Flag Fen Field Trip

Our class took a field trip to Flag Fen, where Professor Charly French had worked on the excavation of a Bronze Age wooden walkway, which connected an island in the fens to higher ground nearby. The timbers of the walkway were preserved for around 3,000 years because a rise in sea level has kept the timbers in a wet environment where bacteria (and other organisms which would decay the wood) could not grow in the absence of oxygen. A portion of the walkway is on display in a room without sunlight and treated with silver ions to prevent to the growth of bacteria.

A reconstructed Bronze Age Roundhouse at Flag Fen

Grad School, Go!

I've just arrived in England (for the first time ever) to start a Master's of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in Archaeological Sciences. There are two of us in the program and we will have 3 terms of coursework in  archaeobotany, soil science, zooarchaeology, and biomolecular archaeology, followed by one term to complete a thesis. After meeting with our advisers, Dr. Charly French and Dr. Tamsin O'Connell, it sounds like we'll have lots of lab work and field trips to break up the coursework.

Below is the view from my room in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Hope the rainbow is a good sign!