iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

New discovery: A wooden structure, identified as river bank protection of the #Roman harbour, has been unearthed in Cologne. www.stadt-koeln.de/politik-und-... #RomanArchaeology #archaeology 🏺

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Hannah Booth @hannahbooth.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

🎄Some seasonal reading from me: 🌊 On carols, sailors, Saint Nicholas and Christmas on the sea

northseanexus.substack.com

I saw three ships come sailing in

On the sea at Christmas

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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Kim Bowes' Surviving Rome is a radical revision—and worker’s-eye view—of everything we thought we knew about the ancient Roman economy. Now available (6 Jan UK pub). Order your copy today: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #Rome #AncientRome #AncientHistory #History #Archaeology

Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent by Kim Bowes

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Robin Fleming @robin-f.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

The cover of my forthcoming book, out in February/March. #dogs #Roman-Britain #animalturm #archaeology

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Paul Montgomery @stonefishweirs.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Example of the impact of climate change on coastal erosion on the Island US Gulf coast regions of the Florida Big Bend and the Mississippi River Delta. The cumulative effect of sea level rise, storms, erosion and inundation of archaeological sites on the coast. #IndigenousPeoples #coastsinmind

This picture is of Adams Bay mound site a precolonial archaeological site in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, dating to the Coles Creek period. The site has undergone period of rapid erosion, most dramatically after 2015. Despite the construction of an artificial oyster shell reef by the Coalition for Coastal Louisiana (CRCL), to slow the erosion, it is ongoing.
https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1068454

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

In some ways, I see the instinct to blame witches on this climate anomaly as acknowledgement that humans could indeed have some impact on their weather. It's an interesting moment given what we know about our own contribution to climate change today. #climate #envhist #envhum #witchcraft

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

This colder and wetter weather resulted in many crop failures. People were more vulnerable and insecure. People began to suspect that something evil was at play, and as reports spread, fear was often in the air.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

All of this coincided with the climate event known as the Little Ice Age, peaking between 1560 and 1630 during a time known as the Grindelwald Fluctuation. Glaciers in Switzerland were expanding significantly. This period saw some of the lowest temperatures recorded in our current geological era.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The three witches in Shakespeare's 1606 play Macbeth show us an obvious example of the superstitions going around of women gathering to create weather disasters. "When shall we three meet again?" one of the witches asks. "In lighting, thunder, or in rain?"

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Because of the widespread reporting of weather, people were suddenly aware of what weather was like over a longer period of time, which gave them a sense of a natural order. A big storm was therefore seen as "unnatural," and a witch was often to blame.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

It's important to remember that magic very much existed for people in early modern Europe. But there was good and bad magic. Both altered the natural world and reordered it. Black magic involved things like the creation of storms or calamities, while tolerated magic warned about or stopped them.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

In total, there were some 60,000 executions in Europe, and double that count for court prosecutions. The victims were accused of renouncing God and making a deal with the Devil. Stereotypes of them included destroying crops, killing infants, riding on brooms, all popularized by printing.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

During this same period, there was a rise in persecutions of people who were accused of practicing witchcraft. This had been happening in Germany and Switzerland from the late 13th century, but now it was spreading outward from central Europe into places like Poland, England, and Scotland.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

One of the most popular genres in the new age of printing was weather reporting, including almanacs and calendars. Johannes Kepler wrote in 1610 that no book sold as many copies as weather books.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

New ideas could spread like wildfire; traditional ideas were challenged. Reformers reassessed centuries of biblical interpretations, architects and fashion designers popularized uniform styles through widely printed templates, and scientists and doctors made new editions of older manuscripts.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

To fully get this story, you have to first understand the monumental contribution of the printing press for the spread of ideas. Before, a single copy of a book would take years to produce, and so audiences were rather limited. Now, an author's work could be produced over and over again.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Tomorrow is #Halloween 🎃, which means it's the "Season of the Witch!" Here is a little bit about the relationship between environment and witchcraft in early modern Europe, because it tells us something really interesting about how we humans have thought about weather, climate, and disasters. 🧵

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Tim Stephens @proftimstephens.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

“Australia’s oceans will enter “uncharted territory” by 2040 due to global heating, even if significant emissions cuts occur, new research has found.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

Marine wildlife fleeing to poles due to global heating as Australian oceans face ‘uncharted’ future

From 2040 onwards the average year for marine ecosystems is likely to be more extreme than the worst years experienced up until 2015, researchers say

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Protected Planet @protectedplanet.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

🦈Thrilling news from the #SipawayIsland #MPA: Researchers confirmed the sighting of rare Thresher Sharks in the area's shallow waters. This incredible discovery has proven that decades of conservation efforts have resulted in a thriving marine ecosystem cebudailynews.inquirer.net/665382/thres...

cebudailynews.inquirer.net

Thresher sharks spotted off Negros Occidental

Thresher sharks were spotted by a diving team at the Sipaway Island Marine Protected Area (MPA) in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

We have much to think about when it comes to our oceans, seas, and coasts today. Climate change and continued ecological degradation threaten many creatures living in marine environments. I look at what this looked like in the distant past, and what we might learn from it.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

I’m especially interested in the complex social and cultural worlds that were entangled with past environments. Telling stories about these relationships reveals so much about what makes us human and the worlds that we have constructed over time.

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Avi Goldstein @avnergoldstein.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Hi! I’m Avi. I’m a PhD candidate in History. My dissertation looks at the relationship between humans and marine environments in Roman Britain. I’m interested in things like oysters, fish sauce, and sea salt. I also write about marine environments in other periods, including in early America.

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

New discovery: Venice lagoon reveals submerged #Roman oyster farm: In the heart of the Venetian lagoon, a submerged area has revealed a secret: a brick and wood tank containing about 300 oyster shells, dating back to the first century AD www.finestresullarte.info/en/archaeolo... 🏺 #archaeology

A cluster of oyster shells lies on a stone-paved seafloor, partially covered in sediment. A yellow triangular marker and a black-and-white measuring stick are placed nearby for scale.

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Robin Fleming @robin-f.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Just out and open access: Rethinking Grand Narratives: Mobility, Diet, and Health in a Small Corner of Early Medieval Hampshire | Speculum: Vol 100, No 3 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

journals.uchicago.edu

Rethinking Grand Narratives: Mobility, Diet, and Health in a Small Corner of Early Medieval Hampshire | Speculum: Vol 100, No 3

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Michael Haslam @twigtechnology.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Skara Brae is closed thanks to storm Éowyn, so here’s a #FindsFriday object from our museum. It’s an oyster shell in which a Neolithic painter mixed red ochre (from the local sandstone) some 5000 years ago. ca.75mm or 3 inches at its widest. Pots, people, walls, clothing: what did they paint? 🧪🏺🎨

A photo of an upturned large grey oyster shell on a wire stand, with the inner surface stained red and clumps of dried mineral pigment cupped in the shell. A ball of red clay sits beside it. In the background is the word ‘Brae’ in large letters, part of the display at the Skara Brae world heritage site in Orkney.

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Jens Notroff @jensnotroff.com · 21/01/2025

No matter "how often you think about the Roman Empire", identifying a #RomanSalute is even more awkward, considering there's no ancient source clearly describing it. There's *one* ambigous depiction of an outstretched arm on Trajan's column, there's *one* vague passage in Josephus. That's it. 🤷‍♂️

Photo of a detail of Trajan's Column in Rome, showing the "Welcoming sacrifice in Trajan’s honour" and depicting one man, surrounded by many other, with an outstretched right arm, showing the palm of the right hand to the viewer.

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