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!

Stone: Social Darwinism

As promised yesterday, here is the first chunk of archaeological theory, social darwinism. Why do you need to know about social darwinism? Because it lies behind some very nasty ideology which was used to promote some hideous political actions which badly damaged thousands of people. Heard of the Stolen Generations? Seen Rabbit Proof Fence? Then you've come into contact with the impact of this idea.

The clue is in the name with social darwinism. The central tenet is the application of Charles Darwin's ideas about natural selection to human societies. Darwin himself was far too busy molesting bumblebees and fearing for his mortal soul to develop and apply his ideas in a human context- it's slightly unfair that his name has been so firmly attached to this repellent theory. However, his key realisation: that animal species develop through evolution, changing in order to survive, came in the midst of a period of global upheaval caused by colonialism. European powers were tightening their grip on lands, resources and people they had acquired by conquest. Darwin's ideology, applied to humans, provided a neat ideological explanation for their success, and a reason to continue oppressing and mistreating colonial subjects. If some human societies are continually becoming more successful and developed (and the definition of that success and development is a 19th century European one), then others are left behind- and are doomed to go extinct. If you can't evolve, can't keep up- then it is not the problem of the people forcing you off your land, manipulating you into indentured labour, sexually abusing you. Nope- it's your problem. You didn't evolve into a developed enough society- so you're doomed to extinction. Sorry about that. Social darwinism provided a perfect, scientific excuse for colonial genocide.

My favourite case study for understanding how warped and weird social darwinism is as an idea is one that's very close to home. The relationship between Britain and Ireland has always been a fraught one- from Strongbow (the Norman, not the cider) through Cromwell to Thatcher and the IRA. During the 19th century, Ireland was a British colony, and Irish people were some of the first victims of social darwinism in action. Irish people were portrayed in cartoons as stupid, ape-like louts. Their facial features were catalogued in phrenology textbooks as those of criminals. The Irish were compared to African slaves, as in this cartoon by Opper, which is titled "A King of Shanty," referencing the African "Ashanti." You can see how the Irish family are given flat, ape-like noses, prognathic snouts and hulking brow ridges, similar to contemporary racist caricatures of Africans and African-Americans. The man wears a pot for his hat, and sits on his arse smoking while his shoddily built house falls down around him. The empty bottle in the corner speaks volumes.

So far, so unpleasant. Yet the deliberate portrayal of the Irish as stupid sub-humans doomed to extinction was closely allied to the devastation of the Irish population in the Great Hunger of the 1840s and early 1850s, and the continuing poverty and hunger which ravaged the population in the following years. Between 750,000 and one million people died in the Famine, and it's estimated that two million emigrated. In the light of later social darwinist ideas, this unimaginable suffering was a natural outcome of the racial inferiority of the Irish people- there was no need for soul-searching or guilt, still less compensation and assistance for the survivors. The Irish had failed to evolve a survival strategy for the modern world- it was only right that they face the consequences of their idiocy.

It's a chilling example, and you can see already where social darwinism could and did lead- through a gate with Arbeit Macht Frei emblazoned on it. Racism and colonial economic interests backed up by science. The effects were long lasting, too- when my grandparents came to England from Ireland they were still faced with "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish" signs in boarding houses. The shadow of the stupid Paddy can still be found in Irishman, Englishman, Scotsman jokes. But how does this relate to archaeology? Isn't this just colonial history?

The answer is a big, fat, NO. Firstly, archaeology was becoming professionalised at the same time as social darwinist ideas were popular: huge great tracts of early work are coloured by this theory. If you want to understand approaches to prehistory in particular during this period, you need to know how social evolutionism works as an idea. Richard Miles, in the last of his excellent series, covered this in a discussion of the interaction between social darwinism and nationalism in archaeology through the dual case studies of Piltdown man and Nazi archaeology. You can find it here.

