A blogpost about conferences and The Inevitable! Including some cheeky begging for beer and cheese, as well as some hidden advice for PhD-students.

The inevitable has happened. Last week the funding for the Gestures of Transition project, and thus for my PhD research, has run out and I’m still at it. And I will be for some time. Anyone who wants to buy me a beer or invite me round for a cheese fondue the coming months or send me a postcard with encouraging words, do get in touch! Eternal gratitude will be your share.

Still, my project partner and I have gotten on well with our work the past few years. Also, I am enjoying the research and all the other little things more or less related to it very much and will continue to do so. One of the most fantastic things about doing PhD research must be that you get to be completely geeky and spend an extraordinary amount of time working on a subject you love. And you better love it, because there will be times when you really need that love to keep going and to keep sane!

One of the ways of revelling in your self-chosen topic of geekery are conferences. At the moment conferences and workshops etc. on the Mesolithic and related topic seem to come flying left, right and centre. There was MesoLife June 2014 (to be published soon in special issues of Quaternary International and Preistoria Alpina. Hey-hey!) The highlight of the Mesolithic year 2015 must have been MESO2015 in Belgrade. That was fantastic and worth it just for the enormously long and hot bus ride to Lepenski Vir! LEPENSKI VIR! I really enjoyed meeting new and old friends and colleagues as well as the breadth and variety of the presentations from all over Europe (and the Near East). Although the 10min rhythm of presentation was quite relentless. Together with my project partner, I presented some of the results of our research on the chipped stone technology and use wear of the assemblages from Arconciel/La Souche (CH) and Lutter/St. Joseph (FR).

I had to miss out on e.g. CHAGS, the use wear conference last May in Leiden and the Knappable Materials conference in Barcelona, though, and there have been quite a few more. But early November the fun continues: There will be a two-day table ronde on Late Mesolithic archaeology (7th – 5th millennium BC) in Strasbourg. You’ll find the program and flyer here. I will be contributing a little to a paper on projectile points from Arconciel/La Souche and Onnens/Praz Berthoud. I also saw a flyer somewhere on a workshop, I think about Mesolithic structures in northwestern Europe in Paris, early 2016. And, of course, there are the AG Mesolithikum in Krasna Lipa in March 2016 and the raw materials-conference also in March 2016. Does anyone know of any more conferences for Mesolithic researchers coming up soon? Why not leave a comment or get in touch on twitter (@dropsofhazel).

I’m not sure yet whether I’ll show up at the AG Mesolithikum or any other conferences in the next half year or so, as from now no my focus will be on really cracking on with my PhD research as efficiently as possible. Because as somebody wisely said to me not too long ago:

“The only good PhD-thesis is a finished PhD-thesis!”

Mesolithic Interventions

An exhibition at the York Art Gallery. I just came across the website. The gallery seems to have asked “…four artists to create a new installation at York Art Gallery’s studio. Their installation uses photography, video, sound and interactive digital technology to explore the era.” The artists visited the site and had a look at the finds as well.

I wish I could go and have look and see what they came up with. Although the YAG website shows a few pictures, it would be fun to see more, esp. of the digital and sound-work.

AG Mesolithikum, Luzern, CH, 2009

From April 3rd to 5th, the ‘AG Mesolithikum’ 2009 took place in Lucerne, Switzerland. The AG Mesolithikum is really a  group of mostly German Meso-researchers who meet once a year to informally exchange ideas and present their recent work. This year it travelled beyond its German homeland and the meeting was organised by Ebbe Nielsen, of the Kantonsarchäologie Luzern, Switzerland (Cantonal Archaeological Unit of Lucerne).

The Saturday was started with a short but enlightening introduction into the organisation and work of the Swiss Cantonal Archaeological Units, with special emphasis on Lucerne, by Head of Unit Jürg Manser. Willy Tinner followed by discussing the arguments for and against off-site palynological evidence for early cereal cultivation in the Alpine region. Although what he presented was not hugely different from the publication of Tinner etal 2007, it was interesting to hear Willy put forward the arguments in person and to be able to discuss them with him. He made clear that the evidence he put forward was not conclusive, but there is a large chance that Pre-Neolithic populations opened up the forest, especially around lakes and moors, and that around 6500 cal BC an increase in the presence of cerealia type pollen and adventives and apophytes can be observed in many cores. It also once again showed how fantastic the preservation of palynological evidence is in the (circum) alpine lakes.

Jehanne Affolter told us about her methodology for interpreting data on flint raw-material distribution in the circum alpine region. It was brought to the point how limiting the small number of known sites (esp. those well dated and with raw-material data) still is.

Claus-Joachim Kind and Dorothée Drucker presented fragments of 2 reindeer metatarsus from the Holocene site of Siebenlinden II, sth. Germany. Comparative isotope research indicates it would have lived in the same wooded and temperate environment as the roe deer and red deer from the site. D. Drucker next presented how isotope 13C & 15N research could possibly be used to reconstruct the Mesolithic human diet and environment. It seems to me, though, that the few known Mesolithic skeletons from Europe don’t allow for a sufficiently fine resolution yet.

Birgit Gehlen (Blätterhöhle, Hagen, GER), Michael Baales & Ingrid Koch (Kreuztal-Buschhütten & Netphen, GER) and Harald Lübke (waterlogged sites on Rügen, GER) presented new fieldwork in Germany. And Thomas Doppler presented the methodologies used on site by the University of Basel at Lutter, Abri St. Joseph (FR) and Arconciel/La Souche (CH) for recovering organic remains.

Erik Brinch Petersen, the only Danish participant, talked with great enthusiasm about – and showed us many photos of – beautiful decorated amber hangers known from the Danish Mesolithic. On Sunday Michel Mauvilly summarised the surveying work he and his colleagues in Ct. Fribourg (CH) have done. They already located a large number of find-spots in many of the (pre-) Alpine parts of the Canton (e.g. in the Petit Mont, Grand Mont and Oeschels valleys) and their distribution maps show clearly that blank spots on the map are largely the result of research biases. Their search for flint and other stone sources show interesting results as well, esp. when integrated with their survey and on-site work. This also suggests that the lack of knowledge we have of the prehistory of other Alpine regions is largely due to research biases; an observation that is supported by a number of other recent survey projects in Switzerland. But I’ll have to write some more about that in the future.

Thomas Richter (presenting fieldwork at Germering-Nebel (Bayern, GER) and Ebbe Nielsen finished off this part of the conference. Ebbe briefly introduced a site at the shores of the Soppensee (CH), where Late Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic finds have been made. The Sunday then continued with a tour of the Soppensee and the Wauwilermoos near Lucerne, with its many famous Late Palaeolithic, Mesolithic (e.g. Schötz 7) and Neolithic (e.g. Egolzwil) sites.

Thanks to the organisers at the Kantonsarchäologie Luzern and the participants and especially to Ebbe Nielsen for a few pleasant days in Lucerne.