Sadie Watson
@drsadiewatson.bsky.social
Archaeologist, social value, fieldwork, developer-funded, Roman London. SE London and Dorset. she/her. 🏺🏛️👷♀️My views. Cyclist. Cats and daughters.
In which the European Neolithic is invoked in support of banning ‘veggie burger’ as a descriptor for vegetarian burger-shaped food. 🤦♀️
"In today’s Brussels, appeals to heritage and identity land more softly than calls for food system innovation." www.politico.eu/article/vegg...
How a ‘veggie burger’ ban nobody wanted became one Brussels might actually pass
A fringe amendment to protect meaty vocabulary has become a test of Europe’s loyalty to tradition and its waning appetite for food innovation.
www.politico.eu
November 24, 2025 at 10:38 AM
In which the European Neolithic is invoked in support of banning ‘veggie burger’ as a descriptor for vegetarian burger-shaped food. 🤦♀️
Both my babies were born at home, with experienced midwives (2 at each, plus a student at the 2nd, her first delivery ❤️). No risk taken at any stage, with anything.
Home birth is not the same as free birth, I could barely read this awful story. But home births should continue when possible.
Home birth is not the same as free birth, I could barely read this awful story. But home births should continue when possible.
I’m a mum that chose homebirth for three of my children after a traumatic hospital birth for the first, so you might think I’d lean towards ‘freebirth’ - but the dangerous bullshit on show here is terrifying.
www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors
www.theguardian.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Both my babies were born at home, with experienced midwives (2 at each, plus a student at the 2nd, her first delivery ❤️). No risk taken at any stage, with anything.
Home birth is not the same as free birth, I could barely read this awful story. But home births should continue when possible.
Home birth is not the same as free birth, I could barely read this awful story. But home births should continue when possible.
Reposted by Sadie Watson
What's buried under Peers' Car Park? 🚗
November 21, 2025 at 3:54 PM
What's buried under Peers' Car Park? 🚗
Finally results of the #archaeology evaluation at #Westminster are being publicised by R&R: fieldwork by my MOLA colleagues. Also a foreshore survey incorporating documentary research.
Some incredible evidence of 11th century #medieval phase, with earlier yet to come underneath (in a later post).
Some incredible evidence of 11th century #medieval phase, with earlier yet to come underneath (in a later post).
What do medieval remains and a stone crucible have in common? They were excavated by hand by archaeologists in Victoria Tower Gardens.
November 22, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Finally results of the #archaeology evaluation at #Westminster are being publicised by R&R: fieldwork by my MOLA colleagues. Also a foreshore survey incorporating documentary research.
Some incredible evidence of 11th century #medieval phase, with earlier yet to come underneath (in a later post).
Some incredible evidence of 11th century #medieval phase, with earlier yet to come underneath (in a later post).
A lot of comments on low student numbers, obvious absenteeism in this vid - but it shouldn’t only be up to them to protest. Are Summers’ Harvard colleagues doing anything about how disgusting it is to have him a room with young people? (genuine question, I haven’t seen anything but 🤞🏻 there is)
Larry Summers discusses his “statement of regret” for his disturbing messages to Jeffrey Epstein with Harvard students
November 19, 2025 at 3:34 PM
A lot of comments on low student numbers, obvious absenteeism in this vid - but it shouldn’t only be up to them to protest. Are Summers’ Harvard colleagues doing anything about how disgusting it is to have him a room with young people? (genuine question, I haven’t seen anything but 🤞🏻 there is)
Reposted by Sadie Watson
A £50 annual licence fee for the 3000 members of the Surrey Metal Detecting Club could pay for three FLO post recording solely their finds. But why ask the cost of heritage in a finder takes all system.
An onslaught on heritage: "Surrey Metal Detecting Club… membership has rocketed… to more than 3,000 in 2025."
"We're not in it for the treasure, we're history finders" says a man who's "found thousands of coins" and has a shelf at home "where it's all Roman - coins, brooches and stuff like that."
"We're not in it for the treasure, we're history finders" says a man who's "found thousands of coins" and has a shelf at home "where it's all Roman - coins, brooches and stuff like that."
The Surrey Metal Detecting Club sees membership leap in six years
Founded with 60 members in 2019, the Surrey club now has more than 3,000 members across the county.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 9:52 PM
A £50 annual licence fee for the 3000 members of the Surrey Metal Detecting Club could pay for three FLO post recording solely their finds. But why ask the cost of heritage in a finder takes all system.
