Skip to main content

Searching For Stones- Another Summer of Archaeology

 Searching for stones is definitely a good way to describe my summer.

I have been incredibly lucky this year to have had the opportunity to go to the west coast of Scotland three times over my summer. The first was a lovely family holiday, which included getting lost in a bog looking for the remains of an old clachan (pre-clearance township), and just making it to Iona to see the famous abbey before the ferry was stopped for the only day we were on Mull!

Later in the summer, I had the privilege of attending a 'String Ceilidh' on Skye, which was an amazing way to meet the local community that exists beyond the tourist sites and shops. This evening of insights into people's deep lived experience and connection to the and they called home as well as talks by prominent textile archaeologists is one I will not soon forget! Whilst on Skye I also had the chance to visit the Museum of Island Life, which gave a fascinating window into the life of island crofters over the last couple of centuries (and further fuelled my wish to one day learn Scottish Gaelic) and I managed to get lost on the way back to the BnB looking for a Pictish cross.

The third trip to Scotland was by far the biggest, my university fieldwork on the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Most undergraduate archaeology students in the UK have to undertake fieldwork, and this is often facilitated by the university teaching your degree. I had based quite a lot of my decision to come to the University of Manchester based on a talk about this project at an open data. This was an absolutely amazing project and I have made some wonderful friends and memories. Due to the acidic nature of the soil on site, most of our artefacts were stone, and so once again I was looking for interesting stones in Scotland.

Alongside this I have been making a start on research for my dissertation which is on a topic that in many ways is about as removed from stone as you can get, textiles. And yet, given organics are probably the most illusive type of finds recovered in archaeology (I make good life choices...) stones can crop up even here, as loom weights, spindle whorls and a variety of other tools that are often our best insight into the production methods for textiles in the past. 

I have also been incredibly fortunate to spend much of my summer enjoying the countryside surrounded by greenery, ahead of going back to metapolitican Manchester for the next semester. I have visited castles, catherdals and counted court with some rather ancient trees. I've got lost down sides streets and met up with some amazing friends. University is a great experience, but home is still very precious to me and I am so grateful for the chances to connect to my corner of the world.

Thank you for reading, leave a comment about what you have been up to this summer!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Degree Has Come to an End

My time as an undergraduate at Manchester has come to an end. I had my last formal teaching last week and handed in my final assessments today. I have completed my degree. And now all that is left is to receive my final results and graduation.  These last three years have absolutely flown by. There have certainly been challenging moments, most certainly starting in the middle of the lockdowns and spending my first year online. But I have also had an amazing time, making wonderful friends and meeting some of the most inspiring people. I will most certainly be staying in contact with these people who have inspired and supported me.  I have also learnt so much, both academically and personally. My love for archaeology has only grown and I now feel confident that this is the career path I wish to pursue. And this is not the end of my involvement, either with academia or these amazing people. I will be speaking at a conference with my amazing supervisor on the findings of my disser...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Summer of Archaeology

  Hello! The equinox has come and gone, and the leaves are finally beginning to turn. All of this means autumn has set in and summer is most definitely over. So I really should actually write up about my summer... Books A'Hay My first year of university finished back in June. The first thing I did was celebrate completing this step in becoming an archaeologist. And how did I celebrate? By buying more books on archaeology... I went to Hay-on-Wye for a weekend. While I was there I fell in love with the town. After all, what is there not to love about a cute little market town full of cafes and bookshops? The Poetry Bookshop was a joy, I was finally able to track down some copies of Emily Dickinson and Sapho that I had been looking for, for well over a year. (I have a thing about trying to find a physical copy of books I want to read rather than buying them online, but sometimes I am too impatient.) But the true gem in my trip was the Old Cinema bookshop. This is exactly what it sound...
Post a Comment
Read more

End of Second Year

Hello! I am writing this entry up in the strange hazy space that sits at the end of every academic year. Suddenly, all the pressure of deadline season has fallen away and your days are without as regimented a timetable. This is usually when I ask myself, what now? How do I fill this expanse of time? How do I spend it meaningful? The usual response is to take a nap and read a book and focus on the rest another day. Today was ever so slightly different. Once the summer is over I will be entering the final year of my undergraduate degree in archaeology. And so, with my final coursework due in at 12pm, I also had a workshop on preparation for my dissertation at 12pm. Out with the old and in with the new, I guess. This has given me a major focus for my summer as I am hoping to get a large chunk of reading done. I am also very excited about going on fieldwork again this year- this time I am going up to the remote west coast of Scotland and I cannot wait to be back in one of my favourite regi...
Post a Comment
Read more