Moving On

I started this blog in 2012, just after I left the comforting embrace of a postgraduate study room and disappeared to Devon to write up my thesis.

It has seen me through my first job, my first publications, my first child, and a whole load of other valuable and life changing experiences.

It's been a great space to write and think and share.

But I think I've outgrown it. It feels clunky, it looks dated, and it no longer meets my needs. (The same could sometimes be said of my body, but I'm letting that off the hook after completing a triathlon at the weekend, in spite of my atrocious pelvic floors). God knows, I abandoned the "Pots, Places, Stones, Bones" premise years ago. A new place to talk to the internet is definitely required.

So, I have built it, now I'd like you to come on over there.

My new blog is lucyshipleywritesthepast.wordpress.com

I hope you like it. Thanks for all the comments, thoughts, views, engagements we've shared here. I hope we'll keep on sharing them.

PS- I'm leaving this blog live as an archive, a diary, a memory. There'll be a link here from the shiny new site. Some of these posts were too much fun to get rid of.

A Safe Space

It's been an emotional evening. It's the eve of the EU Referendum, which has unleashed forces of misogyny and xenophobia that have ended in murder. I fully support giving the people the right to decide, but turning over this particular stone has had consequences I (naively) didn't predict. There have also been some particularly awful news stories that have had an impact on me - the murder of children in Syria and right here in the UK. Tonight I've been reading the experiences of women having the most terrible experiences which made me so full of anger and sadness (and confirmed all my feelings about being 100% pro-choice).

And all this sturm und drang has coincided with the beginning of digging season: my social media feeds are flooded with friends returning to the most beautiful Tuscan village where, although bad things certainly happened when I was there, my memory provides a warped vision of golden summers filled with friends and the joy of science and discovery. My friend Theresa just wrote the most lovely piece on the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) caused by not being there.

I wonder if the real reason I grieve for not spending 8 weeks digging in Italy this summer is not the high of excavation, or the high jinks of celebrations/commisserations. I don't think it's the food, wine or views that I'm really missing. I think it's the entirely false impression that in that enchanted place, in this safe space, there are no problems that our wonderful excavation director can't work out, and that can't be forgotten with a little grappa, a hug and a late night conversation with a good friend.

I think that's a testament to the site and its running, and I'm sure that experience was not universal: I certainly saw people battle with homesickness, personal issues, relationships and grief. Nostalgia is a false friend. But those summers were before I really saw Etruscan archaeology with the gloves off at a hostile, sexist conference, before I lost a pregnancy and came damn near losing another one, back when I had a funded PhD position and an engagement ring and was sure that the world would be a feast of opportunities and joys.

Those experiences are the reason it doesn't feel the same when I go back, the reason the FOMO bites me personally so hard.

As with everything in archaeology, the major issue is I can't go back in time.

Teaching Trigger Warnings

Image: wikimedia commons

Trigger warning: this post will contain some upsetting descriptions of other people's life experiences.

That's one sentence- are you going to stop reading? There's been a bit of scrapping on Twitter and elsewhere recently about using trigger warnings in university teaching. One academic I deeply respect argued convincingly that she does not and will not use them in her practice: she sees them as alienating students from the realities of the world, and pointed out that so much of her teaching is centred on disturbing events she would need to issue a trigger warning every week.

However, looking back, I do think I should have used trigger warnings in my teaching. If and when I am lucky enough to get my hands on more innocent undergraduate minds, I will make sure to do this. And this is why.

I taught a course that was designed to blow open those first year undergraduate minds- Social and Cultural Anthropology for Archaeologists. We (my brilliant co-lecturer and I) tried hard to get everyone thinking about their own ethnocentricity- their rootedness in a particular culture - and the way this affects archaeological interpretation. By exploring both the theoretical underpinnings and fascinating case studies of social anthropology, we tried to show the infinite variety and meaning in human behaviour. I hope our students enjoyed the experience.

BUT, one lecture in particular could have been deeply distressing for some students, and I'm ashamed that I never thought of this until recently. For this week of work, we looked at sexuality, and our case study was Gilbert Herdt's work with the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea. Among the Sambia, the only way for a boy to become a man is for him to ingest semen, which he receives orally from older men. The young boys are also toughened up with beatings, and ritual nosebleedings (shown in the picture at the top). Our point (linked to Mary Weismantel's brilliant paper on Moche pots) was that you cannot define easily what is sexual, and what is abuse. From a Sambia perspective, one could argue that Western boys are abused as they can never fully become men. There is also an uncomfortable argument to engage with about abstract concepts of morality, and respecting indigenous practice vs feeling pity for the children involved. The lecture never failed to spark debate and get people questioning themselves, which was our hope.

AND YET. What if someone in the room had been sexually abused as a child? Beaten and forced to perform fellatio? How profoundly distressing and uncomfortable the experience of learning about the Sambia would be, what dreadful memories could have been dredged up, what damage could we have done as lecturers where we had hoped to inspire?

So, in short, we needed to let students know what was coming. We needed a trigger warning. With that session in mind, I think I'll always be more aware of this in my teaching. For the sake of a single sentence, it's better to avoid a lecture with potentially disastrous consequences.

#MisCourage and telling the whole truth

It's all gone a bit quiet from me recently- not been on Twitter much, been rubbish at replying to emails, not been banging on about archaeology online, not done much writing since coming back from Ireland.

This could just be a natural reaction to the intensity of a Visiting Fellowship, a joyful time which was stuffed to the gunnels with work.

Sadly, that's not what the problem was. The problem was that last Friday I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and have since been going through the process of my body disposing of this poor little misplaced bundle of cells. It's not been much fun. In fact, there was a point on Friday when it looked like I would be in surgery that afternoon. I can't say how thankful I am that this didn't happen and my body has dealt with it without intervention. I'm definitely one of the lucky ones.

I've read other brave posts from scholars writing about how their ongoing conditions have affected their work- what comes across most is their strength to carry on in spite of long term pain. I don't know quite how to explain my own sudden absence except in these brutally honest terms: I've had bigger things to worry about than Etruscans, publications, and even Twitter, like potentially losing a Fallopian tube and leaving my daughter overnight while she is still getting over being separated in Ireland.

