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Penny Bickle

@pennybickle.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.2K following 167 posts

Archaeologist | Orienteerer | Wanderer. Professor of Funerary Archaeology at the University of York, specializing mostly in the central European Neolithic.

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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Congratulations to my co-PI on the ReNEW project, Prof. Henny Piezonka, for this richly deserved recognition - one of the 100 top minds of Berlin science as recognised in @tagesspiegel.de Congratulations Henny! 🤗 @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
thanks! It’s predicted to get up to 23 (!) one day next week, otherwise I‘d get them in now, but quite a few ripened this week. It’s just so hard to pick the right moment.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
When do you give up on tomatoes ripening on the plant and start making chutneys?
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Jim Leary @jimleary.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
It’s wonderful to see our research finally out. It shows that the amazing Devil’s Arrows in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire were transported 18km from Brimham Rocks (not Plumpton!) to the site. royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/article/4…
Two tall tapering megaliths forming the Devil’s Arrows. A massive grey megalith with blue sky behind. One of the more squat megaliths with a sunburst behind it. A photo of two of the Devil’s Arrows.
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Jan Turek @janturek.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The excavation of the Neolithic causewayed enclosure and an Iron Age house at Chleby is nearly completed. Students are cheering their achievement! Well done guys🤎👍🤎
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Fantastic visit to the site of Vráble yesterday, currently under excavation for the @neolithicbodies.bsky.social . We were there for our ReNEW project - so many new and exciting discoveries to come from this complex site. 🤩 @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social @prehistory-berlin.bsky.social
A small group of people crowd around an archaeological trench currently under excavation. One is holding a video camera.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Thanks Terry!
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Thank you!! Loads of ideas 🤗
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Looking for recommendations of non-walking activities in the Lake District? A sprained ankle turns out to be a few broken bones in my foot, but the holiday was already booked - I would have been running at the Lakes 5 days orienteering - but not very mobile in the boot.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Huge congratulations Matt 🥳
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I once had a chat with physics and, to be honest, I think theirs were weirder.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
oh my goodness ❤️
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
New paper (I had a very minor role) with lovely folks interested in complex past social systems. Focusing on the Carpathian basin, the article argues that while social groups change with environmental variations, they do so in unpredictable and unique ways. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Adaptive connectivity networks across climatic and ecological regimes from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages in the Carpathian Basin
Investigating long-term archaeological land-use patterns is crucial for understanding how past populations adjusted settlement strategies, resource ex…
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Last official day at Kings Manor. Lots of exciting things about the move, but today is is about what a place this is to have worked! 12 years in my sanctuary of an office.
A beautiful blue sky over a green grassy courtyard surrounded by a medieval cloister and 1960s block
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Congratulations Izzy!!
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Dr Susan Greaney @suegreaney.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Come join our team in Exeter! We're looking for a Lecturer in Archaeology for a three year teaching post, focusing particularly on practical skills and fieldwork (closing date 30 June): careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/95...
careers.exeter.ac.uk
Lecturer in Archaeology ​(Education and Scholarship) in Exeter | University of Exeter
View details and apply for this Lecturer in Archaeology ​(Education and Scholarship) vacancy in Exeter. Lecturer in Archaeology (Education and Scholarship) This full-time post is avail...
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
And I get the impression half the budget is pretty imaginary anyway…
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
real question can someone explain to me in lay person terms why university finances work the way they do? You spend the first 9 months secretly bringing your own biscuits to meetings and the last 3 months over ordering the expensive pastries to spend the cash before the end of July.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Really delighted to be speaking to the Royal Archaeological Institute in York next April, giving the Talbot Green lecture. Will be attempting to blend a "prehistoric" cheese making demonstration with talking about how Neolithic diets trouble our assumptions about human history as progress. Join us!