And don’t forget we have one last gas lamp powered by actual human gas 💨
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...
November 16, 2025 at 3:40 PM
And don’t forget we have one last gas lamp powered by actual human gas 💨
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...
Reposted by Sadie Watson
We're really looking forward to welcoming @rakshadigs.bsky.social to Sussex to deliver the 2026 Long Man Lecture.
We don't have enough opportunities to meet together to listen to, and celebrate, a single voice from the heritage world, but this is one.
Pls share and join us this March!
🏺
We don't have enough opportunities to meet together to listen to, and celebrate, a single voice from the heritage world, but this is one.
Pls share and join us this March!
🏺
We’re thrilled to announce our 2026 Long Man Lecture speaker: Raksha Dave! 🎉Raksha is an archaeologist, author, broadcaster, and current President of the Council for British Archaeology. Thurs 26th March 2026, ACCA, Brighton. Early Bird tickets now on sale, starting at £10: https://loom.ly/f0zNR6w
November 15, 2025 at 9:35 AM
We're really looking forward to welcoming @rakshadigs.bsky.social to Sussex to deliver the 2026 Long Man Lecture.
We don't have enough opportunities to meet together to listen to, and celebrate, a single voice from the heritage world, but this is one.
Pls share and join us this March!
🏺
We don't have enough opportunities to meet together to listen to, and celebrate, a single voice from the heritage world, but this is one.
Pls share and join us this March!
🏺
Reposted by Sadie Watson
Anwen Cooper & Tina Roushannafas @ox.ac.uk have just published a beautiful piece in Archaeological Dialogues @universitypress.cambridge.org on how archaeological work can realign to meet the needs of pressing environmental agendas and be part of #nature #recovery projects. doi.org/10.1017/S138...
People and time in nature: Positioning archaeology in an ecoclimate crisis | Archaeological Dialogues | Cambridge Core
People and time in nature: Positioning archaeology in an ecoclimate crisis
doi.org
November 12, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Anwen Cooper & Tina Roushannafas @ox.ac.uk have just published a beautiful piece in Archaeological Dialogues @universitypress.cambridge.org on how archaeological work can realign to meet the needs of pressing environmental agendas and be part of #nature #recovery projects. doi.org/10.1017/S138...
Reposted by Sadie Watson
Hello folks. I've been making plaster of paris artefacts/decorations for friends.
I'm opening it up here now - all items incl. postage (UK only, sadly) & gift packaging. I can send things within a week, usually faster.
Anyway, if there's anything you fancy, message/email me! 😊
#Archaeology 🏺
I'm opening it up here now - all items incl. postage (UK only, sadly) & gift packaging. I can send things within a week, usually faster.
Anyway, if there's anything you fancy, message/email me! 😊
#Archaeology 🏺
November 10, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Hello folks. I've been making plaster of paris artefacts/decorations for friends.
I'm opening it up here now - all items incl. postage (UK only, sadly) & gift packaging. I can send things within a week, usually faster.
Anyway, if there's anything you fancy, message/email me! 😊
#Archaeology 🏺
I'm opening it up here now - all items incl. postage (UK only, sadly) & gift packaging. I can send things within a week, usually faster.
Anyway, if there's anything you fancy, message/email me! 😊
#Archaeology 🏺
Proper treat yesterday listening to Dr Ana Vale of Uni of Porto speaking on her incredible research into social lives in Late Prehistory. Thank you to @bbkhistorical.bsky.social and @lesleymcf.bsky.social for the invitation, the Carena Institute for Sustainable Archaeologies is up and running 🌟
November 6, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Proper treat yesterday listening to Dr Ana Vale of Uni of Porto speaking on her incredible research into social lives in Late Prehistory. Thank you to @bbkhistorical.bsky.social and @lesleymcf.bsky.social for the invitation, the Carena Institute for Sustainable Archaeologies is up and running 🌟
Hidden in one of my favourite ever papers is a nugget about the UK almost refusing to sign #Valetta due to the (illegal) #antiquity trade & (unlicensed) #metaldetecting.
It’s all baked in to UK Govt policy and Willem Willems recorded it, the absolute legend.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
It’s all baked in to UK Govt policy and Willem Willems recorded it, the absolute legend.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
November 5, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Hidden in one of my favourite ever papers is a nugget about the UK almost refusing to sign #Valetta due to the (illegal) #antiquity trade & (unlicensed) #metaldetecting.