Secondly, Social darwinism is hiding behind archaeological interpretation all the time- particularly in popular media. Remember a few months ago I wrote a post about the infant remains at Poggio Civitate and the way they were covered. The assumption behind the pontificating in the Mail (amongst other offending media sources) was that the modern world is far more civilised, far better, far nicer than that of the past, and that we are currently the pinnacle of social evolution. The discarding of an infant body in such a way, nay, the very practice of infanticide, would not happen in our evolved world! Except it did. Horrifically, as in the Kermit Gosnell case. In another recent news story, there was some shock about the discovery of evidence for cannibalism amongst early European settlers in the New World. The scandal came from the provision of concrete evidence that the social evolutionary assumption that cannibalism is for savage, undeveloped headhunters, not recognisable early modern salt-of-the-earth pilgrims was proven to be false. The same racist assumptions of social evolutionary thought lie behind all the conspiracy theories about Mayan or Egyptian pyramids being built by aliens- because obviously (native) ancient people weren't developed enough to create such complex structures. Every time someone makes an argument about the past which relies on assumptions about inherent, continuous and universal standards of development, particularly when that development is based on morality, they are using the theory of social darwinism. I really hope, if you've read your way through this post, that you'll call them on it.

The Jamestown Cannibalised Skull- Photo credit Fox News

 It feels a bit disingenous to start a series on archaeological theory on a theory I'd hope you won't go on and use. But it's a chilling example of how strong and how long-lived an idea can be. Let me know your thoughts on this post, and I hope you won't just skip the next post in the theory season- I'll be talking about ethnocentrism and Levi-Strauss.

Stone: Let's talk about Theory, baby

First off, apologies for not blogging for the last couple of weeks- I've been working pretty hard to finish the second draft of my PhD thesis. It's done now, sent off to my supervisor and advisor for their thoughts, and hopefully will soon be transformed into the final version. Phew! So I'm back blogging, and, looking at the loose cycle of Pots-Places-Stones-Bones, I realised that this post needed to be a Stone post. In the past, I seem to have used these posts for a bit of a whinge, a bit of a gripe. Sometimes (I hope mostly) those moans are constructive and about relevant topics that need to be questioned. However, I want to do something a bit more productive with these posts over the next couple of months.

You may not think that talking about archaeological theory is productive. When I was an undergraduate, there was a strong feeling that theory was "dead" and was a surplus requirement to the practical business of digging things up. I'm not sure if the proponents of this idea (who were many, and who were vocal), were responding to an internalisation of theory, or were just being mischievous. Either way, when a member of academic staff starts your "Introduction to Archaeological Theory" module with a soothing (read patronising) little monologue on how "theory is tough" and "it's ok not to understand," the chance to change those people's views went down the toilet.

So here's what I think. Theory isn't tough. Sometimes the language that the people writing it use is tough, obscure, downright daft. But theory is about ideas, and the ideas are usually devastating- because they are, at their heart, relatively simple. When I taught an undergraduate module with a good friend on "Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology," because we were theorists, we filled the course with it. Students lapped it up- we got stellar feedback ratings. Because you don't teach theory by whinging on about how tough it is- you make the IDEA clear, you find a fabulous pair of case studies that illustrate the point (usually one ethnographic and one archaeological for our purposes) and then you make the students apply the theory, go back to the original work and demolish the crap presentation to get at the central concept.

Because (and drum roll here please) you are applying theory all the time. ALL THE TIME. Theory is alive and well, because you are using it. You can't wipe your head clean, you can't empty out your mind. This is what Ian Hodder was talking about all those years ago about "theory at the trowel's edge," a phrase that's often smirked at. Every time you pick up a trowel, every time you read a source, every time you trawl through a museum store, you are doing something pretty special. You are simultaneously combining preconceived opinions and physical evidence to make a new idea. You can't turn off that process- that's what we're in it for. Even if you're watching archaeology on telly, you are still doing this. You are theorising- having and making ideas about material culture. That's archaeological theory.

So, if you are going to do this all the time, it seems like a pretty good idea to organise those ideas. To find out who thought of them first, and how their thoughts differed to yours. To discover the flaws in your own arguments and be able to make them (harder) better (faster, stronger). To find new ideas that are exciting, that transform your thoughts about objects, words or people. That's what learning archaeological theory is for, and, taught correctly in fully contextual and applied manner, it's f***ing brilliant.