Tommy's, a charity that supports families who suffer pregnancy loss and stillbirth, have started a campaign called #MisCourage that encourages people to share their experiences, start a conversation, acknowledge that this happens: it's not all happy endings and cute scan pictures. For some of us, what starts with a joyful little line on a stick ends with tears and tests and ultra towels.

I wanted to join in, to explain, to state what has happened in the last week. But I do feel afraid- is this appropriate, is this too much information, is this really ok for a blog that is deeply tied to my academic identity? But the two things go together- if you've been wondering where I've been, now you know. Is it better to be perceived as an oversharer or a flake?

I'm going with it's better to tell the truth.

Saying stupid stuff on the Internet

Recently I've had a couple of Twitter booboos.

The first one was not too bad, I thought someone was critiqueing someone else in a sarcastic way and tried to join is as I like this person and respect their work. They were being serious. I felt like an utter tool. Luckily this person is as kind and generous as they are a good scholar and was very magnanimous about my idiocy. I resolved not to go on Twitter in the early morning when extremely tired after a night of battling Silvia.

The second time, I had no such excuse. I'd been at work here at NUIG all day, my brain was fully in gear. But I just saw a single retweet and went off like a rocket, soaring into an interpretative universe all my own. It was an RT of someone live tweeting a paper on Roman breast pumps and (having been tortured by the damn things myself) I was instantly going off into a world of experiential archaeology, the significance of being able to effectively relieve your own engorgement pain (it is as bad as it sounds folks), the need for such relief if elite Roman women were giving their babies to wet nurses etc etc. Except that the objects in question weren't breast pumps at all, and that was the whole point of the paper. DOH!

I normally try to be quite careful about what I post online: after all, it's a reflection of me and I like to think that I'm as kind and thoughtful a human being on t'Internet as I try to be in life. When it's clear you've been an idiot, however, how can you respond?

In both cases, I've responded with apologies and corrections, tried to make myself the butt of the joke. I don't know if this is the right response. I'm still worried about both situations, about future possible idiocies. Maybe this is my David Clarke social media moment, Lucy's online archaeology's loss of innocence?

Anyway, let me know if you've got good ways to a) avoid being a fool online b) minimise the effects of that foolishness. Oh, and if you've seen me be an idiot online, tell me please.

The researcher wants a wife...

The researcher wants a wife, the researcher wants a wife, ee ii the adio the researcher wants a wife.

Wife wanted. 1950s style preferred. Satisfaction its own reward, no stipend. You will need to take care of my child full time while I work, be prepared to pick up and move to a new city every 2-3 years for the next 10, keep on top of the lion's share of the housework, do any and all childcare in a strange place while I'm on fieldwork. You certainly won't have time for your own career as I will need all your time to support my own. Oh, and any kids will need to be 100% adaptable to my sudden disappearances and continual new houses and schools.

I'm in Galway, and for the next two weeks I do have a wife (of sorts) as my husband (keep up!) has taken precious annual leave to take care of our daughter while I enjoy the absolute luxury of space to time, think and write here on a Visiting Fellowship.

Our daughter, while coping brilliantly with being with Daddy in the daytime (and my parents for the previous week- thanks Mum and Dad) is clingy and sad at night, and wants to be with me almost continually, waking every two hours. I am, as a result, just a bit tired.

If I had a wife, she would be the primary carer and Silvie would be fine. I wouldn't have to make this wife take Annual Leave. Applying for a post-doc to come back here full time wouldn't be a source of worry and nervousness, it would be an exciting prospect as said wife would just get on with her homely tasks and settle the baby in for me.

Seeing as how no 1950s housewife/free of charge Mary Poppins figure is going to show up and sort this issue out, I'm going to have to keep on juggling, and enjoy the short term time for my own work.

Yet I can't help feeling that the structure of research careers: characterised by prestigious international fellowships, national relocations, and short term contracts, is inherently biased against people with families- men and women.

These posts are underwritten by other people doing the domestic labour - a kind of labour that has traditionally been highly gendered. But in the modern world, your spouse (male or female) is highly unlikely to be a full time domestic god(dess) who can just pack up their hoover and the nappies and move wherever you need to go next.

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm going with just applying for everything and hoping that things fall into place. But if you'd like to be my 1950s wife, get in touch.

I said it, and I meant it

So I deleted my academia.edu account.

I've been perturbed by academia.edu for some time now. I couldn't quite put my finger on what I disliked about the site- but I think it was probably a nagging question of why embrace a series of unforced performance metrics when your life is already filled by the damn things? Sure, it's fun to see how many views a paper gets, and how many your profile gets (wow, someone in Argentina looked at my profile etc) but do you really need to know this? How much is vanity, and how much is career obsession? Are either of those two things healthy?

I still did it though. The old (and deep) fear of your career suffering as a result of not playing the game won out.

But the recent revelations that academia.edu staff have been contacting scholars and asking them to consider paying for their papers to be promoted by senior staff has revealed a lot about the site, in my eyes at least.

And, in common with lots of other scholars, I'm no longer happy to affiliate with the site. So, I've pulled my profile down.

If you want to read my work, go for it! If you want to get in touch, please do. I'd love to hear from anyone about collaboration or feedback or anything. I just don't want to have those conversations through a medium that seeks to profit from a desperate desire for career progression, and that is willing to swap endorsements for cash.

Grand Challenges Part II: This time, it's personal

Yes, I'll be back, Clonmacnoise.

 
So, as promised, here is the second half of my little chunk of the wonderful Doug's Archaeology 2016 blogging carnival.

First, some news: I have resigned from my job at Andante Travels- yes, the dream job designing wonderful archaeological holidays. In so many ways it was perfect, supportive company, great colleagues, opening up the past to the general public. But I couldn't make it work with a 10 month old and a 90 minute commute. So, that's that.