It’s all baked in to UK Govt policy and Willem Willems recorded it, the absolute legend.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
It’s all baked in to UK Govt policy and Willem Willems recorded it, the absolute legend.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
It was a real joy to write this paper with @guillermodiazliano.bsky.social - in many ways an overdue love letter to my colleagues in the trenches over the years.
Huge thanks to those who spoke to G, their job is hard and #archaeology is only the half of it! 🏺👷🏻♀️
Huge thanks to those who spoke to G, their job is hard and #archaeology is only the half of it! 🏺👷🏻♀️
So happy to see this article out!
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TYFU3...
In this ethnography of the relationship between archaeologists and construction, we explore how both disciplines communicate, and how concepts such as risk, incommensurability, uncertainty and translation..
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TYFU3...
In this ethnography of the relationship between archaeologists and construction, we explore how both disciplines communicate, and how concepts such as risk, incommensurability, uncertainty and translation..
www.tandfonline.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:20 AM
It was a real joy to write this paper with @guillermodiazliano.bsky.social - in many ways an overdue love letter to my colleagues in the trenches over the years.
Huge thanks to those who spoke to G, their job is hard and #archaeology is only the half of it! 🏺👷🏻♀️
Huge thanks to those who spoke to G, their job is hard and #archaeology is only the half of it! 🏺👷🏻♀️
Reposted by Sadie Watson
Guardian obituary of the historian Gillian Tindall (1938-2025) whose histories of place - London, Paris, Chassignolles, Bombay - were created from the lives of their forgotten residents.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... #Skystorians
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... #Skystorians
Gillian Tindall obituary
Writer, historian and biographer who wove archaeology, social history, myth and religion into her work
www.theguardian.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Guardian obituary of the historian Gillian Tindall (1938-2025) whose histories of place - London, Paris, Chassignolles, Bombay - were created from the lives of their forgotten residents.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... #Skystorians
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... #Skystorians
We find archaeological evidence of the expulsions in the City of London: pits of ceramics from c. 1290 from behind houses around the Guildhall area, and the abandoned mikveh on Milk St. The Old Jewry street name is perhaps the only hint of this terrible history today.
October 9, 2025 at 10:09 AM
We find archaeological evidence of the expulsions in the City of London: pits of ceramics from c. 1290 from behind houses around the Guildhall area, and the abandoned mikveh on Milk St. The Old Jewry street name is perhaps the only hint of this terrible history today.
Reposted by Sadie Watson
First week of term, first year of study, evening teaching, from Birkbeck to British Museum, from gallery to study room, from Neolithic Cumbria to Bronze Age Cambridgeshire through the connection of Langdale stone, from gold cup to gold-makers hoard.
October 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
First week of term, first year of study, evening teaching, from Birkbeck to British Museum, from gallery to study room, from Neolithic Cumbria to Bronze Age Cambridgeshire through the connection of Langdale stone, from gold cup to gold-makers hoard.
#NationalPoetryDay, Spike Milligan (1977ish)
Father Thames:
Let us look at the River Thames.
One of England's watery gems.
Oily brown, greasy, muddy.
Looking foul, and smells of cruddy.
The conservancey say they’re cleaning it,
so why is it the colour of sh*t?
Father Thames:
Let us look at the River Thames.
One of England's watery gems.
Oily brown, greasy, muddy.
Looking foul, and smells of cruddy.
The conservancey say they’re cleaning it,
so why is it the colour of sh*t?
October 2, 2025 at 9:22 AM
#NationalPoetryDay, Spike Milligan (1977ish)
Father Thames:
Let us look at the River Thames.
One of England's watery gems.
Oily brown, greasy, muddy.
Looking foul, and smells of cruddy.
The conservancey say they’re cleaning it,
so why is it the colour of sh*t?
Father Thames:
Let us look at the River Thames.
One of England's watery gems.
Oily brown, greasy, muddy.
Looking foul, and smells of cruddy.
The conservancey say they’re cleaning it,
so why is it the colour of sh*t?
Some good news.
London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces.
The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.
London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces.
The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.