So, over the next lot of Stone posts, instead of faux-positive whining about how I can't get a job*, I want to talk about the big ideas in theory. The thinkers, the case studies, that have changed how I approach objects in my professional life, and most of my actual life. Once you're familiar with these arguments, which aren't just about archaeology but about people, you see them everywhere- you can bust them if they're rubbish, or use them if they work for you. BUT YOU HAVE TO KNOW THEM FIRST! To make up for my absence, there will be two posts this week- probably tomorrow I'll be back, and I want to start (almost) at the beginning of archaeological theory.

See you tomorrow for some cultural Darwinism.

Don't look so worried Charles! It's just some ideas!

*Although you never know- as a colleague and I discussed on Twitter, I think a BBC4 series on theory in anthropology/archaeology could actually be pretty damn good: thinkers, ideas and case studies every week. Like the recent Richard Miles doc on the history of archaeology, which was well presented and fun and accurate- the Holy Grail. If you're reading this, O Hallowed Producers, give me a shout.

Bones: Queens, Journalists and Shrieking

Image (c) Wessex Archaeology

There have been a couple of super exciting discoveries in British archaeology recently. One of the absolute best things about Twitter is that I find out about these a lot faster through my network of wonderful archaeology tweeps. One of the most annoying things about this is that I will be cheekily scrolling through my tweets, come across a link, read the article and give out a strangled shriek of rage. Well, irritation, but it still makes my other half look at me like I'm raving mad. You'd think he'd have realised by now. Why would I have such a silly reaction to these wonderful pieces of news? This week I want to talk about an otherwise great discovery that provoked that yowling groan, and why it made me make stupid noises and jump around ranting.

The first one was the discovery of a female burial at Windsor, and included in her grave were some wonderfully rich artefacts. Gold jewellery, a distinctive pot known as a beaker, amber buttons, lignite beads- you name it, this lady was rocking it. The archaeologists themselves were cagey at first- Wessex Archaeology described the Kingsmead Quarry burial as that of an "important woman." Gareth Chaffey, who directed the excavation, tried desperately to encourage reporters to think of the woman in context with her community- to think about the life she led, her potential importance in trade, suggesting she could have been a leader. You can read his remarks on the Wessex Archaeology Blog, and they were pretty damn sensible. Yet mainstream media, Discovery News, the Daily Mail (no, surprise me), and NBC news all went for the royal connection. "Windsor's Earliest Queen!" "The First Queen of Windsor." Cue the NEAAAAAAARRRGH.

There are two massive problems with describing the Kingsmead burial as royal. The first one is an issue of terminology. Queen, princess- these are terms that we have manufactured and specified over centuries of very distinctive monarchy. Queens and princesses belong in interpretations of medieval royal palaces, dynastic marriage and arguments over Tudor succession. They do not belong in prehistory. We have absolutely no way of knowing whether someone living in the Windsor area in around 2500 BCE would have had a conception of a queen. My money says that they wouldn't. It's a completely inappropriate act of ethnocentrism to smear such culturally laden language all over the past. This leads me to the second problem. The terming of a burial as royal suggests that the value this woman had to her community was closely connected to her family, to her lineage. Terming her a Queen makes her body the source of her power- the mother of an heir, the daughter of a King. It removes all sense of this woman as having earned her beautiful grave goods through hard graft, through her position in the community, through her knowledge and wisdom, through her trading nous. To call this woman a queen reduces her to a womb or a chattel, an object revered as the channel for male power. A pretty plaything, revelling in her amber buttons as much as a modern princess might in her designer shoes. Yes, queens can wield power for themselves- Victoria, Elizabeth. Yes, royal women are intelligent, canny and strong. But they do not get hold of power due to their skills. They inherit it from a man, and their primary role is to produce an heir. And it seems like the only way that mainstream archaeological media can conceive of a powerful female figure in the past is to squash her into a royal box. I know the Windsor connection must have been a powerful temptation in this case- but it's symptomatic of a far wider problem. Inappropriate terminology, sexist interpretation, all being peddled to an interested public who lap up the byline and bling, as the journalist gets away with repeating the same tired narratives which press the past into terms so specific to the present as to obscure all its delicious complexity. Apart from being supremely irritating, it's bloody boring.*