What happens now?* Well, I'm delighted to say I've been offered a Moore Institute Visiting Fellowship at National University of Ireland, Galway. I'll be there from late March to mid-April, made possible by my parents and husband taking time out to look after Silvia. I'm excited about it, and about the work I'll be doing, as well as the people I'll be working with. Any suggestions for cool things to do in Galway with a toddler much appreciated.

I hope the weather in Galway is this good again, or husband will suffer with a cooped up Silvia!

Apart from that, 2016 is looking like a blur of writing and childcare, with some conferences and talks thrown in. Sometimes the two go together well, sometimes they don't. So that's one challenge: finish the book (halfway through the second draft people!), get half done articles out of my brain and onto some poor reviewer's desk, and keep a demanding young lady happy.

Her challenge is to walk under the Boccanera Plaques, not crawl. FYI, the Etruscan gallery of the British Museum is an excellent place for your baby- the case arrangements are a perfect crawling speedway.

The day-to-day of this is not a problem, keeping the balls in the air- you just do it. She wouldn't sleep last night, so instead of doing my usual 8-11 writing stint, it was 10-1. Then she woke at 3. And 5. Not great, but fine. I'm awake and alert. Just.

Coming to the point at last, my own grand challenge is to carve out a meaningful space for this new woman-in-archaeology-but-also-in-motherhood self. It would be wonderful to be able to link this with a formal position, but if the applications gods are unkind, I need to find a way to be ok with that. To write, to think, to be an archaeologist. Inside or outside the academy**. And I need to fit that with my family.

Doddle, right?

Ha.

Disclaimer: I AM INCREDIBLY AWARE OF HOW PRIVILEGED I AM TO BE ABLE TO TAKE THIS TIME AND HAVE THIS SPACE TO THINK AT ALL. Just saying. Also, it's a neat little feminist juxtaposition that embracing total dependence on my husband (and the vast majority of housework/childcare) allows me to think and work, albeit not for pay. Hmmm.

*Well, my first commitment that I'm so pleased to be doing is at the Institute of Classical Studies in London on the 9th February. Come along for some Derrida, some Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, and to hear the results of that survey I've been plugging on Twitter. What's not to like?

**Another post needed here on the new independent scholar, I think. With the current over-production of PhDs, we could be a veritable army.

Writing for normal people

Normally, I write for weirdos. Other archaeologists, to be precise. We're an odd bunch, and I say that with utter respect and love. I adore reading academic archaeology, the more theoretical, the better. I love to attack an article, pull it to bits, figure it out and build it back together. I enjoy writing this way, too.

But currently I'm writing for the real world. For those who aren't totally obsessed with the dead, and who wouldn't dream of applying some bizarre social theory to a set of graves and coming up with an out-there-but-it-kinda-works interpretation.

I'm halfway through writing my second book (the first was my PhD, now available wherever good archaeological works are sold- so mostly on the internet then), which has an informal subtitle of "why you should give a damn about the Etruscans." Approaching the midpoint of the first draft, I've come to several conclusions about writing for a non-academic crowd, and I'd like to hear other thoughts.

1) Keep it snappy, sunshine. Endless clauses just annoy people. If you can't say it clear and concise, why are you saying it at all?

2) Don't get preachy. Nobody likes to read moralising tomes of self-improving blah. If you have an ethical point to make, do it straight.

3) Admit your own fallibility. Just because you're writing this book, doesn't mean you know everything. General readers can sniff out a self important phony as well as the academic crowd.

MOST IMPORTANTLY

4) Don't be afraid to have fun. It should be an enjoyable read, and so should be enjoyable to write. You can always edit out the bad jokes later, but I feel that a non fiction book for a general audience should be rollicking good fun while also making you think.

Any tips and pointers anyone? Thinking it through, I feel that these four points probably apply to good academic writing too. Especially the last one.

I'll stop skiving and get back to the grindstone now, before the baby wakes up.

Field Schools- the good, the bad and the ugly

I had a discussion on Twitter this morning with some of my favourite tweeps, prompted by this article about archaeological (and other earth science disciplines') field schools. It's a pretty straightforward critique of the dominant American model, in which students pay (often a big whack of $$$) for the opportunity to excavate. The problem is that this is often a compulsory component of a degree course, and the author argues that as such, it should be included within the overall fees that a student pays (and God knows they are already prohibitive when your graduate job has a minimum wage attached).

The questions of what field school is for, what it should be, and who pays for it is are important. Field schools are often the first taste of excavation for students, and colour their impression of the commercial and research routes of the discipline. I'd argue that for those students who don't stay in archaeology this is especially significant- archaeology needs support from those on the outside if it is to survive. Field schools are also generating archaeological data, often on important sites- the quality of excavation needs to match up to the quality of raw archaeology, so teaching excellence and strong leadership and interpretation (at the trowel's edge, shoutout to my Ian Hodder groupies) is essential. Ideally, they should also be reasonably priced or (better) free, so that students from non-privileged backgrounds can share in archaeological discovery without being clobbered with even more debt, or even more pressure.

There's the rub. I love the tradition of local university digs, the clambering onto a minibus in the grey of a city dawn, the squashed sandwiches and muddy boots. But UK archaeology, while interesting, isn't quite up there with my Etruscan loves. I wanted, needed, to encounter Etruscan archaeology with my own hands, with my own trowel. So I had to pay. The project receives next to no funding from the University that hosts it- the fees covered living costs for me and contributed to those of staff members. There are scholarships that contribute to fees for those who would struggle, but the fact remains- if you don't have the cash, you can't really dig here. That interest is off limits to you. That's a problem.

There's a worse problem, which happily doesn't apply to the field school I have worked at. It's when someone pays the money, working long hours, borrowing from relatives to follow their passion- and it turns out to be a disaster. At every field school, first time excavators often discover that fieldwork is not their bag- but hopefully they can still find something to enjoy- travel, new friends, time out from the real world enveloped in the physicalities of excavation. But when conditions are atrocious, teaching poor and hierarchies oppressive, the thought of the money paid for an utterly miserable experience is sickening.

