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Abu Dhabi Islands Survey Part One

In October a survey team from the University of Southampton were involved in an archaeological and geophysical survey in collaboration with the Maritime Archaeology Stewardship Trust (MAST) and Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture (ADTCA). Research was carried out on the islands of Sir Bani Yas and Marawah investigating a range of different sites. The ‘Ubaid settlements and archaeology on Marawah will be the subject of the next blog. Continue reading →

The Sea and Me: Public Event 22nd Nov

Saturday 22nd November 10am – 5pm Free This event will bring together researchers, local cultural institutions, and the wider public for a series of talks, workshops, and hands-on activities around the theme of The Sea. We’ll be considering everything from pirates to shipwrecks to sound and the sea. As a port city, Southampton has a long history of interaction with the sea and the industries surrounding it. Continue reading →

New BA (hons) Archaeology and Anthropology degree at Southampton University

Now recruiting for 2015 entry, the University of Southampton is pleased to announce our new BA (Hons) in Archaeology and Anthropology. Based in the Department of Archaeology, this exciting programme draws from Social Sciences and Humanities and gives students the opportunity to understand human social organization and behaviour both past and present, using wide ranging methods from ethnography to the study of artefacts. Continue reading →

Earliest Cave Paintings feature on Human Universe with Brian Cox

Hand stencils and other cave art, in El Castillo Cave, Spain features in the BBC Two documentary Human Universe, to be broadcast on 4th November. Some of the art in El Castillo Cave was recently dated by my team, showing it to be the earliest in Europe, dating to at least 40,800 years ago. In the show, Brian Cox suggests the art demonstrates the ability of these early painters to envision not just the past and the present, but also the future. Continue reading →

The Anthropocene in Berlin

I am writing this from Berlin, where I am for a long weekend of talks and performances on the idea of the Anthropocene: the notion that we no longer live in the Holocene but in a new geological era which is defined by the immense impact of one species (humans) upon earth. The concept was not meant to promote the exceptionalism of Homo sapiens, not to glorify humans at the expense of all other species and of the earth in general. It rather wishes to do the opposite. Continue reading →

Minecrafting Italy

Last week I set up my first Minecraft server. I’d been discussing how we might build Portus on the University’s Minecraft server, but because we don’t yet have Admin access to that I thought I ought to set one up on one of my own machines to start understanding how it all works. I say “one of my own machines” because I had planned to run it from my University Windows laptop, but I could not get it to work. Continue reading →

Playable Cities videos

I wasn’t able to get to the Playable Cities conference (for the second year running – next year, I must try harder), but handily they put a number of the sessions online at http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/conference14/watch-talks/ They are quite quiet for my deaf old ears, I needed to turn them up to full both in the player and on my computer to get them above a whisper. Continue reading →

Hands Across The Globe

Are hand stencils, older than 40,000 years in Sulawesi, the visual relic of Humans’ journey out of Africa? A paper published in Nature today (Aubert et al. 2014) reveals U-Th dates on calcite deposits formed over painted hand stencils and shows the stencils are older than 39,900 years old along with figurative art that is older than 35,400 years old. Continue reading →