I don't know how the Kingsmead woman got hold of her gorgeous grave goods. I don't know who decided she needed them in death. Maybe she did inherit hereditary power. Maybe she was married to a rich, male leader who covered her in goodies. The feminista interpretation of her as powerful in her own right may be as wrong as the sexist idea of her as a queen. My point is that popular science journalism should be exposing this juxtaposition, talking about it, making it clear to the public that archaeological interpretation isn't about splashing modern terms and assumptions on the past. That's why archaeology is so exciting. The world of "Windsor's Earliest Queen" was unimaginably different from our own- you got a flavour of that in the excellent Wessex blog by Karen Nichols. Why is it so impossible for mainstream media to get that message across?

What do you think? Did the Kingsmead coverage drive you nuts? Do you think that the Wessex blog should have been used in the mainstream press rather than just manipulated for the interpretation that journalists wanted? Please let me know.

* In an aside, this isn't just a problem for the media. In my own work, I come up regularly against "Tombe Principesche" or "Princely tombs." It seems like the royal metaphor is still, in spite of critique, clinging on in all its biased glory.

Place: Sexual Harassment and Archaeology

Last week, a couple of quite cool things happened. The first one was that one of my favourite examples of internet feminism, Everyday Sexism, celebrated their first year of existence. They celebrated with a piece charting their development from initial idea to a project that has changed the lives of its founders and given a voice to thousands of men and women. You can read it here. The second thing was that a group of archaeologists on twitter got talking about sexist practice in our discipline, after reading this article by Kate Clancy on harassment and fieldwork. It got me thinking- I've been a member of staff at fabulous excavation for the past three years. We've had our fair share of dig romances- couples making up, breaking up, hooking up (disclaimer- my only dig romance was when my husband came to visit last year. Him bringing me a cold drink at lunchtime is the best part of this). They are almost always created from the intoxicating mixture of conditions that excavations present: intense, long, physical working days. High temperatures. Pheromones running riot as personal hygiene trickles away alongside inhibitions. Add to that the opportunity to drink alcohol for the first time for a lot of our students and you have a perfect storm of potential for unrequited affection and inappropriate behaviour. To my knowledge, a harassment situation hasn't happened. I know that if I hear anything I regard as offensive in my trench, I will stop the conversation and move the talk to another subject. If I was worried about someone's behaviour, I think the staff would get together, discuss it openly, and develop a strategy for preventing harassment both on site and off it. 

But what if that harassment was coming from a staff member? It's a very egalitarian dig, and I think that our director would happily get involved on behalf of anyone who felt uncomfortable (he's fab, and probably why the whole project is so great). But in another place? In another situation when the director wasn't supportive, wasn't interested or was themself in thrall to outside circumstances? What if an external funder was behaving inappropriately towards a member of staff? What price the security and happiness of junior staff or students when compared to losing funding, or losing local support? What if, as Kate Clancy documents, individuals don't feel safe to report abusive behaviour in fear of losing their jobs? There's a BAJR (British Archaeological Jobs Resource) feed all about sexual harassment in commercial archaeology- and during our conversation on Monday the point was made that research excavations should be encouraged to sign up to similar principles of equality as those enshrined in employment law which apply to commercial sites. The American Anthropologial Association issued a statement to that effect in response to Clancy's research.

I think that these well meaning statements are missing the point. Research fieldwork projects are already signed up to codes of conduct for ethical behaviour through their individual institutions. Having "procedures in place" is not the answer, because the problem, as Clancy identifies, is that the repellent activities of those who harass and abuse others in archaeology are carefully choreographed to take place in a fashion which does not damage the career prospects and personal life of the abuser. In her words "It's all about who's watching." Perhaps one of the reasons that the excavation I work at doesn't suffer from this type of behaviour is that there is usually somebody watching, and that somebody is a person who cares about equality, personal safety and not behaving like a total ars*hole. Without calling out individual perpetrators, all the guidelines in the world won't hold them to account. In addition to projects where sexist bias and harassment is a concrete reality, there is one HUGE sphere in which nobody is watching. In which you can do what you like to who you like and probably get away with abuse. That's the digital world. Offensive emails. Creepy Twitter trolling. Abusive comments on a blog. All these can be anonymised. Nobody's watching, except the victim. It makes me think of my only brush with harassment, and wonder if it might have escalated quickly into something much worse in today's digital world.