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Definitely pre-ordering this! Cannot wait to read.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
If you are in Berlin and what to find out about our AHRC-DFG project ReNEW, rethinking Neolithic ontologies of Waste, please come along to this talk on 28th May: www.fu-berlin.de/sites/dhc/pr... Part of the Forschung im Dialog series with the Freie Universitat Berlin
fu-berlin.de
Forschung im Dialog: ReNEW
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Now Bluesky seems to have returned to normal here is our special issue on Domestic and Funerary Archaeologies in Dialogue with World Archaeology. Lots of really interesting perspectives on how to understand death mediated and found in domestic spaces. Thanks to everyone involved!
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Yes!! That's a great shout. Was fortunate to cross over with Richard while he did a stint at Cardiff (though I was a baby PhD student at the time). I need to go back to his paper in Land and people for John Evans (also a huge inspiration on this topic).
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Turns out special issues are like buses! Today marks publication day for our World Archaeology issue on Domestic and Funerary Archaeologies in Dialogue. It has 11 great papers from Europe, the Americas and northern Africa. www.tandfonline.com/toc/rwar20/5...
tandfonline.com
World Archaeology
Domestic and Funerary Archaeologies in Dialogue. Volume 56, Issue 5 of World Archaeology
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
A great summary thread on our recent special issue in CAJ on “Kinship Trouble”
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Thanks Leire, especially for your thought provoking question.
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Sabina Cveček @sabinacvecek.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Very happy to see this special issue published! It was lovely working with @genshinimpact-en.bsky.social, @pennybickle.bsky.social on this! 👇
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
This is such a lovely thread of posts about Cate and Carly's paper - if you are interested in archaeologies of kinship, that so often are informed by the context in which the dead have been mourned, this is one for you!
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Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The statement appealing for greater democracy in the EAA has now been made public. You can find it here:  drive.google.com/file/d/1ehzn...   We are still collecting signatures here: ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/xZZjy6le
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Two steps forward, three backwards
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
urgh, not great
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Eek! that might be worth feeding back.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Reading the papers again, I feeling so inspired. It’s a really rich range of ideas and debate. It also our role as editors one of the most pleasurable I’ve had! CAJ and its editors John Robb and Kevin Kay also deserve big thanks! it was such a smooth process. 🤗
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The special issue this is based on is now published - all papers are open access! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Latest issue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Read our introduction to the issue here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Kinship Trouble: What, When, Where, Why, and How—and So What? | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core
Kinship Trouble: What, When, Where, Why, and How—and So What? - Volume 36 Issue 2
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Hot off the press!! New open access special edition of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal on "Kinship Trouble". www.cambridge.org/core/journal... All papers are open access, and the papers, I think, really capture this dynamic moment in studies of past kinship.
cambridge.org
Latest issue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Job news!! We're looking for an archaeological chemist to join us on the ReNEW project: on waste management during the transition to the Neolithic. This role will be to carry out organic residue analysis. The PDRA position is for 2 years: jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/post... Please share!
jobs.york.ac.uk
Jobs - The University of York
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Particularly enjoyed this "journey through a cow" on my walk to work this morning: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Very meditative and illuminating, and I'm glad to get some time to seriously think about Neolithic dung during our ReNew project!
bbc.co.uk
Illuminated - Journey through a cow - BBC Sounds
Join a farmer, a cheesemaker, a philosopher and a scientist on a guided tour through a cow
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Sabina Cveček @sabinacvecek.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
🌟Kinship Trouble: Virtual Launch🌟 Join us on Tuesday, 14 April at 5pm CET/4pm BST/11am ET. Register below. We will present our special issue in Cambridge Archaeological Journal, co-edited w @pennybickle.bsky.social & @genscapelab.bsky.social #archaeology #anthropology therai.org.uk/events/cambr...
therai.org.uk
Kinship Trouble: Cambridge Archaeological Journal Special Issue Launch - Royal Anthropological Institute
This virtual launch is co-organized with the Archaeology and Gender in Europe (AGE) Network of the European Association of Archaeologists. Tuesday 14 April 2026, 4-6pm (BST) To join on Zoom, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AIj41HC-Q-uN5dyYFK9VrA#/registration Kinship Trouble: Traversing Interdisciplinary Boundaries between Archaeology, Archaeogenetics and Socio-cultural Anthropology Speakers: Sabina Cveček (Field Museum of Natural History, Austrian
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Reminder that the launch for the upcoming special issue on Kinship trouble in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal will be held next Tuesday (see post below for link to sign up). The issue itself will be published open access itself on the 14th before we launch. Hope you can come and join us!