It's also bad for the archaeology. My first excavation experience age 18 involved being given a 1x1 and a trowel and bucket and left to get on with it. Cue horror- I had thoroughly absorbed the message about archaeology as destructive science. I had no clue about recording, about artefact types, about anything. A supervisor would wander past about every hour and laugh at my terrified face. It put me off fieldwork for years, as I couldn't face the responsibility again. Better to write about other people's excavations (and there's totally no problem with archaeologists who don't dig- it's not the be all and end all) and not risk screwing up a context forever.

That's a bad field school. But it can be worse. I've blogged before about Kate Clancy's research on abuse in fieldwork disciplines. You pay your money, or you give your time, and you are abused by a supervisor. Disgusting in every situation, free dig or costly fieldschool.

So, what makes a good field school for you? Any solutions to the funding problem? How do you access archaeology that you find interesting without stumping up the cash? And a year on from Clancy's research, what's changed to make fieldwork safer?

Boobs and bad advice

If you have Twitter, you'll have spotted the latest firestorm over some questionable career advice. A post-doc's advisor can't keep his eyes from her boobs. She should put up and shut up, apparently. Cue rage.

Science, the journal that hosted the agony aunt column, has whisked it down from the internet and popped up a statement condemning such behaviour. I would rather have the original response back. When we condemn behaviour that is inappropriate and troubling in this manner, it is hidden away. We prefer that you never experience this, so when you do we won't give you practical support and guidance to deal with it. It's a different kind of putting up and shutting up, from an even weaker position- one of denial.

Anyway, this ugly little incident got me thinking about mentors. I have been very lucky to have several good ones. My intended PhD supervisor, who head hunted me into specialising in things Etruscan and fostered my frustration with the discipline. My actual PhD supervisor, who taught me how to think, how to write, how to turn failure to success, how to live beyond academe yet enjoy what it offers. My advisor, his practicality and fine tuned bullshit sensors keeping the project together. Field school director, supporting decisions on, or rather in, the ground, backed up by a senior staff who care for each other and good archaeology, not politics and positions. Colleague and project leader, vivacious, courageous, engendering respect wherever she goes. Internal and external examiners, tough but fair, demanding the best. My boss, the best man manager around.

And not one of them looked at my tits. I am one lucky pup. Thank you all.

That brings me to my advice for the Bothered who wrote to Science. You probably have a larger support network than you think. Use it, and get recording the inappropriate behaviour. Find a mentor who will support you in taking action once you've compiled the evidence. Then move against the ogler, not alone but as a team. And know that the online scientific community is totally with you.

***it's 4:45am and I have baby sick in my hair, so apologies if this makes no sense***

Silvia

A slightly better excuse than last time I had a big break from this blog.

Silvia Marianne made her entrance just after midnight on the 18th March, and since then I've been pretty much glued to her- when she's not feeding I want to cuddle her and gaze at her perfect little face. She's unimpressed by archaeology though...

This is great, for now. She'll be a month old, and although it's not been easy (dural puncture, mastitis, all the fun of the forceps fair) it's been bliss getting to know each other and not thinking tough thoughts about things that matter- like dead people and how we think about them.

It's the practicalities of how we think about them that are now starting to worry me. If I take Silvie to the shops, we can dash to the car for a feed. Or a cafe, or even (in some blissfully manipulative shops that sell baby things) a parent and child room. These are options that are not going to be possible in libraries, as I research my new book. I half jokingly floated the idea of bringing a baby to the Sackler Library in Oxford- their lovely Twitter account confirmed it's a no. I'm not surprised- but I'm still slightly disappointed. How are mothers going to access knowledge when baby isn't welcome? I totally get that a squalling infant, projectile milk puke and nappies aren't a good match for ancient books. It just sucks (no pun intended) that the only way I can get my increasingly grubby mitts on the books I need will be by pumping a ton of milk and leaving baby with Daddy on a Saturday- when the library closes early.

I guess that's the reality of having a small person who is totally reliant on you for sustenance. Were Daddy an academic, he could swan off to the library any time he liked. I can't fight the biology, but it does seem a shame that there isn't some space, some flexibility, some understanding. A little room, somewhere in the bowels of a library, where you could plonk your potentially noisy little nuisance and read while they slept, making your crucial notes while they suckle. Just an idea.

In other news, just as I was feeling really rotten (mastitis is NOT fun), an article I wrote has been published in the journal Antiquity. Have a look- I am a scholar, and not just a milk parlour. Or maybe both. That's why I'd quite like a boob room in the Bodleian. Please?

Reopening old wounds

I read a fantastic article this morning- it was brave, it was bold, and it put forward solutions to problems rather than just moaning about them. You can read it here.

The author, Selina Todd, a historian from Oxford University, describes a conference from hell. Male scholars preen and groom each other, furiously stoking their egos while an alienated group of Other contributors are excluded, left to huddle by the remnants of the catering. I described a terrifyingly similar conference on this blog a year and a half ago, stoked by rage. I'm still angry, but mostly at myself. I did nothing. I snarked online, I wrote an article critiquing those views which will be coming out soon in a journal that none of the culprits will ever read. But I was too cowardly to risk my own prospects by calling out this appalling behaviour. Thinking about it now, there were a number of constructive things I could have done- I could have calmly and rationally emailed the organisers, pointing out the problems, and asking these to be rectified for future conferences (just one female chair- or oooh, big wow, two? some guidelines on appropriate language and behaviour during question sessions?). I could have been brave and asked difficult questions, and tried to puncture the self-satisfaction. All I did was give my paper and slink off to the refreshments.

So my favourite thing about the article is that Todd isn't just angry- she's productive. She puts forward a number of strategies that she, and the other members of the Oxford Women in the Humanities group are developing to try and encourage female scholars. One of these that particularly caught my eye was the idea of writing fellowships, a breathing space for early career scholars to give them a chance to get the publications that lead to a career. I was not in a position to get a research post when finishing my PhD- I simply didn't have the output, something I learnt the hard way through many wasted hours applying for positions overrun with much better applicants. That's not intended as a moan or a whine- that is the way things are, and I am the only person I have to blame for that situation.