During PhD induction, I sat next to another new student in one of the induction workshops. I was late, I just sat down. In the group worked that followed, I was already getting uncomfortable with this individual. He kept asking me increasingly personal questions, edging closer and closer in spite of my completely unsubtle piss-off glares and dismissive replies. When he asked me if I was single, I told him I was engaged. He asked me if I thought my now husband really loved me... then tried to stroke my hand and asked for my number. I gave him a fake one, a death stare, and a telling off. It didn't stop him following me around campus for the remainder of the week, until I brought husband to a social event for new PhDs. I was freaked out, frightened and effing furious. The only thing that stopped one man misbehaving was the sight of another, bigger man. My wishes were completely ignored in this situation- if I'd been single, would he have seen me as fair game? Would the stalking have developed from unwanted seating arrangements to following me home? Why was my lack of interest only valid when caused by my being another man's possession? In a world where you can find someone online the instant you know their name, what could have happened next in that situation, if it took place now? Facebook messages? Emails? Tweets? Finding this blog and posting horrible comments that I would have to read as moderator? Sexually explicit trolling? Sexist abuse of my work? What if the individual had been another archaeologist- someone I had to see at departmental events, knowing they were behind such a campaign of bad behaviour, or at least suspecting it? Would I have had the confidence to take such abuse to a senior figure in the university, or go to the police? Would I directly reply to such messages, or would that be giving the individual the response they crave? I don't know.

The third cool thing I did last week was attend a meeting for a new project I'm proud to be working on, that is looking to address some of these issues. Set up by the amazing Dr Sara Perry from York University, the Gender and Digital Culture project is looking to examine the use of digital culture by different groups, explore online experiences both positive and negative, and explore both the potential for the promotion of equality and potential for abuse in digital contexts- and not just in archaeology. I'll probably be writing more about the project in the future, but I really hope that we can develop some ideas to ensure that, even online, there won't be a place where harassment and sexist abuse can happen without repercussions.

What about you? Have you experienced anything like this, online or offline? You can comment anonymously here, of course. 

** Ironically, I had a massive "sexist pig" moment the day before our meeting. Went to bank to make a transfer to send money for images to the Italian Soprintendenza. Bank MANAGER (it said so on his name badge) asked me, in a voice I'd use to my 9 month old second cousin, "Do we need to change our name today?" I must have looked shocked, and said "What?" I had no idea what he meant. He replied "Weeelll, I saw your ring, so we need to change your name, don't we?" Because a married woman can't be in the bank except to transfer financial control to her husband. And any woman in the bank needs to be treated like the itty bitty kittykins with cotton wool for a brain that she is. God help the women who work with this individual.

Let me through that perspex screen and I'll....

Pots: Booze Britain

Once upon a time, in a land before I got PhD funding, I worked in a nightclub. It was one of the most formative periods in my life. I made amazing friends, enough money to go travelling, and gained a lot of self confidence from the job I did. Writing up the second draft of my doctoral thesis, and looking at its conclusions, I can't help wondering if they would be the same if I hadn't worked in a club that will remain nameless for four happy, yet occasionally chaotic years.

Check the ear piece on that!

I worked on the door during that time. I don't mean I sat behind a screen and took the money, either. It drives me nuts when people assume that's all I did- how sexist can you get? While I sometimes worked the till, I was part of a team that dealt with the dark side of student pissups. I cleared up vomit, pulled up knickers, rounded up so-called friends that abandoned drunks, broke up fights (usually by a combination of flirtation and headmistress voice but occasionally physically), administered basic first aid, yelled at queue-jumpers and generally tried to make sure people had fun, got drunk and didn't hurt themselves. I do sometimes wonder if the City and Guilds Door Supervision Level II was the most valuable qualification I ever got my grubby mitts on (and not just because I can use it to bridge that gap between PhD and gainful employment).

