Jonathan Last
@johnnythin.bsky.social
"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
This seems doubly risky given the penalties for damaging an ancient monument on the schedule of the 1882 Act 🙈
Pentre Ifan c.1910, with the Cardigan Library & Debating Society #StandingStoneSunday
November 2, 2025 at 9:09 AM
This seems doubly risky given the penalties for damaging an ancient monument on the schedule of the 1882 Act 🙈
'Halloween High Jinks' in the Daily News in 1925: "One of the things that surprise Americans visiting England is the way that Halloween comes & goes without any notice from the bulk of the population. Only here and there, in scattered, remote farmhouses, and in the North, are any celebrations made."
October 31, 2025 at 7:27 PM
'Halloween High Jinks' in the Daily News in 1925: "One of the things that surprise Americans visiting England is the way that Halloween comes & goes without any notice from the bulk of the population. Only here and there, in scattered, remote farmhouses, and in the North, are any celebrations made."
'New Light from the Greatest Treasure-House of Ancient Man': #OTD in 1925 the ILN splashed on the Upper Palaeolithic site of Predmost (Předmostí), Moravia, with numerous images, including portrait reconstructions by Amédée Forestier. The skeletal material was destroyed during WW2. #FossilFriday
October 31, 2025 at 8:45 AM
'New Light from the Greatest Treasure-House of Ancient Man': #OTD in 1925 the ILN splashed on the Upper Palaeolithic site of Predmost (Předmostí), Moravia, with numerous images, including portrait reconstructions by Amédée Forestier. The skeletal material was destroyed during WW2. #FossilFriday
The benefits of an early dog walk
October 30, 2025 at 7:55 AM
The benefits of an early dog walk
A nice listen for us exiles...
BBC Radio 4 - Mark Steel's in Town, Series 14, 4. Cambridge
Mark Steel visits Cambridge and creates a show for the local audience.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 29, 2025 at 5:23 PM
A nice listen for us exiles...
I missed the news that Stan Beckensall sadly passed away a few weeks ago, at a ripe old age, but The Times has a nice obituary - and here he is on a fascinating trip to look at Swedish rock art in 2008 (my photos)
October 29, 2025 at 1:21 PM
I missed the news that Stan Beckensall sadly passed away a few weeks ago, at a ripe old age, but The Times has a nice obituary - and here he is on a fascinating trip to look at Swedish rock art in 2008 (my photos)
There are the colourful, in-your-face #Halloween displays, and then there are the things that lurk in the shadows and just catch the corner of your eye...
October 28, 2025 at 6:41 PM
There are the colourful, in-your-face #Halloween displays, and then there are the things that lurk in the shadows and just catch the corner of your eye...
For #TombTuesday here's the Modern Antiquarian himself at the massive Duggleby Howe Neolithic round barrow (38m diam, 6m high) on 28 October 1996, and the site as visited this month. An important series of Middle Neolithic burials were covered by the mound, which was enlarged in the Late Neolithic.
![Photo of Julian Cope at Duggleby from 'The Modern Antiquarian'. The text reads: "NOTES ON DUGGLEBY HOWE: 28TH OCTOBER [I2TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY] 1996 CE
Splash, splash, splash ... unseen clouds are dropping rain on me on this ... windy Duggleby Howe afternoon. The sun is blasting me from the west and my book got dripped upon, yet saved by my umbrella. Duggleby Howe is a remarkable place, an unchambered Maeshowe which has suffered at the hands of the agriculture which it was built to celebrate. Imagine the great Duggleby Howe surrounded by its great circular ring and ditch, the sacred whole swallowed by fields of ripening crops. Duggleby Howe was placed so cleverly that it gives the horizon a level view for all 360 [degrees] and the Silbury effect was clearly well-engineered and important. From all views, especially quite distant ones, Duggleby Howe stands proud of its surroundings, a regal agricultural monument."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7ggib3rrlsl4bi5pcrna6o42/bafkreibrhuwcmqc7muevkuz3cf57pbo7ienrq3caearog54f6g2ytyrrci@jpeg)
October 28, 2025 at 11:18 AM
For #TombTuesday here's the Modern Antiquarian himself at the massive Duggleby Howe Neolithic round barrow (38m diam, 6m high) on 28 October 1996, and the site as visited this month. An important series of Middle Neolithic burials were covered by the mound, which was enlarged in the Late Neolithic.
Its only value these days is in winding up people on X...
October 25, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Its only value these days is in winding up people on X...
These local oak trees (red oak?) are always good value this time of year, and not just for the colours - look at the size of those leaves 🍂
October 25, 2025 at 6:02 PM
These local oak trees (red oak?) are always good value this time of year, and not just for the colours - look at the size of those leaves 🍂
The church of St Peter & St Paul, Albury, in autumn sunlight yesterday, and the interior of the tower, which is raised above the chancel of the original Saxon church and topped by a picturesque early 19th-century cupola #SteepleSaturday
October 25, 2025 at 12:55 PM
The church of St Peter & St Paul, Albury, in autumn sunlight yesterday, and the interior of the tower, which is raised above the chancel of the original Saxon church and topped by a picturesque early 19th-century cupola #SteepleSaturday