Opening the first volume of a new open-access peer-reviewed academic publication, we are pleased to introduce the Offa’s Dyke Journal. This venture stems from the activities of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory, a research network founded in April 2017 to foster and support new research on the monuments and landscapes of the Anglo-Welsh bor…[Read more]

By way of introduction to the book, this chapter sets out the principal recent developments and characteristics of public archaeology, focusing on the UK. By contextualising the chapters which originated as presentations in the 2017 student conference, as well as those contributions subsequently commissioned for the book, the specific theme of…[Read more]

The chapter outlines the rationale for the 2nd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference – Archaeo-Engage: Engaging Communities in Archaeology. It serves as a companion chapter to this book’s Introduction. It reviews and contextualises the student presentations and keynote talks in relation to key current debates in public arc…[Read more]

By reviewing a recent quantitative study of rhyme patterns in Mandarin Chinese, this study shows how data handling and data analysis in the study of rhyme patterns can be improved. Suggestions for improvement include (a) a consistent annotation of rhyme data, which is exhaustive and facilitates data reuse, and (b) emphasizes the importance of…[Read more]

The author proposes fairy-tale logic as a mode of magical thinking typified by the belief that certain functions, fulfilled correctly and in the right order, lead to predictable outcomes. Mapping similarities in implicit reasoning within “Beauty and the Beast,” the reality television program Beauty and the Geek (2005-08), and the misogynistic nar…[Read more]

Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

This conference aims to bring together researchers applying network analysis to pre-modern manuscripts and manuscript texts. Key topics include:

• Theoretical reflections on the challenges and advantages of applying network analysis, including social network analysis, to pre-modern written cultures;
• Application of network analysis to cor…[Read more]

Almost nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the direction of a text—not over the course of the previous five millennia and not in today’s digital world. Texts may mix languages. Languages may mix or change writing systems. Writing systems themselves may use idiosyncratic directional practices, and writers may be rule breakers. Thu…[Read more]

Failing Gloriously and Other Essays documents Shawn Graham’s odyssey through the digital humanities and digital archaeology against the backdrop of the 21st-century university. At turns hilarious, depressing, and inspiring, Graham’s book presents a contemporary take on the academic memoir, but rather than celebrating the victories, he reflects on…[Read more]

Forthcoming in Wells, J. (ed) Archaeological Informatics Ethics in Practice. Springer.

A meditation on the ethics of archaeology within videogames.

Public health in twenty-first century Ghana is mired with several issues ranging from the inadequacy of
public health facilities, improper settlement planning, insanitary conditions, and the inadequacy of laws
and their implementation. This situation compared to the colonial era is a direct contradiction.
Development in the pre-colonial era to…[Read more]

Book review of Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of Its History, edited by Nathan Schlanger and Jan Nordbladh

Ideally it would be fantastic to reconstitute the life history of a visual artefact, such as a pictograph site in the hope that it may help in es-
tablishing the meanings of these images, their role in the mental and physical landscape as well as the likely sensory and soundscape. This
is because human beings rely on their senses to understand…[Read more]

The act of classification has the widest implications for scholarship. Whatever the format, it involves the totality of our being. The use of our eyes indicates that decisions about whatever it is that we observe have already been made. Yet the interaction between the mechanical act of seeing and the mind or memory has rarely been registered. An…[Read more]

The act of classification has the widest implications for scholarship. Whatever the format, it involves the totality of our being. The use of our eyes indicates that decisions about whatever it is that we observe have already been made. Yet the interaction between the mechanical act of seeing and the mind or memory has rarely been registered. An…[Read more]

The boreal forest is a vast region. Therefore, the archaeological record, like anywhere else in the globe, is subject to revision as additional evidence is gathered. By conducting research in the same location over a long period of time, Hyslop was able to alter the methodological approach that he utilized while surveying the shorelines of Lac…[Read more]

This is the peer-reviewed submission version of the essay, which focuses on the role that digital communication platforms can play in teaching and engaging with Wallace’s work.

Published in Sächsische Leute und Länder Benennung und Lokalisierung von Gruppenidentitäten im ersten Jahrtausend, and a considerably expanded version of a paper delivered at the Internationales Sachsensymposion in Leipzig, 2015.

The article considers the literary representation of Saxons in the works of the late antique authors Sidonius Ap…[Read more]

Illustration of various features in the arrangement of Linear B tablets in the photo plates of Scripta Minoa II, and a proposed rationale in terms of underlying art.