Existential and nostalgic. The tactile evocation of a shoe polishing machine in a German hotel in summer

#FlintFriday The magnificent chronological typological display for the Stone Age @landesmuseumhalle.bsky.social. Note how the Weichselian glacier crosscuts the timeline and symbolises an absence of finds: powerful museological design! Detail is of some late Middle Palaeolithic tools from Ranis 🇩🇪

Rare and beautiful example of Mesolithic basketry from Halfah grass (Esparto), 8000 BCE. Note the intricate pattern in the weave. Cueva de los Murciélagos, Albuñol, Granada 🇪🇸 (Museo Arquelogico Nacional). On display in the magnificent Schamanin exh. @landesmuseumhalle.bsky.social #FindsFriday

Yesterday gave a talk on Doggerland and the Mesolithic in the lecture series of the Shamanin exhibition in @landesmuseumhalle.bsky.social The exhibition is on display until February and absolutely worth a visit! idw-online.de/de/news56706... www.lda-lsa.de/vortraege

Climate crisis poetry on a wall in Halle(Saale)

The timing is coincidental but pretty special to see the Early Bronze Age Nebra disc @landesmuseumhalle.bsky.social again today, with the oldest (1800c) depiction of the night sky, with sun, moon and stars, 57 years after the first humans walked the surface of the moon.

The Baarlo burial mound fieldwork for this year has ended. Last Wednesday we had an open day and I was really impressed with the skill and enthusiasm of our @leidenarchaeo.bsky.social students in explaining to the visitors their main discoveries and experiences and the way they organised the day.

Archaeology and excavation is not only about sites, treasures and great discoveries. The true ‘holy grail’ is blending in with nature, finding peace and calm within your soul and making the most of that comfortable wheelbarrow while others work😉

View from one of the Iron Age burial mounds at Venlo-Zaarderheiken yesterday evening sunset 🌅

Glad to be back in the field with our students and staff from @unileiden.bsky.social @leidenarchaeo.bsky.social digging the Bronze and Iron Age burial mound site of Baarlo-de Bong. Find site of the @rmoudheden.bsky.social Hallstatt bronze situla.

For #FlintFriday a heavily eroded 95mln yr old flint nodule from the Côte d’Albatre, Normandy, France 🇫🇷 , with a vug cavity, filled with sparkly drusy quartz. This quartz was deposited by silica rich fluids after deposition of the flint 🪨

Stag beetle (Lucanus cervus) 🪲 🦌 (without a party). Normandy, France 🇫🇷

For #FlintFriday beautiful plate shaped flint eroding from the chalk in front of the coastal cliffs at the Côte d’Albatre in Normandy, France 🇫🇷

Call for designing a Neolithic (LBK) landmark 12-20 mtrs high! www.instagram.com/p/DZ6nBwcCC7...

Pretty (and) dramatic skies 🌩️ over Leiden

Pretty (and) dramatic skies 🌩️ over Leiden

Pretty (and) dramatic skies 🌩️ over Leiden

Altostratus (?) cloud ☁️ over Savelsbos forest, Sint-Geertruid, South Limburg. I enjoy the lines in this composition 📷

For #FindsFriday and #FlintFriday these nice artefacts from a field near Sint-Geertruid last week. They are a rather worn out flake-based scraper and a possible core preparation blade. Middle Neolithic Michelsberg culture. 🪨

Rainy Leiden Monday antidote image. This weekends glorious walnut tree (Juglans) 🌳 in the orchard in StG, Limburg.

This night I remember James Lee Cole who 82 years ago with the 82nd jumped out of an airplane into occupied Normandy, at St. Mère Église preparing the way for D-Day a few hours later. James survived but was sadly killed during Market Garden several months later. 🙏

Mestreech sjwan sjtad oan de Moas. Gateway to the true south, home of homes, somewhere to land ✨

Thanks great uncle P.J. fighting the Nazis in 1940. Let’s keep up the good work. ⚔️

Great job of our students Science and Engineering @maastrichtu.bsky.social working on flint picks from the Rijckholt-Sint-Geertruid flint mines 3D scanning over 300(!) of them! Delving deeper into the many dimensions tool that drove the Neolithic💪 🪨

Today joined @leidenarchaeo.bsky.social Wil Roebroeks who returned to the famous Maastricht-Belvédère site after more than 40 years for a mega coring and sampling for OSL, sedaDNA and hunting for the oldest Neanderthals in the Netherlands @rmoudheden.bsky.social houses the Belvédère collection.

For Memorial Day I remember the sacrifices of pvts Mart Smith and James Lee Cole 82nd ABN and William F. Stehlin 84th Inf. D. All at Margraten U.S. cemetery and wall of the missing and at Arlington. May their short lives remind us of the value of freedom and truly righteous causes.

Sometimes there are some lucky 🍀 finds that should be celebrated right away (second best beer choice)

Some mowing going on last week in the orchard in Limburg. And I have a resident 🐈 ! Though we hardly meet (which he/she thinks is fine).

Moonlight🌓shadow

First harvest of the season 🥕🫛🥦