Bristol Anthropology and Archaeology Research Seminars (BAARS)

Establishing reliable timelines for archaeological and palaeoanthropological sites is important to understand human evolution and population dispersal. Yet, many of these early sites are challenging to date due to their old age and the resulting scarcity of applicable chronological methods. Luminescence-based approaches have the potential to provide much needed numerical ages, independent of other methods, thus serving as a valuable tool to build robust chronologies. In this seminar, Dr. Mariana Sontag-González will present her research on the development and application of advanced luminescence dating techniques to archaeological sites. Drawing on case studies she was worked on, she will explore how tiny mineral grains can reveal the timing of past human activities, including sites with some of the oldest evidence of European hominin occupation in Europe (Spain), technological development in the Turkana Basin (Kenya), and the type site of Homo floresiensis, affectionately named the Hobbit (Indonesia). Particular attention will be given to infrared-radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating of potassium feldspar, a promising method capable of extending the age range accessible to luminescence dating. Through multi-method investigations, her work on this method is providing new insights into the behaviour of luminescence signals and helping to refine chronological tools for important questions in human evolutionary research. 

Nick Bano (Garden Court Chambers) in Conversation with Dr Kit Opie (University of Bristol) 

Discussion about the housing crisis has been dominated by claims of a housing shortage and the dire need to build more homes. Housebuilding is an article of faith across the political spectrum. The evidence, however, does not support this—quite the reverse. Among OECD countries, the UK has roughly the average number of homes per capita. What is causing the crisis is not the amount of housing per household, but the escalating costs. And spiralling costs, in turn, are driven by landlords. They are at the heart of the present crisis. Housing barrister Nick Bano, in conversation with our own Dr Kit Opie, will explain how the crisis has developed over the last 50 years. Dr Opie will then link the current housing crisis to the origins of inequality—first seen in human societies about 10,000 years ago. Property (land) ownership was crucial to the move away from small-scale egalitarian societies and the emergence of hierarchy and inequality. With the recent re-emergence of landlords in the UK linked to the huge increases in inequality we are now facing. These two perspectives will allow a deep dive into the range of strategies for dealing with current inequalities as well as shine a new light on past societal changes. 

"Studying up" and Opaque Water Governance in Mexico City: Towards Critical Forensics in an Era of Water Bankruptcy

Abstract TBC

Shame, Anger, and the Emotional Logics of British Politics 

Recent interdisciplinary work links repressed economic shame to anger and resentment among right-wing voters. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Thanet, a South East England seaside area that has seen rising right-wing sentiment, this paper asks whether what I call an "emotional logic" of shame and anger is truly specific to the right. Through fieldwork with retired (60+) interlocutors of varied political affiliations, and informed by my own positionality as a Brazilian migrant, I trace how shame, pride, and humiliation - often tied to feeling excluded from productive economic and social life in older age - shape political action and moral reasoning. Rather than treating emotion as a distraction from rational politics, or something that merely "leaks" from reasoned positions, I argue emotions are themselves constitutive of how political subjects perceive and act in the world. The paper builds on classical anthropological work on ethics and morality by foregrounding emotion's role within them, and contributes to a growing interdisciplinary effort, resonant with feminist and decolonial critiques of rationalist thought, to treat emotion as a political and analytical force, not a pathology confined to one side of the spectrum.

Dr James Wright, Triskele Heritage 

Visit any settlement in the land and there will be ancient buildings hidden in plain sight. Behind a Victorian façade is a Tudor house. Underneath a Georgian frontage is a mediaeval cottage. What is now a modern farm may once have been a castle. We know relatively little about the ancient buildings that surround us, yet buildings archaeology can offer us so many clues for discovering the secrets of hidden historic houses. This talk looks at the ways in which ancient buildings have been studied and conserved, the puzzling ways that some buildings became listed whereas others were overlooked, and how we can really understand the age and development of a structure. With over a quarter of a century of field experience, James Wright uses case studies drawn from his career to explain the fascinating, enigmatic, and surprising world of The Buildings Archaeologist. 

Dr Lisa Briggs, National Geographic and the University of Oxford 

Ancient Shipwrecks and Archaeological Science: Methods, Challenges, and Future Directions 

The artefacts recovered from ancient shipwrecks have long served as rich material for scientists to hone techniques in order to learn lessons from the past. One of the earliest applications of gas chromatography to archaeological ceramics analysed amphorae from the Madrague de Giens shipwreck (Formenti et al., 1978) , while the study that reported the first successful extraction of DNA from archaeological bone included a pig bone from the Mary Rose shipwreck (Hagelberg & Clegg, 1991). Now, nearly 50 years after the Madrague de Giens study, the range of scientific techniques we can apply to archaeological material from underwater sites has expanded exponentially. Yet, the application of scientific methods to material from submerged sites is not without its challenges. The marine environment corrodes metal instruments, and sulphur producing bacteria in the interstitial space on the seafloor create challenges for GC-MS and C14 dating of artefacts from marine environments. This paper explores the myriad applications of archaeometry to submerged sites, the benefits of anoxic environments to the preservation of organic material, the challenges the marine environment creates for our research, and the future directions of the field of archaeological science within the context of underwater archaeological investigations.