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Mike Pitts

@pittsmike.bsky.social
1K followers 290 following 4.5K posts

Award-winning writer/broadcaster Editor British Archaeology magazine 2003–23 Editor Society of Antiquaries of London e-newsletter 2015–20 President Sussex Archaeological Society mikepitts.wordpress.com

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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
RIP Jim Adovasio, archaeologist whose excavations at Meadowcroft rock shelter, Pennsylvania, put him at the centre of debate about the nature and timing of America's first colonists (and friend & colleague of the late Olga Soffer) www.observer-reporter.com/news/local-n...
observer-reporter.com
James Adovasio, archaeologist who led excavations at Meadowcroft, dies at 82
June 18, 1973, was a Monday, one year and one day after the Watergate break-in, a warm, dry day, and Dr. James Adovasio was taking a bunch of University of Pittsburgh anthropology students to a site o...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
RIP Joanna Mackle, an extraordinary career for someone who once said “I have almost no ambition” Publishing Director Faber & Faber, Head of Comms/Director of Public Engagement/Deputy Director, British Museum www.thetimes.com/article/f81a...
thetimes.com
Joanna Mackle obituary: British Museum deputy director
Former Faber publisher and deputy director at the British Museum who helped to re-energise the institution with sellout shows, dies aged 68
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
RIP Jasper Shackleton, who built a replica of the boat Bligh was abandoned in after the HMS Bounty mutiny, & sailed it from Tonga to Timor & then Bali. A sort of archaeological experiment/reverse Kon Tiki www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2...
telegraph.co.uk
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Media Show on AI-produced websites. I wrote about this earlier, suspecting my searching caused AI videos to be created. If we keep viewing/commenting they will improve till noone can tell what's genuine, & real research is drowned bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... mikepitts.wordpress.com/2026/05/27/h...
bbc.co.uk
The Media Show - Man City verdict, Dead Internet Theory, The Art of Casting - BBC Sounds
We speak to reporters who investigated Manchester City over the years.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
‘He has committed no offence other than wanting to defend heritage sites’: arrest of Iraqi archaeologists sparks backlash www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/09/29/h...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
RIP Dai Owen, illustrator & peace campaigner, worked with National Trust, English Heritage, the Grosvenor Museum, Alan Garner, BBC, artist in residence at the Portico Library, Manchester, studied archaeology at Cardiff www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
theguardian.com
Dai Owen obituary
Other lives: Chester-based illustrator who specialised in drawings for museum information panels
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
John Kenworthy-Browne FSA (honorific absent in obit). National Trust, Christie’s, independent scholar neo-classical sculpture, gained "financial independence" by buying a London house, "good-looking aesthete with Army-buffed good manners" www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2... @antiquaries.bsky.social
telegraph.co.uk
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
And the lesser Cursus showing in dead grass (centre) and barrows (left)
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Google's added a new satellite layer to maps around Stonehenge, but only for a small area. Contrast shows the summer effect at the visitor centre (1). Robin Hood's Ball Neolithic enclosure showing well (2), & what's this small enclosure north of Larkhill (3)? And some WW1 training trenches (4)
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Sunday September 27! www.marlboroughlitfest.org/tickets/
marlboroughlitfest.org
Events & Tickets – marlborough literature festival
136 High Street Marlborough, open Monday – Saturday 9am-5.30pm, Sunday 11am – 4pm.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Esquire rates Island at the Edge of the World among the best books of 2026 across all genres. Hear me talk about it at the Marlborough Lit Fest this Sunday Sep 27 @marlboroughlitfest.bsky.social www.marlboroughlitfest.org/tickets/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Sunday September 25, come and hear me at the Marlborough LitFest on why I think that carving 1,000 huge statues was only part of the extraordinary achievements of Easter Islanders. @marlboroughlitfest.bsky.social marlborough.news/news/litfest...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
interesting set of 3 tapa cloth works, said to be Pacific islands circa 1950 "acquired from a small collection" For sale from Seventeen Twentyone www.17-21.com/en-GB/decora...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
If you cant beat em, join em (silently)
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I can only add to those saying the Bayeux Tapestry in the BM is a must see. Yes, I've seen it in Bayeux. The London display is entirely different, at once magnificent & intimate. (Tip that may be more a press view thing, but my experience would'e been improved with influencer-cancelling headphones)
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Among other archaeological achievements relevant to the Bayeux tapestry is the recent identification of Harold's lordly residence at Bosham, seen at the tapestry's start. Article by Gould et al in Antiquaries Journal 2025 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
WHERE POWER LIES: LORDLY POWER CENTRES IN THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE c. 800–1200 | The Antiquaries Journal | Cambridge Core
WHERE POWER LIES: LORDLY POWER CENTRES IN THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE c. 800–1200 - Volume 104
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Little noted is that the Bayeux tapestry lead curator Michael Lewis is head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (currently on secondment). So I wrote about that spectator.com/article/what...