 So, over the last year, I've worked my nuts off trying to both write and hold down a full time job. My first book is now out, and I've just about managed to co-author one article as part of a wonderful project, in addition to the critique mentioned above. It's still nowhere near enough- I'm working on a second book, a pair of articles, and trying to get ready for the arrival of our baby. The difference a writing fellowship would have made to someone like me is immeasurable in all sorts of ways. Just having the sense of belonging to an academic network, the access to online journals, let alone the time and space to write without feeling guilty about not doing something else, that would be enough. I will be fascinated to see what the holders of these new fellowships achieve- I am sure the result will be truly transformative research, and maybe, just maybe, a break from the circle of male love Todd describes and we've all witnessed. They might also be courageous enough to turn the tables at the next hell conference, into the bargain.

Sight for sore eyes... proof reading

Somebody fetch me some new retinas (retinae?)

I thought I was a pro at proof reading. Smug statement, but based on fact. I proof read at work a LOT, and try and snag and snip and be as pedantic and annoying as possible to spot every last little typo or weird caption or funky line break.

But this week, I have proof read so far:

- a chunk of things for work
- two articles
- the entire text of my first book

The first two were ok. The work bits and bobs are concise and printed out and easy- you can't miss a page break in the wrong place when a caption is smeared across two pages instead of one. Even I can't miss that, and merrily curse myself and fix it.

The articles were also fine- a little harder to spot things amiss, on a screen and all. They were still neat, contained, and I could go through methodically line by line and section by section- the journal editors of one had organised the article in that way, and the other... well, I printed it off, just to be safe.

The book. That was a different kettle of leaping, jumping, flapping fish- too big to print, tricky to compartmentalise, so familiar that I finish its sentences for myself and have to FORCE my attention on every word, every letter. It's done- and it's fine, and I did find things wrong (always reassuring- if I don't spot a mistake, I assume I've missed one- that way lies paranoid madness).

But is there anyone smarter than me at this? (I really hope so, as I am pretty damn dumb). How do you fight your own lax mind, when it's striving to ignore what you can see and insert what should be there?

Let me know if there's a genius tip- hypno-proofing (can you tell I've been reading about hypno-birthing?), proof yoga, a 1000-words an hour proofing rule? Initiate me, o proofing priests and priestesses!

By the way, humble brag alert. The book (the first book) will be out soon. I'll no doubt post some gushy mushy yuck on here when it is, emoting about how the cover makes me feel. And all of you will leap from your computer screens weeping tears of joy at the chance to read about Etruscan pottery from a phenomenological perspective**. Yeah, you will.

** In an aside, Melvyn Bragg and company on In Our Time talked about phenomenology today. I think anyone studying philosophy or archaeological theory should have a listen- NOT to learn, but to feel comforted that Melv can't pronounce phenomenonmenonololology either.

Bad Boyfriend

I want you to know. I'm having an affair. My husband, innocently cutting up wood in his man shed (read cave) is aware of the situation, but there's nothing he can do. But before you text him, if you know him, or start giving us weird looks, stop. Because the affair is probably going to be lifelong, and it's with an academic discipline.

Crap metaphor? Maybe. Yet the more I think about it, the more this kind of archaeology seems like a bad boy lover, sometimes treating me like dirt (no pun intended), occasionally making me feel absolutely rubbish, yet still thrilling enough to keep me coming back for more. It's like a terrible, anti-feminist R and B song- I just keep on coming back to it. Of course, there's more to archaeology than just the world of universities- indeed, I have a great job outside of that world. Yet it's like the safe, funny, handsome alternative boyfriend who just can't compete with the dark glamour of the bad boy. I feel valued, appreciated for what I am, not just my research outputs, and I am (I guess) in a committed relationship with this kind of archaeology. Yet what am I doing, in my weekends and evenings, but working on publications, and thinking up new research projects? I'm playing away with that demanding, soul-destroying discipline, and I just can't seem to quit.

I've read a lot of blogs about being "post-ac" with people who are loud and proud about leaving academia behind. I don't feel like that at all- I just can't kick the habit. I would love to work in research in the future, and I'm full of energy and excitement for a new project that I'm developing- that first flush of love is in full flow all over again. Yes, I know it will result in heartache, agonising over applications, working my balls off to get a paper just right, worrying about datasets when normal, rational people are in bed sleeping the sleep of the just. Let alone the sodding referencing.

I know the risks- that so many get dumped for losing their academic figure after having children, or get left behind when the discipline moves on to something sexier and forgets about how exciting your specialism once was, no matter how much work you put in to get the spark back. The metaphor works right on to the end. And if a friend was in a relationship like this, I'd tell them to end it. They'd go "oooh but I looooove him" and I'd think they were wet. But I do love it, and I can't stop it now- I'm just not ready for the end of the affair.

Does anyone else feel like this? Husband just came in from the shed, read the first line of this blog post, went pale, then read the rest and looked at me like I was a crazy person. I really hope I'm not the only one still holding a torch for a discipline that I'm not sure loves us back.

PS- I actually don't want to post this now. I needed to write it but am very tempted to wuss out. Feeling brave, so fingers crossed, and on to the old publish button.

#FreeArchaeology and the University

This is a post that takes up a topic that I’ve blogged about before in a different context. #FreeArchaeology was a discussion of internships, work experience and the exploitation of willing (read desperate) junior professionals in search of financially and personally rewarding labour. Today, though, I spotted a new take on the debate, written by the fabolus Doug over at Doug’s Archaeology. With terrifyingly good self-produced statistics on just how productive one could be with access to a good library, and some assessment on time spent on field projects, his conclusions were that University archaeology is at least a variant of #FreeArchaeology- if not worse, as you’re actually paying for the pleasure, or for the bit of paper at the end.

