Category Archives: Events and activities

Conferences, trips, lectures.

Mesolithic Deeside, Aberdeenshire | 30-Sep – 01-Oct 2016

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◊ Dear Microburins

2016_DeessideI’m hoping to attend this event — hopefully see some of you there? More info »

Horsemill, Crathes Castle AB31 5QJ | 30 September – 01 October 2016

  • 30 September 7pm Caroline Wickham-Jones – talk: Mesolithic Deeside
  • Saturday 1 October 11am Shannon Fraser – talk: Crathes Castle Mesolithic pit alignment
    1pm and 3pm Heather Sabnis – talk: Discovering Mesolithic Crathes
  • All day – Flint sessions – handle flints from the Mesolithic Deeside sites and talk to archaeologists, plus events for children
    Outdoor events by Brian Wilkinson 10am-4pm

Useful links

♦ Spence

PALAEO2020 Conference | London 19 May 2016

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◊ Dear Microburins,

Palaeo2020_19May16The Society of Antiquaries of London, with Dr Matt Pope and Prof Clive Gamble at the helm, are hosting a day conference.

“Progress made in the first decade of the 21st century is now under threat in the current climate of austerity. Planning provision and expertise within local authorities are being dramatically eroded by cutbacks, research funding from traditional routes such as UK grant awarding bodies and Historic England are increasingly restricted. Within our own discipline the established pathways for career progression and the development of effective expertise are increasingly limited.

The conference seeks to address these urgent challenges as well as develop a new and radical approach to Palaeolithic research. Central to the meeting will be how we can optimise the resources available to us to deliver a new, deeper understanding about our deep past while maintaining effective and consistent protection of the resource.”

Hopfully see you there!

♦ Spence

Dearne Valley Archaeology Day 2016 | Pioneers, Hangers-on and Newcomers

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Elmet◊ Microburin is delighted to have a poster accepted for Elmet Archaeological Services popular archaeology day, Sat 28 May at Dearne Valley College, South Yorkshire – with a keynote address by Carenza Lewis!

Pioneers, Hangers-on and Newcomers:
New Evidence for Early Mesolithic, Late Mesolithic and Neolithic Transition in North-East Yorkshire

Spencer D Carter
Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University

Keywords: Mesolithic, Neolithic transition, Lithics, Radiocarbon dates, Palaeo-environment

TVA_ECW2Our understanding of the late and post-glacial archaeology of north-east Yorkshire and the Tees–Swale river catchments has, surprisingly, changed little since reconnaissance work in the mid-to-late 20th century, often poorly recorded. Since Jeff Radley’s 1969 paper The Mesolithic Period in North-East Yorkshire, and subsequent syntheses, little new data – or reliable radiocarbon chronologies – have been added to the archaeological record. The palaeo-environmental context, however, is much better understood after decades of research.

This poster presents new lithics and feature-based evidence in ‘persistent places’, spanning the six thousand years of the Mesolithic. Thirteen new radiocarbon determinations suggest the possibility of a very late and ‘terminal’ Mesolithic presence, aligned to pre-elm decline landscape disturbance sequences, around the fifth to fourth millennium cal BC transition in the uplands – commensurate with Early Neolithic structural evidence on the coast.

♦ Spence

Immersed In Lithics Conference | 25-27 Feb 2016 Manchester University

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◊ Dear Microburins,

With permission from the organising team, I’m pleased to announce that registration is now open for this conference. It brings together lithic researchers from all aspects of the discipline—with a particular focus on new and current approaches to lithics—and aims to discuss a variety of innovative methods of lithic analysis.

Immersed-in-Lithics-PosterMore Info | http://immersedinlithics.org/ »

  • Thu 25 Feb | Evening round-table discussion with keynote speakers followed by an informal wine reception
  • Fri 26 Feb | A day of paper presentations and posters
  • Sat 27 Feb | Stone Age Big Saturday! at the Manchester Museum, a family event offers the perfect opportunity for researchers to interact with the wider public

Manchester is rather busy this week and so please do book accommodation early. Both venues are on the university campus (close to Oxford Road) and generally a fair distance from hotels. Maps can be downloaded from the website. See you there!

♦ Spence

Charting Chipeling | Kiplin Hall archaeology exhibition opens 3 April

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◊ Dear Microburins,

I’m pleased to announce here that an archaeology exhibition opens on Good Friday at Kiplin Hall near Catterick, North Yorkshire and runs until 28 October.

One-thousand-and-one finds will be on display tracking the prehistory and history of the hall and its estate from the Mesolithic to WWII. This was a fantastic community dig to be involved in last year, truly cross-community, generations and backgrounds, including students from Maryland University. Hopefully there’ll be some great pictures from the inaugural open evening event just before the public launch (my esteemed professor will be there, so I’ll need to prep!).

The monograph on the 2014 excavations is due later this year with Jim Brightman, Solstice Heritage, pulling together the specialist reports, including the prehistoric flint and chert lithics by you know who. My favourite find, however, remains the racing pigeon leg-ring with serial number from the 1960s found in proximity to gun cartridges.

Originally one of Easby Abbey’s monastic granges, Kiplin Hall is a gem of a stately home, trust and volunteer-run, with fantastic grounds, a huge lake, walled garden—you can often buy the lush produce—and plenty to see in a tranquil setting a few miles from the A1 near Brompton-on-Swale and Scorton. A watching-brief excavation in January this year, in a pipe trench, also seems to have revealed evidence for the pre-Jacobean manor’s demolition deposits.

♦ Spence

Lock up your pets and grannies | Microburin’s on video

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2014_SHBS_KirkvidAs if the world isn’t dangerous enough, @microburin is now on video – sounding alarmingly like Prince Harry – at Kirkleatham Museum, Redcar & Cleveland. The video introduces the Street House Before the Saxons exhibition which runs until July 2015. There are a few of my Mesolithic flint images (and text) on the info-boards too. MicrolithsThe Street House Farm archaeology project has been running since the 1980s under the directorship of Steve Sherlock, archaeologist extraordinaire and the chap currently responsible for the archaeological oversight of the A1(M) works between Leeming and Barton, including Roman Catterick CATARACTONIUM fort and town.

Street House, near Loftus in East Cleveland, has archaeological remains from at least the Neolithic − an early timber mortuary structure – through numerous Bronze Age burial mounds (and a wossit), an extensive Iron Age farming community who were probably making and selling salt, Romano-British canny folk who were manufacturing Whitby Jet objects like beads, spindle whorls and probably pins, with suggestions of continuity into the early post-Roman ‘dark ages’. There are also hints in the lithics of possible Later/Terminal Mesolithic activity, which is right up my street.

Of course, despite many thousands of years of human activity, Street House is probably best known for the Anglo-Saxon Royal Princess buried in a 7th-century AD cemetery, in her bed, with breathtaking jewels of gold and garnet, on permanent display. Do try visit both exhibitions—and peruse the Street House Roman phallus carving from the 2013 excavations?

◊ Spence