spectator.com
What detectorists taught us about 1066
Laid out in the British Museum like a ruler, the Bayeux Tapestry tells its story with relentless, graphic mastery. Harold sails to Normandy and back. He breaks his promise to support William’s claim t...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Terrific result for the Boroughbridge Devil's Arrows sourced 18km away, with the nearby C15 Battle Cross Monument identified as a repurposed 4th megalith
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Marlborough's white horse looking good with fresh chalk and rain
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
Konstantinos Politis obituary
Archaeologist who spent his career excavating and protecting the sites and artefacts of Jordan’s Dead Sea shore
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“The study of history is in tragic decline” !!??
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A cutting hanging up in a pub?
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Apparently quoting Ian Mortimer
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“since the first pottery was not made in Devon until the 10th century, bowls and dishes were wooden” ?? www.thetimes.com/article/002c...
thetimes.com
I traced 1,500 years of English history through my Devon house
In Through the Windows of an Ordinary House, Ian Mortimer has crafted a social history that focuses on ordinary British lives, from jilted brides to joyless Puritans
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
In today’s Guardian paper, my obituary for Olga Soffer
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Good to see Wild Horse Nine getting rave reviews. It's got to be better than the only previous movie shot on Rapa Nui, Kevin Costner's farce. I can safely say I'll enjoy it without in the least being troubled by everything on the island that wasn't there in 1973 www.vogue.co.uk/article/wild...
vogue.co.uk
Venice Hit ‘Wild Horse Nine’ Is Galloping Into The Awards Race
Martin McDonagh’s latest romp, starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Parker Posey, just premiered at the Venice Film Festival – and is heading straight for the Oscars.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Have you thought about helping to shape the future of Sussex archaeology? The Sussex Archaeological Society has outstanding collections & properties, & a glorious history in a county stuffed with archaeology & heritage. Applications for Trustees open til September 1 sussexpast.co.uk/news/new-tru...
sussexpast.co.uk
New Trustees and Committee Members Sought
content="Could you play an integral role in providing strategic oversight and governance to The Sussex Archaeological Society? If so, we would love to hear from you! The Sussex Archaeological Society ...
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...
thetimes.com
Peter Cannon-Brookes obituary: art curator who worked behind Iron Curtain
Expert who championed a scientific approach to conservation dies aged 87
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Hear me talk about Island at the Edge of the World at the Mere Literary Festival in October! mereliteraryfestival.com/product/mike...
mereliteraryfestival.com
Mike Pitts | Mere Literary Festival
Mike Pitts will join the Mere Literary Festival on Wednesday 14th October at 4pm to talk about his book Island at the Edge of the World.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I enjoyed this so much I bought a printed copy. What makes AI so compelling is that the big questions about consciousness etc can only be answered when we can do the same for us. Suddenly we actually need to understand how biology creates a mind. Is consciousness an illusion? Are we the original AI?
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Apparently Max Branning once went to Stonehenge. We don't yet know who he took with him
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
RIP Peter Howell, historic buildings campaigner, authority on church architecture, lover of all things Victorian. Proposed alterations to chapel, University College, Oxford, would replace Gilbert Scott with “a mongrel lot of cobbled together woodwork” www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2...
telegraph.co.uk
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
RIP curator & museum director Gillian Spencer. Institute of Archaeology diploma. Museums in Saffron Waldon (1958, animals "so badly stuffed as to be mere caricatures", sent to the dump), Bristol, Norwich, Wakefield (1973): “a machine to destroy the collections” www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
theguardian.com
Gillian Spencer obituary
Other lives: Pioneering curator who revitalised Wakefield’s museums and galleries
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I look forward to more evidence when the promised major publication on the findings from the Army Basing Programme comes out later this year, free from Wessex Archaeology. But for now, it's a ridge trending roughly on the solstice line with lots of old pits 13/13 www.wessexarch.co.uk/Prototype-st...
wessexarch.co.uk
Discovery led by Phil Harding reveals 5,000-year-old ‘prototype’ for Stonehenge solar alignment
Radiocarbon dated to around 5,000 years ago, the discovery reveals evidence for the earliest known alignment with the solstice in the Stonehenge landscape.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
When announced the alignment was gently questioned by Jim Leary (“Two postholes don’t make a particularly convincing alignment”) & Vince Gaffney (“It’s just two points, but it’s not impossible”). I’ll now add my doubts. They’re total. This is very silly 12/ www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...
nationalgeographic.com
Did humans observe the solstice at this site centuries before Stonehenge?