After 8 years in one institution (it wasn’t an HMP, I promise), and heading out of academia with (for now, anyway) no regrets about sliding away into a different industry, I was feeling pretty reflective about the place of universities anyway. I’ve taught a lot of (mostly lovely) undergraduates, I’ve been part of the system, I’ve taught on field schools, I’ve got some pretty strong feelings about Higher Education and its role in archaeology. So I thought I might air them in response to the University #UnfreeArchaeology issue. They’re still pretty tangled, so I beg your patience.

Much of what Doug said I agree with. You can learn at least as much (factually, at least) on your own than you would at University- probably more, because you won’t be distracted by friends wanting you to have fun, taking up dumb new sports and hurting yourself, and carefully stalking and trapping your future life partner. His point about libraries is a particularly important one- the decline of the University of Southampton library is one of the great tragedies I saw unfold over my time there. Real books were shunted to one side, new books were ignored in favour of paying for giant screens, food and drink were allowed everywhere except the reserve collection, and slowly but surely even online journal subscriptions that you’d think were pretty essential (e.g. “Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory”) were dropped. The library steadily became, not a place for learning, but a nursery for people on the edge of adulthood, where the base textbooks lived, some funky specialist examples hung on, but mostly where people went to revise from their own scribbled notes and fanny around on Facebook. So, if you want a library, don’t bother with your average University one. I spent more time just driving to Oxford to use their library than I did in Southampton library.

Fieldwork training, too, was sketchy at best. The university approved field school began with me being assigned a 1x1 square in an open trench and left to get on with it. When I compare that with the careful training and monitoring that the field school I now work on it makes me shudder. You would probably be better off doing an unpaid internship for a year in a commercial archaeology firm than floundering in a world of strange pottery forms of which you knew nothing at the age of 18. It certainly doesn't prepare you for a career in actual archaeology, as several people have pointed out. The same is true of the field schools abroad that I've worked on- they are not the same as consistent, day in day out work in rainy Britain, learning the skills that are relevant to the actual place where you’ll be working.

However, what a good university should give you is the most important facet in being a good archaeologist- the ability to question yourself. The ability to change your opinion in the face of evidence. Seminars, discussion, (enforced) peer-to-peer debate. A good university should give you the chance to find out what you believed about the past was flawed, maybe that what you still believe is flawed- and why you continue to believe it anyway. Not developing single-mindedly, trawling in dogmatic fashion through only the authors you like or agree with, but reading those you don’t, understanding why, respecting their beliefs. Learning to be a reasoning adult, not a troll or a teenager trapped in perpetual sulks. That’s the most valuable thing that came out of University for me. And I don’t think (very sadly) most people can get it for free.

Blogging Carnival: the Good the Bad and the Nobody Loves You

Bloody ugly. That's me, if you didn't know. Photo by the fabolus Alessia Carapelli

Phew, I am getting in here by the skin of my teeth!! Very late for the Doug's Archaeology Blogging Festival post for December, and I suspect that this is going to be a bit of a naughty quickie (now now, calm down).

So, Happy New Year to you all, and what was the question again? It was to riff on a theme of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly about blogging. While I'm not sure what could be uglier (well, more disturbing) than my own mind when I thought up that joke from my Christmas post, there are a couple of points about blogging that I want to talk about based on Doug's theme.

Well, what's good? I get to talk to people I've never met, I get to share my interests with people I want to meet, and that's just the social side/PR. I think the most important benefit of blogging for me has been having the space to write about what I love (Etruscans, obviously, and Devon, and archaeology in general), and what I'm passionate about (CRAP archaeological tv, stopping sexism) in an informal and fun way. It makes my serious academic writing better by giving me the freedom to let rip, let loose and let it all hang out. So thank you for reading my probably rather repetitive drivel- it really does make a difference to how I feel about writing in everyday life, and I love being able to discuss things with y'all.

Bad- sometimes that discussion feels pretty one sided. When I started blogging, I would ask these little questions at the end of a post, trying to get people to comment and talk to me, tweet at me, anything. I love and appreciate everyone who comments on a post (maybe not the very occasional spammers/slaggers off), so it's a bit pants when nobody replies. It makes me feel like I do in the pub after a night on the gin- a little bit self-pitying and unloved, cue the phony tears and "nobody loves me" wails as my friends laugh.

And ugly? Moving on from Robin Thicke at Christmas, I want to get serious for a minute here. I am increasingly concerned about people using blogs as a medium for what my Nannie would have called plain old boasting. Yes, showcase your skills, Yes, it's great that you can do x or y, or have x or y. But that's not what a conversation should be about. Imagine how sick of you your friends would be if all you did was blather on about your publications, or how great your viva went, or how fantastic your new research project is. That shouldn't mean doom and gloom- genuine joy is a real part of life, and it's great to share. But after I wrote about my new job, in the interview for which the blog was mentioned, I had a little smug guilt trip. That's not what I'm about, showing off and being self-centred and boasty. At least, I hope it's not. Either way, I don't think blogging works without honesty- about our profession, about archaeology, about the past, about ourselves.

I really hope that doesn't come across as unkind or bitter- or worse, preachy (UGH)- as I say, I did it myself, unthinkingly. But the balance between self promotion and over exposure on social media (including blogging) really needs to be questioned, to avoid alienating peers- temporarily or permanently.

Ashes: When Things Go Wrong

I have just watched my beloved England lose the Ashes to Australia. I am very aware that it's only a game, it's 22 grown men chasing a little red ball and throwing it at some sticks, trying to hit it with a big stick. Yet I am pretty gutted right now, and I am sure lots of other archaeological cricket fans will be too.

There are lots of aspects of England's loss- and I think all of them have a message for those of us who work in other areas. As a New Year approaches, and the entire archaeological community of the UK heads off to TAG, I want to briefly think about why things go wrong, and what to take from England's loss and apply to archaeological practice.

