Penny Bickle

@pennybickle.bsky.social

Archaeologist | Orienteerer | Wanderer. Professor of Funerary Archaeology at the University of York, specializing mostly in the central European Neolithic.

Looking for recommendations of non-walking activities in the Lake District? A sprained ankle turns out to be a few broken bones in my foot, but the holiday was already booked - I would have been running at the Lakes 5 days orienteering - but not very mobile in the boot.

New paper (I had a very minor role) with lovely folks interested in complex past social systems. Focusing on the Carpathian basin, the article argues that while social groups change with environmental variations, they do so in unpredictable and unique ways. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Adaptive connectivity networks across climatic and ecological regimes from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages in the Carpathian Basin

Investigating long-term archaeological land-use patterns is crucial for understanding how past populations adjusted settlement strategies, resource ex…

sciencedirect.com

real question can someone explain to me in lay person terms why university finances work the way they do? You spend the first 9 months secretly bringing your own biscuits to meetings and the last 3 months over ordering the expensive pastries to spend the cash before the end of July.

Really delighted to be speaking to the Royal Archaeological Institute in York next April, giving the Talbot Green lecture. Will be attempting to blend a "prehistoric" cheese making demonstration with talking about how Neolithic diets trouble our assumptions about human history as progress. Join us!

Royal Archaeological Institute@royalarchinst.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For the first time, we are planning a lecture outside London - the Talbot Green lecture will take place in York in April 2027. For more details about this and all of the other lectures, please check out our Events Page: www.royalarchinst.org/events

Hoxne Hoard: Mike Peel

Now Bluesky seems to have returned to normal here is our special issue on Domestic and Funerary Archaeologies in Dialogue with World Archaeology. Lots of really interesting perspectives on how to understand death mediated and found in domestic spaces. Thanks to everyone involved!

Penny Bickle@pennybickle.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Turns out special issues are like buses! Today marks publication day for our World Archaeology issue on Domestic and Funerary Archaeologies in Dialogue. It has 11 great papers from Europe, the Americas and northern Africa. www.tandfonline.com/toc/rwar20/5...

This is such a lovely thread of posts about Cate and Carly's paper - if you are interested in archaeologies of kinship, that so often are informed by the context in which the dead have been mourned, this is one for you!

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

Reminder that the launch for the upcoming special issue on Kinship trouble in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal will be held next Tuesday (see post below for link to sign up). The issue itself will be published open access itself on the 14th before we launch. Hope you can come and join us!

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...

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...

Kinship Trouble: Cambridge Archaeological Journal Special Issue Launch - Royal Anthropological Institute

This virtual launch is co-organized with the Archaeology and Gender in Europe (AGE) Network of the European Association of Archaeologists. Tuesday 14 April 2026, 4-6pm (BST) To join on Zoom, please re...

therai.org.uk

Always lovely to make a trip to Cambridge to chat to the great staff and students. This time speaking to the BioAnth crew :-)

Thomas Van Parys@tomvp.bsky.social · 6mo ago

11-02-2026: Very interesting talk from @pennybickle.bsky.social about LBK burial practices in Neolithic Central Europe. Especially interested by the development of ‘bounded’ cemeteries from settlement burials, and the variation between them! #BioAnthSeminar #Archaeology #Neolithic #Bioarchaeology

Evidence for contact between LBK and hunter-gatherers, it grows at every turn, but we are no closer to really understanding the range and scope of relationships. The site of Eilsleben gives us more evidence of just how close interaction could have been. Plus that deer antler mask 🤩

Antiquity Journal@antiquity.ac.uk · 7mo ago

Archaeologists have uncovered one of the first instances of interaction between #Neolithic farmers and #Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in central Europe, indicating a level of technology transfer not observed before. 🏺A communicative #AntiquityThread 1/10 🧵

Smooth, Neolithic stone axes, knapped flint tools and two awls made from bone.

Wonderful study on a cow called Veronica and her use of tools! The video abstract is a treat, as is this thread. Definitely using in future lectures to talk about how we approach animal sociality and mutuality of being in the past. We all know how good it is to scratch that itch!!

Tay (Antonio J. Osuna Mascaró)@biotay.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Cow Tools! We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years. We breed them and exploit them It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS Here I describe our study (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @auersperga.bsky.social