Two wooden posts sunk into a hillside three miles east of Stonehenge may have been the earliest known solar alignment on that landscape, scientists say.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
On the other hand, in the business of aligning pits, I can see a couple of lines that don't need so much jiggling. One of them bisects the two henges & contains pit 8661, which at least in plan seems to be bigger than 9019, which looks no different from any of the others. 11/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
But that's OK, we can move about. The archaeologists put it better than I ever could: 10/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The Stonehenge solstitial axis at 3000BC, they say, was 49.1°/229.1°. This is one degree different from the pit line, 48.1°/228.1°, which "equates to the two widths of the sun disc… at the solstices, the sun would noticeably rise/set to the left of the line of posts”. 9/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The red-marked pits 9019 & 8647, 120m apart, are “distinctly different in form, depth & fill” from other pits, averaging 1.2m deep/80cm across, with tapering sides & narrow base. Artefacts "steeply-inclined" in fill suggest to the archaeologists that posts may have been removed. 8/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This is the plan published in PAST by the archaeologists, with their reading: a line passing through pits 9019 & 8647 (highlighted in red) & 8050 (not highlighted), & a couple of oval pit arrangements. Did you spot these arrangements? I removed the lines from the earlier plan. 7/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Like the 2 Bronze Age henge-like barrows (looking like spectacles in plan) that came later, the pits seem to be spread out in a south-west/north-east direction, along the ridge. There are a lot of them. I've been a bit tricksy here... 6/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The features we're interested in contain Woodlands-style Grooved Ware pottery, with radiocarbon dates around 2950BC (the same time as the major earthwork at Stonehenge, cremation burials & the bluestone circle in the Aubrey Holes). There's a good site plan in the article, below. 5/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
It's an important settlement-looking site contemporary with Stonehenge, something we don't normally see, with a lot of artefacts etc (photo Wessex/MOD). We still have only verbal descriptions, so have to accept at face value that any of these pits held posts, or which ones. 4/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Wessex Archaeology investigated the site in 2015–17 ahead of new army staff housing. I visited the dig & thought it interesting enough to make the cover of British Archaeology (Leivers stands 2nd from left, Harding far right). Commendably, I understand all neolithic pits were fully excavated. 3/
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
In a 3-page article Phil Harding, Matt Leivers & Fabio Silva set out their case for Neolithic "astronomical skills” at Bulford, near Stonehenge, “which pre-date the extant sarsen monument at Stonehenge by approximately 500 years". 2/ www.prehistoricsociety.org/publications...
prehistoricsociety.org
PAST 113 - Summer 2026 | The Prehistoric Society
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Back in June I said I'd comment on a Stonehenge-linked claim when promised information was available. The Prehistoric Society has now brought us that info in its excellent PAST newsletter. So, what do I think? NEW STONEHENGE 🧵 !
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
RIP Dino Politis, Greek archaeologist who studied at the Institute of Archaeology, London, and was at then Department of Medieval & Later Antiquities, British Museum, excavating in Oman, and later with the BM in Jordan jordantimes.com/news/local/r...
greekreporter.com
Greek Archaeologist Dino Politis Leaves Lasting Legacy in Jordan - GreekReporter.com
Greek archaeologist Dino Politis work on Jordan's Byzantine and medieval heritage, has left a lasting archaeological legacy.
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
My generous offer to dry them out was turned down
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The water tank in my flat sprung a leak, which I was unaware of until the bank came knocking
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Mike Pitts @pittsmike.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I once rented a flat above a high street bank, one of the best places I lived in Historic buildings can help to solve this housing crisis www.thetimes.com/article/7c9d...
thetimes.com
Historic buildings can help to solve this housing crisis
Unlike newbuild developments, these homes already have infrastructure around them: transport links, shops, schools
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