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!”
hazelnut relations 