You know that my PhD is about pots, right? I posted a few weeks ago about the way that different pots control how you drink. Well, why do you need to control how people drink? Without those four years on the door, I don't know if I'd have made the link between ceramic controls, and social behaviour. Modern drinking vessels (pint and shot glasses, half-pint tumblers, alcopop/beer bottles) are ALL made for fast consumption- you drink quickly, you buy more booze, you get drunker. By using a cheat-technique (Jagerbombing, necking pints, strawpedoing) you can get even more down your neck in a shorter time. What is the effect of this? Here are the three major effects spotted from my time on the door as illustration:

1) Arousal. The amount of people eating face on the dancefloor will not come as a surprise. The amount of people taking things further, either in toilets or actually there against a wall or sat on a picnic table probably will. A loud "ahem" and an evil will result in this latter behaviour stopping, for the most part. Or loudly pointing out that the CCTV will make for amusing viewing in the morning. I'd love to know the amount of people who met their partner while drunk. I know I did. Anyway, the point is- this arousal can be a great thing- if you meet someone who returns your interest, and you both are free to have a good time. Or it can be amazingly destructive- unrequited attentions can quickly turn very nasty, leading to....

2) Aggression. The worst incarnation of this I ever saw was a man slashing another man's throat with a broken glass bottle. It was not nice. Not nice at all. Another incident resulted in me with two black eyes and a nose streaming with blood after catching an elbow in the face. Most "fights" involve a bit of pushing and shoving, maybe a thrown punch, lots of posturing and chest puffing out. The key is to get in there while the pre-violence rituals are going on, to stop the situation before it starts. Occasionally, there are incidents where unprovoked violence suddenly leaps up and punches someone in the face. It's not just men, either. Out and out cat fights were (mercifully) rare, but a lot of girls seem to enjoy barging into people, then telling their male friends they were pushed and gleefully watching the consequences. Or starting fights between rival suitors. The majority of incidents remained small scale, but were always uncomfortable. Most had the potential to escalate quickly, too. Full on fighting in the street between groups was utterly, utterly horrible, and luckily rare. But this consequence of alcohol is a pretty serious one. (The bloke who got his throat cut is alive and well, with a nasty scar. But it could have been very different).

3) Loss of bodily control. While linked to the two previous effects, I'm not talking about wobbling around or not being able to recite the alphabet backwards here, or about snogging someone you'd never normally fancy or getting mouthy. I'm talking about the girl who passed out in her own vomit on glass, resulting in cuts all over her back and hands, into which her own vomit had seeped. The bloke who was crying as he had no idea who we were and was convinced we were trying to hurt him as we fed him water and tried to find out where he lived so we could get him home. The many who pissed themselves. The even more who puked- sometimes on other people, often on me and my colleagues.

These were the effects of pots without any built in controls. The people who were using the pots I study had very different concerns. Can you imagine the extreme examples described above at a formal banquet in someone's home, in front of family and friends? Or at a large, public social event? Maybe social controls and environment would prevent the worst excesses, but seeing people pissed at wedding receptions and house parties makes me suspect not. But, just in case, pots so difficult to drink from that you couldn't just neck your pint and crack on to the next one were, I think, being employed. Look at the shape of this kylix. You need to be able to balance the bowl, negotiate the unwieldy stem, control the flow of liquid over the large rim, and deal with those handles. In my PhD research, I developed a scoring system for vessels like this, using handle shape, rim circumference/height ratio, rim circumference/human hand length ratio and volume. Vessels with a high volume (I'm talking an average of around 3l, which is about two modern wine bottles worth of booze), ususally imported from Greece to Etruria, always had high "skill scores." They needed knowledge to drink from them successfully, and they wouldn't allow you to consume their contents too quickly.

Image from imagehive

I don't know if I'd have noticed that, or even thought about it, without those years cleaning up puke and broken glass. So, thank you, pissed students. Except you, girl who threw up spaghetti puttanesca with tuna chunks in my hair.