Basically, I think four things contributed to the loss of the Ashes:

1) Over-training for the wrong things

I am convinced that England's downfall is at least partly due to an obsession that coaches, pundits and players have had with working on batting against spin. Tours in India, Dubai and Sri Lanka exposed a vulnerability- so quite rightly everyone worked hard to combat this. Only they forgot to work equally hard on pace and bounce- the bowling skills that have skuttled England down under. This happens in archaeology and academic life too- how many times have you spotted a flaw, then worked and worked on it, only to find that something you hadn't even noticed was more important? This happened to some extent in my Viva- I had been very worried about one aspect of the thesis in the days before, and had prepared hard for questions on that. Then when the examiners picked up on something else, I was surprised. When approaching a problem, and assessing your own performance, maybe it's important to look at the whole, and go for a balanced approach to training yourself to be a better archaeologist- one that focuses not just on what you're not great at, but at what you have been good at before. Don't let it slip, because it might just make the difference. Which brings me on to...

2) Complacency. A large amount of England's travails have been caused by a softly-softly victory last summer. The scoreline flattered England, and made them feel that the tour in Australia would be easier than it has been. No matter how much you bang on about taking every game as it comes, if you feel that you won easily, or did really well without trying, complacency has its foot firmly in the door. Then when things do go wrong, it's too late- you are smacked around the face (or on the helment by Mitchell Johnson at 90mph) with the reality that you aren't really up for this, because it's not as easy as you thought it would be. I've definitely done this- cruised along, thinking everything would be fine and my work was just great. It takes a kick up the arse to snap out of this, and I'm grateful to the various kickers over the years- and none of them have a terrifying moustache. 

3) Exhaustion. Don't try and do too much. Even if you are feeling on top of the world. Back to back Ashes series, after a knackering winter in India last year (an incredible series win perhaps caused by that over-focus on spin I was banging on about earlier), was always going to be a tough ask. The complacency may have masked this for a while, but if you are physically and mentally tired, the cracks are going to start gaping open in your performance, whatever you do. You can't respond as promptly to pressure, you can't pull yourself out of a hole. Everyone needs rest- and I mean real rest, not fevered twitchy I-should-be-working rest. If you can't do this, you will end up with...

4) Injuries. A bad back (Alastair Cook). Calf and lower leg problems (Matt Prior). Burnout, seemingly endless colds and flu (archaeologists everywhere). You can't be good at what you do if you're sick as a dog or in constant pain. So don't try. Rest, recuperate, don't feel guilty, get better.

Four mistakes- England made them so that we don't have to. I hope- I will definitely do my best not to fall victim to any of these in 2014.

For now, I'm pretty happy that I managed to get cricket and archaeology mashed up on this blog- though I'm not sure you will be.

Pots: Everyday Irritations and Extraordinary Discoveries (Rant Warning)

I went to a conference last weekend, and gave a paper. I was happy and excited to meet up with friends and colleagues- the organisers are delightful, and I was hoping to hear some of the most interesting research on Etruscan archaeology. Sadly what I heard, in a lot of papers, was the same old culture-history interpretations, with people equating pots with particular “cultures” and the presence of particular objects in funerary assemblages as obvious and unquestionable evidence of gender, ethnicity and all sorts of other complex categories. Fine, fine- so be it, Etruscology remains firmly imbued in the politics and ideas of the 1950s and 1960s and to some extent probably won’t change any time soon. As long as I can keep pushing for new ideas, developed in the sixty years of archaeological engagement with social theory and anthropology from then to now, I don’t mind people keeping to traditional views. I may disagree with them on a fairly fundamental level, but that’s my opinion developed from my history as a product of a highly theoretical university and a free-thinking doctoral supervisor. What I do mind is individuals talking over young scholars, patronising even senior female academics in a highly sexist manner and treating discussions as an opportunity to hold court.

While I was going mad with frustration and being too cowardly to comment on these negative behaviours, however, really exciting Etruscan archaeology was taking place in the field. On that very same Saturday of last week, an intact tomb from a necropolis at Tarquinia was uncovered. I cannot overstate how rare and incredible and amazing this is. So many of the tombs the Etruscans painstakingly created for their dead have been looted- the profession of the tombarolo, or tomb robber, can be lucrative and has a long heritage. Most Etruscan tombs were cleaned out over the intervening centuries, although some have been emptied tragically recently, with artefacts removed and human remains left strewn around in a mess. Yet this tomb was magically, miraculously intact. 

All the objects were inside, in situ around the skeleton as they had been placed 2,600 years ago in the 7^th century B.C.E. Lying on the funeral benches were the remains of an Etruscan person, accompanied by a large amount of pottery, some jewellery, a bronze vessel and an iron spearhead.

Now, this is all great. But that spearhead (I'm blaming YOU spearhead) seems to have caused some problems. Yes, this is a rich Etruscan burial- as intimated by the archaeologist in charge, Alessandro Mandolesi, who described the remains as those of an “upper class individual.” Yet all the media coverage has leapt to a conclusion I critiqued some months ago- how many times do I need to yell that this is not a “prince.”  Using that terminology is, as I have ranted before, an example of naïve, lazy attempts to put modern labels onto the past. I’ve said that before and it’s even more irritating when this happens in your own archaeological back yard. Yes, the burial was found near to a tomb known as the “Queen’s Tomb.” But the tomb is only known as such due to previous archaeological assumptions! Both the person buried in the “Queen’s Tomb” and the newly discovered “Prince,” even if DNA testing ties the two together, should not be considered royals, with all the modern day baggage that entails. 

Trying to tie that royal label into texts written centuries later (which is what has happened) only serves to exacerbate the situation. Yes, a King, supposedly from Tarquinia is recorded as having ruled over Rome in the 6^th century B.C. But that doesn’t mean this burial is connected to him, it doesn’t mean the individual is a relative of this figure (who may not even be entirely real) and it only provides a tiny shred of information about Etruscan social structures, interpreted through the eyes of Roman authors!

