Jonathan Last
@johnnythin.bsky.social
Also in the press #OTD 100 years ago: continuing the Illustrated London News' interest in recent finds from Palaeolithic sites in Moravia, it looks like Amédée Forestier had some fun drawing these Late Pleistocene beavers 🦣🏺
![Cutting from the Illustrated London News, 21 Nov 1925 - line drawing of beavers with a Palaeolithic human in the background, captioned: "Giant beavers of Eastern Europe over 20,000 years ago: a reconstruction drawing based on skeletons found in Moravia. In our issue of November 7 Professor Absolon described how he found the bones of a whole herd of fossil beavers, which had evidently perished together in a catastrophe, on the banks of an underground river in Moravia. A complete skeleton of one of these extinct animals was illustrated in the same number.—[Reconstruction Drawing by A. Forestier, from Material supplied by Professor D. K. Absolon.]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7ggib3rrlsl4bi5pcrna6o42/bafkreiazv2npb6thmkrhknagsnlkv77nhmailuofhz247ehanvid75twdy@jpeg)
November 21, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Also in the press #OTD 100 years ago: continuing the Illustrated London News' interest in recent finds from Palaeolithic sites in Moravia, it looks like Amédée Forestier had some fun drawing these Late Pleistocene beavers 🦣🏺
Ad in Country Life #OTD 100 years ago: "A guide to a new quest" would be "an ideal gift to open-air folks" - I wonder how many people got 'The Old Straight Track' for Christmas in 1925? (NB 18/- equates to about £70 today)
November 21, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Ad in Country Life #OTD 100 years ago: "A guide to a new quest" would be "an ideal gift to open-air folks" - I wonder how many people got 'The Old Straight Track' for Christmas in 1925? (NB 18/- equates to about £70 today)
Kings aside, this story also resonates with interpretations of perceptions and attitudes to woodland, trees and timber posts in the European Neolithic...
The Hittite king must ask the Storm god for a tree to build with, he must secure permission to cut down a living thing that has taken decades to grow strong and long enough to be used for construction.
And he doesn’t just need permission.
And he doesn’t just need permission.
November 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Kings aside, this story also resonates with interpretations of perceptions and attitudes to woodland, trees and timber posts in the European Neolithic...
Suddenly winter arrived
November 19, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Suddenly winter arrived
Autumn evening on The Mall
November 18, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Autumn evening on The Mall
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 6:46 PM
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."
Michael Ayrton died 50 years ago today aged just 54. Daedalus & the Minotaur were recurring figures in the sculptural, graphic & literary outputs of the latter part of his career. Here's his bronze "Minotaur" (1973) at the Barbican & the cover of his Daedalus 'autobiography' "The Maze Maker" (1967)
November 16, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Michael Ayrton died 50 years ago today aged just 54. Daedalus & the Minotaur were recurring figures in the sculptural, graphic & literary outputs of the latter part of his career. Here's his bronze "Minotaur" (1973) at the Barbican & the cover of his Daedalus 'autobiography' "The Maze Maker" (1967)
On Horsell Common
November 15, 2025 at 10:33 AM
On Horsell Common
Sadly not at the Bronze Age Forum this year but I've still got this design classic from 2011!
November 14, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Sadly not at the Bronze Age Forum this year but I've still got this design classic from 2011!
My personal views only, but I'd suggest the following:
(1) a blanket ban on detecting on land that's in any form of environmental stewardship or landscape recovery scheme - because heritage is part of the environment those measures are meant to be protecting
🧵
(1) a blanket ban on detecting on land that's in any form of environmental stewardship or landscape recovery scheme - because heritage is part of the environment those measures are meant to be protecting
🧵
How about "Where is our heritage demonstrably most risk from metal detecting"? It isn't lost, it's part of the archaeological record.
Cc @Tess_Machling🏺
#FindsFriday
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Cc @Tess_Machling🏺
#FindsFriday
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Where in the UK is the greatest amount of hidden treasure?
Objects uncovered have included precious Viking coins and a Roman earwax scoop
www.independent.co.uk
November 14, 2025 at 9:22 AM
My personal views only, but I'd suggest the following:
(1) a blanket ban on detecting on land that's in any form of environmental stewardship or landscape recovery scheme - because heritage is part of the environment those measures are meant to be protecting
🧵
(1) a blanket ban on detecting on land that's in any form of environmental stewardship or landscape recovery scheme - because heritage is part of the environment those measures are meant to be protecting
🧵
Reposted by Jonathan Last
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...
A poem for #TombTuesday on 11 Nov: Kipling's 'London Stone'. There's nothing jingoistic in this bitter reflection on loss. The Stone is the Cenotaph, but I wonder if he also had in mind that older London Stone, the legendary protector of the city, which Blake saw as a place of sacrifice...
November 11, 2025 at 6:53 PM
A poem for #TombTuesday on 11 Nov: Kipling's 'London Stone'. There's nothing jingoistic in this bitter reflection on loss. The Stone is the Cenotaph, but I wonder if he also had in mind that older London Stone, the legendary protector of the city, which Blake saw as a place of sacrifice...
"Today we remember, or boast that we remember. But do we as a nation remember? We may ask ourselves whether we have been faithful keepers of the trust given us by those who paid the greater price. We look out over a troubled world, a tired world, a world hungry for peace & denied it…" #ArmisticeDay
November 11, 2025 at 8:13 AM
"Today we remember, or boast that we remember. But do we as a nation remember? We may ask ourselves whether we have been faithful keepers of the trust given us by those who paid the greater price. We look out over a troubled world, a tired world, a world hungry for peace & denied it…" #ArmisticeDay
Now that's what I call a pit alignment!
