Dr Shyama Vermeersch
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shyamavermeersch.bsky.social
Dr Shyama Vermeersch
@shyamavermeersch.bsky.social
🏺 Archaeologist at the University of Oxford
🌾 Past and present #Farming
💃 Nerd who twerks
This week, I am with the Amman Citadel Excavation in Jordan to analyse animal bones and take samples for stable isotopes!
May 21, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Seeing foxes wandering around town in #Oxford in such close proximity to humans will never lose its magic to me.
April 22, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Working on a blog about farms who have a #Biodiversity approach. Quite a nice setting here at my parents!
April 8, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Rate my set-up 😄 Today, I'm taking pictures of charred barley from a Syrian site. Documentation is important when you're about to destroy samples for stable isotope analysis in #Archaeology!
March 26, 2025 at 2:18 PM
We went to 66 Books yesterday for the first time and got quite the #Book haul! Besides fiction, I am excited to have gotten my hands on copies of 'Rewilding' and 'Eat, Die, Poop' 💩🌿

Not featured: some books we got for friends!
March 17, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Today, I am running the last batch of animal bone collagen samples from Jordan through the mass spectrometer for stable isotope analysis!

It's good to know I processed all the samples collected in September before going to the field again in May 👩‍🔬💪
March 5, 2025 at 8:55 AM
For 2 weeks now, I've ordered the UK only organic veg box from Sandy Lane Farm (Oxfordshire) in an attempt to eat a bit more sustainable. It's been fun trying out new recipes and discovering veggies I'd never heard of/used before! 🧅🥔🥬🥦
March 3, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Totally forgot to mention that I finished my collagen pretreatment this week! Now, I just need to check quality, interpret the results, and write them up 🧪👩‍🔬
February 27, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Saturday, I finally got to visit #Bath and its famous Roman Baths! It was a wonderful visit with one of the best (free!) audio guides. 10/10 would recommend, even if the ticket is a bit pricey.
February 24, 2025 at 9:44 AM
The past two days, I have been weighing collagen to make samples for the mass spectrometer. This will (hopefully) be the last run for the Jordanian material I collected last September! 🧪👩‍🔬

#Archaeology
February 21, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Four years ago, on this day, I submitted my PhD thesis during a pandemic! Time flies!
Since then, I've done 2 years as support staff and now have been a postdoc since 1.5 years.
February 19, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Lately, I've been busy pretending to be an archaeobotanist! Jokes aside, I've been learning a lot about how to properly conduct stable isotope analysis on plants 🧪🌾

Here, you can see charred barley seeds from a Syrian site.

#Archaeology
February 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Today, it's International Day of Women & Girls in Science 👩‍🔬💅💪
Even though we have come a long way, there still is so much more work to do. In the meantime, here's a pic of me analysing animal bones from Medieval refuse layers of the Temple of Repit, Egypt, last month!

#Archaeology ##WomenInScience
February 11, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Ever since being back from fieldwork in #Egypt, I have been caught up in a whirlwind of tasks.
So, instead of a long post, here is a picture of the site! This is the Temple of Repit in Athribis, of which I have been analysing the early Islamic animal bones 🦴
February 5, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Tomorrow, I am leaving for #Egypt to work on the faunal remains from Athribis! I will be there for about 2 weeks and will wrap up the #Zooarchaeology of the Temple of Repit and continue work on the new Pylon excavations!
January 9, 2025 at 9:37 AM
My archaeological animal bone collagen samples are all weighed out, along with the standards! Everything is ready now for running them in the mass spectrometer tomorrow. I am so excited to finally get some results! Fingers crossed that they pass quality checks 😍

#Archaeology
December 16, 2024 at 3:32 PM
Success! I managed to get bone collagen from two Iron Age Jordanian sites 🥳
The next step is running these through the mass spectrometer and hoping the quality checks pass.

#Archaeology #Jordan
November 27, 2024 at 11:28 AM
Yesterday, I put animal bone samples from Iron Age #Jordan in the freeze dryer. If all goes well and with a bit of luck, these should yield collagen tomorrow! This will then be used to find out what the animals ate and their place in the food web.

#Archaeology
November 26, 2024 at 8:18 AM
I am new to Bluesky, so here is my #Introduction!

I'm an archaeologist interested in researching past farming, food, and land use.

I study animal & plant remains 🐐🌾, apply biochemical analyses 🧪👩‍🔬, & investigate ways on how #Archaeology can contribute to #Farming and #Food #Sustainability today 🚜
November 12, 2024 at 11:26 AM