDP is problematic, and that we can learn more about human economies by measuring their material worlds To bring these disciplines together, we are guest editing a collection for JAMT. #sustainability

Had the pleasure of speaking to Amn Kaur about Mohenjo-daro's role in helping us understanding ancient #democracy on BBC Radio on Monday. Tune in if you have a chance- we chat at about 30 minutes in. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

CfAS projects featured prominently at the Lessons from the Past conference! It's no susprise; archaeological synthesis can contextualize pressing challenges and offer points of comparison that allow us to see what worked (and what didn’t) in the past. www.archsynth.org/archaeologic...

The Paper of the Month from @antiquity.ac.uk is "Detecting social differences in diet in medieval towns: isotopic evidence from Cambridge, England, c. AD 940–1538" by Alice K. Rose et al., available #openaccess! 📚 https://cup.org/4lGBVwG #antiquity #archaeology #PaperOfTheMonth

Heading to Liverpool for the "Lessons from the Past" conference. I'm presenting GINI work on how the #archaeology of #Inequality can shape debates about taxation today. We close by drafting policy briefs to link the past to the UN #SDGs. #Sustainability lessonsfromthepast.info/programme/

Democracy isn't a modern luxury—it's a political strategy with deep roots. In our new study for Science Advances, we analyse 40 different societies and develop a framework for measuring human governance along a collective-autocratic axis. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time

Democratic practice in the premodern world was not the exclusive domain of Greece and Rome.

science.org

Press release for our new paper! “…people across the world created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions…An understanding of the hallmarks of autocracy and democracy can help identify threats and pump the brakes on burgeoning totalitarian regimes.” phys.org/news/2026-03...

New study shows democracy has deep global roots—not just Greece and Rome

A new study on ancient societies from around the world is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. A team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient socie...

phys.org

If you are in the UK Civil Service- a DD or aspiring DD - this is an opportunity to work with me, England’s Upland Communities and @DefraGovUK on system transformation - please share widely a fantastic opportunity for a brilliant candidate civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?j…

🔬A compelling reuse case for ADS data from @adamsgreen.bsky.social - medieval archaeological records from Wharram Percy repurposed to model early social metabolism and inform pathways beyond fossil fuel dependency ⬇️ #data #reuse

Adam S. Green@adamsgreen.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Can investigating past economies help us build a future without fossil fuels? @simonmair.bsky.social and I believe the answer lies in a closer investigation of early "social metabolism". www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... into

Can investigating past economies help us build a future without fossil fuels? @simonmair.bsky.social and I believe the answer lies in a closer investigation of early "social metabolism". www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... into

🚨New job Alert! We’re looking for a capable and self-motivated Data Assistant to help us keep Wales’s national archaeology, architecture, industrial and maritime history archive accurate and up-to-date with high-quality information. Find out more: zurl.co/6ZZh9 #job #historic#wales #heritage#data

The past provides our best laboratory for understanding sustainability—archaeologists should synthesise their evidence in order to better steer vital debates. Read more about JARE's new shorter article format in this new post on the CfAS blog! www.archsynth.org/call-for-pap...

And evidence from the past can help us better understand where those structural factors came from, how they have changed, and how they can be changed in the future.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation@jrf-uk.bsky.social · 6mo ago

⚖️ 'Persistent inequalities are not inevitable' Senior Policy Adviser @yasminibison.bsky.social highlights the ethnic groups in the UK with an elevated risk of being in poverty, and structural factors behind why this is the case. Community-led approaches will be vital to making a difference.

All i can say is that a an archaeologist (a) i wish my specialist knowledge a was LESS relevant to the present moment and (b) nothing breaks the spell of capitalist violence faster than taking just how long we existed without it and that there have always been alternatives

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Indeed, I think a core part of our problem right now is that people with humanities degrees and humanities jobs have felt obligated to constantly *apologize* for it for a long time now.

Out now: our new editorial in JARE! As the new Chief Co-Editors, we are seeking research that resonates across archaeology and tackles the world's most vexing challenges. @jenniferbirch.bsky.social @victorloagmnh.bsky.social @jlmunson.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Meeting the Urgent Need and Growing Demand for Archaeological Synthesis - Journal of Archaeological Research

Journal of Archaeological Research -

link.springer.com

Is #inequality the price of "development"? Many economists have long been guided by the idea that as societies become more "developed" they become more unequal. Our new paper challenges this idea. History is not a one-way street. #Archaeology 🧵(1/4) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Kuznets at -7000: Is there a really long-term relationship between growth and inequality?

We use archaeological data on house sizes to generate estimates for economic inequality and economic growth from the Early Holocene to about the first…

sciencedirect.com