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Ramiro Barberena @ramiro-arqueo.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
1/6 Just out in @Nature ! 🌽 The history of farming in the southern Andes. In a collaboration between archaeologists, geneticists and Huarpe Indigenous communities, we investigate its origins and consequences in the Uspallata Valley. Read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Local agricultural transition, crisis and migration in the Southern Andes - Nature
In the Uspallata Valley, agriculture was adopted by local populations, as evidenced by genetic continuity from earlier hunter-gatherers to farmers; maize-dependent groups from the same regional p...
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
To celebrate our upcoming issue on "Kinship Trouble" in the Cambridge Archaeological journal, we're hosting a virtual launch on publication day; 14th April, 4pm-6pm UK time. The event is co-hosted by the Royal Anthropological Institute and AGE. To join, register here: therai.org.uk/events/cambr...
therai.org.uk
Kinship Trouble: Cambridge Archaeological Journal Special Issue Launch - Royal Anthropological Institute
This virtual launch is co-organized with the Archaeology and Gender in Europe (AGE) Network of the European Association of Archaeologists. Tuesday 14 April 2026, 4-6pm (BST) To join on Zoom, please re...
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
One of the interesting puzzles about Al Uyaynah are the clay objects found in the lowest levels of, or perhaps even beneath, the house. Early figurines? Experiments with clay? Toys? Story telling? Made by insects? Divination? I could go on...
Oblong clay lumps with flints inserted into them, possibly resembling animal figurines
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
New Open Access Paper! We present the site of Al Uyaynah, Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Saudi Arabia, excavated by my former PhD student Dr. Khalid Alasmari. New set of C14 dates, thanks to @isotopesuk.bsky.social funding onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
New Results From the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic Site of Al Uyaynah, Tabuk, in Northwestern Saudi Arabia
Al Uyaynah is a low sandstone mound on an alluvial plain, long known for its extensive surface remains of stone-built circular and rectangular structures. Following test excavations in 2012, more det...
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Given the choice, my border terrier, Hutton, would also happily get 83% of his calories from blueberries!
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
New paper! Led by Łukasz Kowalski, on drinking milk in the Funnel Beaker Culture, arguing for the complex interplay between gender, burial rites, and potentially ritual drinking of dairy products. Open Access in Praehistorische Zeitschrift www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
degruyterbrill.com
A first toast in Kuyavia: New evidence for drinking rituals in Neolithic Europe from Sławęcinek, Poland
Excavations at Sławęcinek in central Poland, have yielded evidence for the Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture, concurrent with a sweeping set of changes that occurred across much of Europe in the mid-fou...
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Always lovely to make a trip to Cambridge to chat to the great staff and students. This time speaking to the BioAnth crew :-)
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Enrico R. Crema @ercrema.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
We are looking for a research project manager for the upcoming FORAGER ERC Synergy Project. Based at the University of York, this is an exciting opportunity to work in a team of 37 researchers from the UK, the US, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and Japan. Join us! jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...
jobs.york.ac.uk
Jobs - The University of York
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
This PhD project forms part of our AHRC-DFG funded project, based at York and Berlin. Although the job advert has been published in German, English language candidates without German knowledge are also welcome to apply. The scientific community at the institute in Berlin mostly works in English.
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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Currently advertising: PhD project on Neolithic waste, based with Henny Piezonka. Project focuses on spatial analysis and the Neolithic. Deadline is 9th Feb. A chance to work with a cool range of sites from Serbia to Poland and you get to live in Berlin, so what's not to like! Link in next post.
fu-berlin.de
GK-PA02_2025-WiMi-AB_Piezonka_RENEW
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