Even worse than these right royal assumptions is the individual is being described as a “warrior” prince. That’s the spearhead’s fault. Not a symbol of masculinity, not a token gesture to ancestral warrior identity, nope. That spearhead means that the individual buried in the grave a) must be male; b) must be royal and c) must be a warrior hero. All this from one object that could have a myriad of different meanings. I notice that the pots have been conveniently shoved to one side- he’s not a “banqueter prince” or a “glutton prince” or a “drunken prince.” No- our own cultural values that prioritise male aggression jump straight on that spearhead and use it to transform this extraordinary tomb into an example of the same tired interpretations that were driving me so crazy last weekend.

 I don’t want to be negative. I don’t want to be ungrateful for this discovery or the chance to attend that conference. But until we are honest about the limitations of these approaches and the mismatch between them and the rest of the archaeological community, all the intact tombs in the world are not going to bring Etruscan archaeology into step with our peers in other areas of research.

To be fair, at least (unlike the Poggio Civitate infant remains stories) all the media I’ve seen has actually got something right and called the discovery “Etruscan” and not “Roman.” There’s still time though.

Pots: Last Year Presentation

Last week, I performed one of the rituals of a University of Southampton archaeology student for the last time- as it's an everyday kind of ritual, I've decided to whack it in as a "Pots" post. At the end of each academic year, all doctoral students are required to present their work to the research community at large- which usually means a mixture of keen MA students dreaming of doing this very thing next year, staff being supportive (and hiding from their exam marking for a sweet hour), and of course other PhD students, anxiously waiting to bring their research out to play. In the first year of PhD study presenting at this conference is dressed up as your "First Year Presentation" and is made to look quite scary- cue a huddle of nervous first year PhDs worrying that all they can present is a plan and a literature review because that's as far as they've got. If you're reading this, first year presenters, let me tell you now that that is just fine- nobody is expecting you to have done any more- it's just about being able to stand up, face the room and set out your stall. At the other end of the scale, you have the old farts like me- been around the department for so long (8 years of my life, from 18 to 26) that the staff are already rolling eyes at each other when you meander up to the podium.

Now, I love presentations. I suspect this is mostly because, deep down, I love an opportunity to show off a little bit. However, this wasn't always true- in my undergraduate degree I hated presenting. It made me nervous, slightly sick to the stomach. I made all the classic cockups- too much text on slides, talking too fast, not making eye contact with anyone, like a very guilty puppy who's left a present under the dining room table. So I thought I'd blog a bit about presenting- what I've learned over the four years of PhD about what makes a good presentation. Normally I don't try to be an "academic skills" type of blogger, but hey- I may well have something to add to this problem, in amongst all the bittersweet nostalgia of winding down to finishing my doctorate. No point being soppy if you aren't going to be useful. So, here are my top tips for a good presentation (that you might not have heard before):

1) Don't take yourself or your work too seriously. This is my secret. Of course your research is super important to you. Of course you don't want anyone to think you're a chump up there. If you are presenting to a superstar audience who really know their stuff, it can be intimidating. If you are presenting to any audience at all, it can be nervewracking. You need to nip this in the bud, fast- or you will give in to the temptation to drain all personality out of your presentation, playing it so safe you might as well be wearing a lifejacket and blowing a whistle. If you drone on until the allotted time is done, not smiling, not looking up, grim and relentless in your dissemination of knowledge, all your audience will take away from your presentation is how bored they were. Look around the room- the death grip on your notes won't save you if you haven't done the work. You're here- all these people are interested in you- because you're bloody interesting. Now show it. Give the crowd what they want- fantastic archaeology (or whatever) presented with a smile. If you stuff up, who cares? Everyone's been there. Better to be engaging and accidentally skip two slides on than bore the pants off everyone and stick relentlessly to the plan.

2) Write as you speak. While this is probably true for most short forms of academic work, it is vital in a presentation. I know fantastic speakers who can do a 15-20 minute paper without a script. Good for them. For me, scriptless presenting is for 30 minutes plus- anything less and I need a plan to get everything I want to say out there in the time limit. When writing up a presentation paper, I think of around 150 words per minute I'm speaking. So, for 20 minutes that works out at about 3000 words. Every one of those words should be phrased and styled as if the script does not exist at all. Sentence construction is key here- when I'm writing I can get bogged down in sub-clauses- when I'm speaking that does not happen. The little one-liners I like to throw in in conferences are written in my script, as are the more serious moments when the tone changes. It's all there- like a play, you should be able to write your audience's general reaction. Of course, an academic presentation can't all be fun and games, but it should feel natural, warm and enthusiastic- exactly how you sound when yackking about your research to your colleagues, friends and long suffering partner. Note- this ruthless word-planning should also stop you committing the cardinal sin of presentations- going over your allotted time.

3) Posh slide presentations are all very well, but it's what you say that counts. I have seen some beautiful slide shows in my time- gorgeously put together treats of powerpoint, swirling and whirling around the screen as they zoom in and out of view. These presentations (even if they don't make you feel sick from all the movement- honestly, it's like being in one of those flight simulators sometimes), no matter how lovely they are, are less important than the words the presenter is speaking. They can even be distracting. If everyone is absorbed in watching your text spring onto the slide in a super flashy font, they aren't listening to you divulge your wonderfully original re-interpretation of Levi Strauss/Maiden Castle/Garibaldi's March on Rome.

4) Enshrined in the previous three hints- keep it simple. Don't try and do too much. A little bit of text, mostly pictures in terms of your slide show. Personality and warmth, minimal jargon in your spoken paper. The images, especially charts of results, do a lot of the work for you- all you have to do is bring them to life. These rules apply whoever your audience are- bigwigs, fellow students, the raggle taggle of the research community. They'll be eating out of your hand if your research is good and you can present it simply and clearly, like a human being, not a robot.

I hope these rough and ready tips are of some use to somebody- do you have any other thoughts on what makes a good presentation? Has anyone got any horror stories to tell? I realise that I don't deal too much with nerves here- basically, I think they can be useful as long as they are under control. The only way (in my book) to get nerves under control is to practice, and have faith in the four previous principles to carry you through. Does anyone have any more constructive advice? I'm off to work, incorporating my advisor's comments into my PhD draft. Wish me luck!