As anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last couple of months will be aware that 2007 is the 200th anniversary of Parliament’s abolition of the slave trade. As such I though it might be useful to flag up an interesting paper by Dan Hicks (University of Bristol) explores the relationship between ethnicity …
Author Archives: David Petts
Olympics overspend hits HLF
I’m not a great sports fan. The nearest I get to active participation is the occasional length of the pool and a beer in front of the rugby. However, when I heard that London had won the Olympics bid in 2005 I can’t deny that like many others I was pleased. Since, then though, my …
Heritage in the 21st Century: White Paper
The government has just published Heritage in the 21st Century, its White Paper on the future of the protection of archaeological and historic sites in England and Wales. It outlines its proposals for the way in which they hope to change the system which designates particular monuments or structures as worthy of protection. Currently, important …
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Tomb of Christ
Lots of press coverage of the claims by James Cameron (erstwhile producer of Titanic) that archaeologists have discovered the tomb of Jesus and his family. A tomb with a number of ossuaries (boxes for storing bones) were found in excavations in 1980. Six of the ossuaries were marked with the names Mary; Matthew; Jesua son …
Chimpanzee Archaeology
For most of us the idea of chimps using tools tends to bring to the mind the old PG Tips adverts. However, it appears that the truth might be a little more complex. An recent article in The Guardian describes recent observations of female chimpanzees making wooden spears and using them to hunt other animals …
Cleopatra
Cleopatra Some of you may have recently noticed a flurry of news articles about Cleopatra being revealed as not the beauty that portrayed in legend. An image of her on a coin depicts her with a bulging eyes, a thick neck and a hooked nose. This is not a particularly new angle- a similar suggestion …
VANdalism
A controversial archaeological project has recently been carried out at the University of Bristol. Archaeologists from the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology “excavated” a transit van used by workers and archaeologists at the Ironbridge Museum. This has caused some raised eyebrows- is this useful archaeology or a waste of time? Can archaeology tell us something …
Metal Guru
An article in The Guardian about metal detecting. Do you feel the paper addressed in the debate in a balance way?
Archaeology and wind power
There has been a lot of recent interesting work being carried out on off-shore archaeology. This does not just include traditional nautical archaeology focussing on the study of ships and maritime installations. Work such as Birmingham University’s research into North Sea palaeolandscapes is extremely important. It aims to better understand the early landscape of areas …
BBC Folk Awards
Last Wednesday saw the BBC Folk Awards , a handy reminder that the British folk music scene is undergoing a real renaissance (although one might quibble about the decision to award Seth Lakeman best album over both Bellowhead and Tim van Eyken). It would certainly be worth be signing the e-petition protesting against the ridiculous …
Outlandish Knight 