What was the purpose of the iconic Andean monument of Monte Sierpe (aka Band of Holes)? New research supports a new interpretation: it was a barter marketplace, later developing into a monumental system of accounting under #Inca rule.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Now that's what I call a pit alignment!
I see Farage is once again using the platform that the BBC unaccountably keeps giving him in order to complain that it's institutionally biased against him...
November 9, 2025 at 10:26 PM
I see Farage is once again using the platform that the BBC unaccountably keeps giving him in order to complain that it's institutionally biased against him...
A fascinating programme, especially the insights about Bernard Lovell, and amazing music, of course, from @hannahpeel.bsky.social
Hannah recently visited Jodrell to debut her latest composition, created from sounds foraged across the site!
Want to celebrate with us? Don’t miss ‘Jodrell Bank at 80’ on BBC Radio 4, Saturday at 20.00, featuring Hannah’s piece alongside brilliant stories from the BBC archive: ow.ly/9rYH50XnGu8
Want to celebrate with us? Don’t miss ‘Jodrell Bank at 80’ on BBC Radio 4, Saturday at 20.00, featuring Hannah’s piece alongside brilliant stories from the BBC archive: ow.ly/9rYH50XnGu8
BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Jodrell Bank at 80
Brilliant stories told using archive from the BBC and beyond
ow.ly
November 9, 2025 at 9:24 AM
A fascinating programme, especially the insights about Bernard Lovell, and amazing music, of course, from @hannahpeel.bsky.social
What's through the not-quite-square window behind Stonehenge on this #StandingStoneSunday and #RemembranceSunday? Why, it's an entire concertinaed military landscape of camps and barracks! This 'novelty card' was written to Miss E. Nixon of Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1916 but never posted… 🧵
November 9, 2025 at 8:33 AM
What's through the not-quite-square window behind Stonehenge on this #StandingStoneSunday and #RemembranceSunday? Why, it's an entire concertinaed military landscape of camps and barracks! This 'novelty card' was written to Miss E. Nixon of Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1916 but never posted… 🧵
Reposted by Jonathan Last
The hypocrisy of taking pride in your nation’s history while refusing to acknowledge any shame (though personally I don’t find either sentiment appropriate in relation to the past per se, only for its consequences that are still playing out in the present day)
'It is true that none of us is personally responsible for the events and activities of our varied ancestors. But take care, if disowning any possible connection to events before you were born, to check if you are content to sever any sense of identification with Shakespeare or winning WW2 too' (!)
November 7, 2025 at 1:36 PM
The hypocrisy of taking pride in your nation’s history while refusing to acknowledge any shame (though personally I don’t find either sentiment appropriate in relation to the past per se, only for its consequences that are still playing out in the present day)
It’s William Stukeley’s birthday 🎂 His landscape views are often just as interesting as the drawings of monuments - here’s his Prospect of Kits Coty House in Oct 1722
November 7, 2025 at 8:35 AM
It’s William Stukeley’s birthday 🎂 His landscape views are often just as interesting as the drawings of monuments - here’s his Prospect of Kits Coty House in Oct 1722
Couldn’t we just ban people using fossil fuels to blow leaves from one place to another?
November 6, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Couldn’t we just ban people using fossil fuels to blow leaves from one place to another?
As it's Richard Jefferies' birthday (born #OTD in 1848), here's an extract from a piece he wrote for The Graphic in 1877 about flint: "all along the vast caravan route, so to say, of the human race… in cave and mound, and river, the chipped flint is found, the stamp, as it were, of [man's] presence"
November 6, 2025 at 7:17 AM
As it's Richard Jefferies' birthday (born #OTD in 1848), here's an extract from a piece he wrote for The Graphic in 1877 about flint: "all along the vast caravan route, so to say, of the human race… in cave and mound, and river, the chipped flint is found, the stamp, as it were, of [man's] presence"
On the Euston Road
November 3, 2025 at 10:07 AM
On the Euston Road
Surrey's heaths are a joy at this time of year. The photos are from today's dog walk on Smart's Heath, which exemplifies Oliver Rackham's statement that "Most surviving heaths have the characteristic shape of commons, with concave outlines, crossed by roads which enter the common by funnels"
November 2, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Surrey's heaths are a joy at this time of year. The photos are from today's dog walk on Smart's Heath, which exemplifies Oliver Rackham's statement that "Most surviving heaths have the characteristic shape of commons, with concave outlines, crossed by roads which enter the common by funnels"
At the very least the costs of conservation and necessary research should be deducted from any ‘reward’ payable to the finder
Consider what these organisations could be doing with funding if they weren't using it to pay off private citizens for an object from our shared past.
Why is this hobby being allowed to divert such large funds?
Why is this hobby being allowed to divert such large funds?
"Funding came from Arts Council England, V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society, and the Friends of Leeds City Museums."
AKA
The detectorist and landowner were paid an undisclosed amount to hand over what should be ours...
#Archaeology 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
AKA
The detectorist and landowner were paid an undisclosed amount to hand over what should be ours...
#Archaeology 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
November 2, 2025 at 10:49 AM
At the very least the costs of conservation and necessary research should be deducted from any ‘reward’ payable to the finder