A 5-year PDRA position in "Statistical Modelling in Archaeology" is available @cam-archaeology.bsky.social as part of the FORAGER project. Deadline: 21/8/2026 tinyurl.com/muhcjkfy www.forager-erc.eu

🚨New paper just published! 📄 What drives #resilience and #sustainability in societies? Our paper reviews research in the #Mediterranean (1000 BCE–1000 CE) and explores how agent-based modelling can help test the mechanisms behind socio-ecological change 🌍 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Scales, Sources, and Simulations: Reviewing Studies on Human–Environment Interactions in the Mediterranean from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory

Understanding long-term human–environment dynamics is essential for contemporary debates on resilience and sustainability. This paper reviews approaches to studying humans and their environments in th...

link.springer.com

An article last year claimed that tree-ring data shows a link between drought and late Roman conflicts such as the "Barbarian Conspiracy" of 367. We show problems with such claims and appeal for interdisciplinary palaeoclimatic research to respect historical method. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Drought, Conflict and the Use of Historical Data and Methodologies in Interdisciplinary Palaeoclimatic Research - Climatic Change

Climatic Change - A major challenge in the interdisciplinary study of past climates is ensuring that evidence and data relating to different disciplines are analysed effectively using appropriate...

link.springer.com

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

🚨Out today in Science Advances! It is more important than ever to understand the roots and historical breadth of the core features of democratic institutions and autocratic alternatives, what these practices are associated with, and their effects and consequences. 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Last paper from Deborah's (excellent) PhD project is out in Antiquity today. I'm still not sure about the adaptive cycle, but if you're gonna do it, do it with clear a priori hypotheses and actual data...

Deborah Priß@deborahpriss.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New paper out 🥳 In "#Urban #resilience in Ancient #Mesopotamia: insights into the socioeconomic system of the Bronze and Iron Age Khabur Valley", we are mapping network metrics of urban dynamics onto #Holling's adaptive cycle. Full open-access paper here: doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

What did people in China eat for 8,000 years after the arrival of farming? Meng Zhang, Andrew Millard and I used c. 6,500 isotope samples from humans and animals to find out. Open Access article here: doi.org/10.1016/j.qu... Come for the C3 plants, stay for the pig husbandry...

You may have seen the recent #ProjectGallery on Semiyarka: a Bronze Age permanent settlement on a scale previously unknown for the Eurasian steppe! 🏺 In our latest #AntiquityBlog, the authors discuss the first excavations there & next steps for the research: www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...

Forging a Bronze Age City: The Next Chapter at Semiyarka

Recent excavations and analysis at Semiyarka uncover even more exciting information about this early urban centre of the Kazakh steppe

cambridge.org

Thanks to the @antiquity.ac.uk team for making this cool video summarising our recent paper, featuring drone footage from the steppe hero @peterjbrown.bsky.social himself!

Antiquity Journal@antiquity.ac.uk · 9mo ago

Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Nice write-up of our recent paper @antiquity.ac.uk paper in New Scientist - thanks to @chrisnsimms.bsky.social for taking an interest!

Chris Simms@chrisnsimms.bsky.social · 9mo ago

This came as a big surprise to me: In the grasslands of Central Asia, long the domain of mobile peoples living in yurts, a giant settlement dating back 3600 years has been discovered. 🧪 #BronzeAge #science #archaeology www.newscientist.com/article/2504...

New paper out! 🥳 We use MCMC-MLE Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (MTERGMs) to assess which network patterns and social processes explain the formation of the ancient hollow ways. Read the full open access paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #Archaeology #NetworkScience

The social behind the physical - Assessing tie formation processes of ancient route systems

Analysing and understanding connectivity of human social networks of (ancient) societies offers new perspectives on their functioning. However, social…

sciencedirect.com

Delighted that our paper led by Deborah Priß "The social behind the physical" on connectivity of Bronze and Iron Age societies is now out in Journal of Archaeological Science. It's available Open Access at authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

📣 We are sponsoring a session at the next #LAC2026 Our team members Michele Abballe and Dan Lawrence‬ ‪ @dl-arch.bsky.social are co-organising with Alessio Palmisano and Francesca Chelazzi a session on Archaeodemography🎉 Why not join us? The call for papers is out until 31 October 2025! 🕑

Postdoc Job! Come and work with me in Durham, and a bunch of @sse1k.bsky.social heroes in Venice and Basel, doing agent-based modelling of socio-environmental systems in the Ancient Mediterranean... durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

1 month to apply for a cool postdoc position in my team!

Jan Kolář@jankolararchaeo.bsky.social · last yr.

Looking for a postdoc position in quantitative palaeoecology with focus on vegetation? Come to work in my interdisciplinary project in Prague (full-time for 2 years).

New volume of Journal of Urban Archaeology Vol. 11 (2025) www.brepolsonline.net/toc/jua/2025... @brepols.net Archaeological Perspectives on Urban Sustainability @dl-arch.bsky.social

Journal of Urban Archaeology: Vol 11

brepolsonline.net

This is the most hot dog guy meme coded thing I have seen in my entire life. Actually feel the hot dog guy could take lessons from this

Nice short write-up of some of the outcomes of my CLaSS project here. Looking forward to telling the @erc.europa.eu Scientific Council about it all in a couple of weeks!

Durham University@durham.ac.uk · last yr.

We will host the @erc.europa.eu scientific council meeting this June. On the lead up, we're showcasing our ERC-funded projects including Prof. Dan Lawrence's research on the relationship between climate change & societies. Read more 👉 brnw.ch/21wTnsq @dl-arch.bsky.social @britishacademy.bsky.social

UK ARCHAEOLOGISTS Please sign this open letter to UK Archaeological associations to urge solidarity with trans archaeologists and action in light of the horrendous EHRC guidance: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Open Letter to CBA, CIfA, FAME, and UAUK, in relation the Supreme Court Ruling and EHRC Interim Guidance

If you are in any way involved in UK Archaeology (in its broadest sense), and you would like to sign this open letter then please fill in GOOGLE FORM LINK. Responses will be manually inputted. The for...

docs.google.com

Publication day for our @pnas.org Special Feature on inequality in the deep past bit.ly/WInqSF How do the transitions to agriculture, urbanisation and hierarchy impact wealth inequality? What social forces produced sustainable, equal societies in the past? Some answers (and more questions) inside!

Long-term trends in settlement persistence in Southwest Asia: Implications for #SustainableUrbanism, past, present and future by @dl-arch.bsky.social @mwdegruchy.bsky.social et al https://buff.ly/4jQ4s1x #OpenAccess #archaeology #Mesopotamia #sustainability

Please follow our new Contemporary Archaeology account - showcasing the work being done exploring the archaeology of the contemporary world by students in the Dept of Archaeology, Durham University @ducontemparch.bsky.social

DU Contemporary Archaeology@ducontemparch.bsky.social · last yr.

Welcome to the new Bluesky account for the Contemporary Archaeology module run by the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. This is a course where we explore the archaeology of the contemporary world in a hands-on way.

New paper! What did people use as fuel in Southwest Asia over the last 8,000 years? authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... TLDR - mostly whatever was lying around, including pruning waste, dung and olive cakes when population pressure meant they ran out of decent wood

New paper reconstructing land use across Southwest Asia 6,000 years ago, plus comparisons with standard models www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... TLDR: incorporate archaeological data in your reconstructions, kids!

A multi-proxy reconstruction of anthropogenic land use in southwest Asia at 6 kya: Combining archaeological, ethnographic and environmental datasets

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes have important biophysical and biogeochemical effects on climate via a variety of mechanisms. Several climate m…

sciencedirect.com