Current Archaeology Live! 2012
Current Archaeology Live is an annual event hosted by Current Archaeology magazine. The event is now in it’s fifth year, and thanks to a competition held by the magazine, I was lucky enough to win a free ticket to this year’s event, held in the prestigious Senate House in London.
- (This review originally appeared on Heritage Action's Heritage Journal)
- The two-day event comprised of four themed sessions per day, of three talks each. On the Friday this was followed by an Awards ceremony, and party. Due to domestic commitments, I was unable to attend the Saturday morning sessions. As an experiment, I decided to ‘live-tweet’ the sessions I attended to our Twitter feed, using the hash tag #calive2012. I found this hard going at times, but fun. Luckily, I wasn't the only one tweeting as Carly from the magazine was also on tweet duty.
After some admin announcements and introductory remarks to an audience of some 3-400 people, the sessions kicked off:
Session 1 – Stonehenge and Megalithic Monuments
Professor Timothy Darvill opened with an interesting talk on “Stonehenge and Preseli: it’s only Rock ‘n Roll” in which he discussed the geology of the Preseli area, and compared this with the layout of the different types of stone used on Salisbury Plain. At the same time, the ‘glaciation’ theory of stone movement was scientifically and vehemently rebuked.
#calive2012 Carn Menyn Cairn built on a spring - complex history in several stages- #calive2012 Cottesmore Farm timber circle. Preseli not just about stone, but timber too.
Tim Darvill: upland archaeology... It all seems straightforward until you get a spade out! #calive2012- Julian Richards: I tried drinking from a spring at Preseli to cure my creaky archaeologists' knees... it didn't work... #calive2012
- Daniel Lee then gave a fascinating talk entitled “The past stares back: recent excavations at Banks and other Neolithic chambered tombs in Orkney”. He described the discovery of the tomb at Banks and the extensive work, sometimes in difficult environmental conditions, to uncover exactly what was there. This included otter sprait (poo!) at all levels of the excavation, showing the monument was possibly open to the elements for a considerable part of its usage.
- Homes for the living, homes for the dead. Some intriguing parallels between the layout of Neolithic tombs and houses on Orkney #calive2012
- #calive2012 Good roundup of several Orkney sites, revisiting upsets previous assumptions.
- #calive2012 Banks tomb - large amount of human remains, some unique features in the tomb.
- #calive2012 2000 bones in a very small area, and small depth. Many unhealthy individuals.