Bone: Ice Age Art Review

Self portrait with portable art

Yesterday, I went up to "that London," grumpy Cornishman in tow, to see an exhibition I've been dying to visit since I first heard rumours of its future existence. "Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind" did not disappoint. Before I even get into reviewing it, and making some observations, let me say this. Go, go now, book it for tomorrow. I went completely en famille, and we all enjoyed it (well, I think we did. By the end of a boozy lunch afterwards that was the impression I got).

The family queue up

I've divided this review up into 3 sections: things I loved, things I liked, and niggles. So, here goes.


Things I loved:

-the drip, drip, drip of water which permeated through the exhibition, which, coupled with the darkness, gave a sense of claustrophobic caves and melting ice. This noise wasn't constant, or obtrusive- but it gave me a little shivery thrill each time it plonked out of the hidden speakers.

The cave experience doesn't come out so well in Instagram... who knew?

- the tunnel and cave, with the projection wall covered in changing images of Paleolithic rock art. Obviously, you can't just transport parietal art- but the curators had a damn good go. We sat next to a small boy who was enthralled by the images on the handily placed bench. He sat with his mouth open gazing at the flashing pictures, the bison swooping across the wall. A long time ago, in an undergraduate class, my group designed a museum exhibition centred about recreated rock art in an atmospheric cave-like setting. It was very weird seeing this realised in a manner 1000 times more sophisticated than my student dreams. And the fact that all those "enigmatic marks" flashed onto the narrative scenes in time with the dripping water noises like hallucinations at blink-and-you'll-miss-it speed was fabulous.

- the material. Just- wow. I saw the swimming reindeer. I saw Venus figurines. I saw the earlist ceramics from Dolni Vestonice. There was a replica Lion Man. It was all gorgeous- the haunting beauty of the figurines, the bittersweet images of animals on tools designed to slaughter them more effectively. It's just such a shame they are regularly so tiny- although this is completely part of their power, it did mean that a lot of people hustled around one small object, which kind of diminished the experience. We went quite early in the morning, and it wasn't too bad- I'd recommend other people do likewise.

Glorious, beautiful objects. No flash was used to take this picture.

Things I liked:

-the link with modern art. This worked really well, and didn't feel forced. My non-archaeological half is a big fan of Henry Moore, and he lapped up the connections. I felt like it helped him connect with and appreciate the archaeological materials more.

-generally, the tone of the commentary. You can't interpret this sort of art too much, and I thought they balanced it relatively well- introducing quite complicated ideas like the increased intensity of making miniature figures, but stepping back from certainty. I liked this, but my brother hated it- he wanted a bit more honesty about what the curators thought, or a bit of fronting up on the unknowability of the deep past. It's a fair point- adding a question mark to a statement does leave you in limbo I suppose.

-the gift shop. Tea towels framed as accessible art on the walls- copied and now soon to be resplendent in my house. Good idea, I'll copy that thank you very much. Exit via the art to take home- no ordinary gift shop. The cuddly mammoths were also a highlight. *


Niggles:

-no touchable replicas. While the video showing how the Lion Man was made was great, it would have been wonderful to have little replicas available to touch and feel. The statuettes and figurines were (to me anyway) made to be held, to be rubbed between finger and thumb. The exhibition felt very look-don't-touch and this was a real shame. Maybe there are handling events that I missed.

-a little light sexism. This was my real irritation. I took a photo of the worst panel-culprit. Apparently, men's identity alone is tied up in hunting implements. The old "man the hunter" stereotype is still around, even though I thought he'd been feminist-critiqued into oblivion. Yes, women in many modern hunter-gatherer societies don't hunt-but some do. We have no idea exactly who was doing the hunting in the Paleolithic, so let's not smudge ethnocentric gender stereotypes on the past please. Rant over.

Oh, a man's hunting kit? Who else could possibly have one. Grrr.

So, all in all, a great day out, some amazing archaeology and a lesson in atmospheric exhibition curation. Have you been? Did you like it? What are your loves and hates and thoughts?

*Did anyone else have the "Our Mammoth" books as a child? A family defrost and adopt a lovable mammoth called Buttercup. Beautifully illustrated and fabulous fun.