September 30, 2025 at 8:36 PM
#TinyJoys my dad Mick (left) and his best mate since school & best man
(also Mick), having a Fine Day Out at the Womens Rugby World Cup Final yesterday #WholesomeBoomerContent
(also Mick), having a Fine Day Out at the Womens Rugby World Cup Final yesterday #WholesomeBoomerContent
September 28, 2025 at 10:26 AM
#TinyJoys my dad Mick (left) and his best mate since school & best man
(also Mick), having a Fine Day Out at the Womens Rugby World Cup Final yesterday #WholesomeBoomerContent
(also Mick), having a Fine Day Out at the Womens Rugby World Cup Final yesterday #WholesomeBoomerContent
Quoting this to acknowledge Taryn Nixon OBE (!) as a trailblazer and heroine - she alone spoke up against stopping pay minima in 2012, had women & mothers in senior mgt and field roles, and refused to play the game. Also carefully theorised mgt in a huge and complex org through chaotic times.
New paper. Recording the female experience of UK archaeology 1990-2010. Anne Teather and I document how an industry EDI agenda evolved in the 1990s and was dismantled, uncovering the ramifications of that for women archaeologists over the next decade.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#openaccess✅
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#openaccess✅
Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology | Archaeological Dialogues | Cambridge Core
Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology
www.cambridge.org
September 27, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Quoting this to acknowledge Taryn Nixon OBE (!) as a trailblazer and heroine - she alone spoke up against stopping pay minima in 2012, had women & mothers in senior mgt and field roles, and refused to play the game. Also carefully theorised mgt in a huge and complex org through chaotic times.
Reposted by Sadie Watson
This piece of news about the @archaeologyeaa.bsky.social mess of the last weeks is very very very serious.
If you did not sign the campaign we are moving to try change things at the EAA yet, maybe this helps to decide… here is the link: ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/QInTdoHZ
The news ⬇️
If you did not sign the campaign we are moving to try change things at the EAA yet, maybe this helps to decide… here is the link: ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/QInTdoHZ
The news ⬇️
EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE
thePipeLine can reveal allegations that the President of the beleaguered European Association of Archaeologists [EAA], Professor Eszter Bánffy, was instrumental in organising a covert campaign to p…
thepipeline.info
September 19, 2025 at 8:14 AM
This piece of news about the @archaeologyeaa.bsky.social mess of the last weeks is very very very serious.
If you did not sign the campaign we are moving to try change things at the EAA yet, maybe this helps to decide… here is the link: ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/QInTdoHZ
The news ⬇️
If you did not sign the campaign we are moving to try change things at the EAA yet, maybe this helps to decide… here is the link: ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/QInTdoHZ
The news ⬇️
Reposted by Sadie Watson
We are seeking a new Editor for the Archaeological Journal to succeed @nannonstevens.bsky.social.
#archaeology #editor #journal
@royalarchinst.bsky.social
Please share to your networks! ✍️
#archaeology #editor #journal
@royalarchinst.bsky.social
Please share to your networks! ✍️
September 19, 2025 at 11:25 AM
We are seeking a new Editor for the Archaeological Journal to succeed @nannonstevens.bsky.social.
#archaeology #editor #journal
@royalarchinst.bsky.social
Please share to your networks! ✍️
#archaeology #editor #journal
@royalarchinst.bsky.social
Please share to your networks! ✍️
An inch of progress on the horizon perhaps 🤞🏻
Mini-scoop: After resisting pressure to strip Elon Musk of his fellowship for months, the Royal Society is meeting on 1 October to discuss his removal – following his decision to address Tommy Robinson's far-right rally on Saturday.
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-r...
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-r...
Royal Society to debate throwing out Elon Musk
One of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world is considering expelling Musk after his appearance at Tommy Robinson’s extremist London rally
www.thenewworld.co.uk
September 17, 2025 at 4:56 PM
An inch of progress on the horizon perhaps 🤞🏻
Reposted by Sadie Watson
Paid a visit to the London arms fair today...
Found a component for cluster munitions, banned under international law, on full display.
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers. But what else remains?
These vile weapons should never be peddled in the UK.
Found a component for cluster munitions, banned under international law, on full display.
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers. But what else remains?
These vile weapons should never be peddled in the UK.
September 11, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Paid a visit to the London arms fair today...
Found a component for cluster munitions, banned under international law, on full display.
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers. But what else remains?
These vile weapons should never be peddled in the UK.
Found a component for cluster munitions, banned under international law, on full display.
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers. But what else remains?
These vile weapons should never be peddled in the UK.