Colleen Morgan

@clmorgan.bsky.social

5916 Followers 666 Following

Senior Lecturer at the University of York. Director of the Wolfson Digital Archaeology and Heritage Lab & Centre for Digital Heritage. I post about beautiful archaeology, digital phantasmagoria and anarchist imaginaries & realities. She/her 🏴

A trail between two hedges
A jar of pickles in a hand
A hand holding padron peppers
An advert for the following position has just been placed on the GEM website: Job Title Hope Evaluator Organisation Newcastle University Library Location North East Type Tender Salary £14,000 (Fixed fee) Closing date 3 Aug 2026
Colleen and John, looking like nerds, posing in a mirror at Alcatraz.
A read-out examining how present you are in various chatbots, this one has me in the top 10%.
Leila behind a desk that says Durham University, presenting her research on a screen behind her.
Door with a comic strip about anarchists, various stickers, and two name plates, Colleen and James Taylor.
Viking reenactor breastfeeding a baby while wearing a Viking costume. From Moilanen, U. and Sahramaa, J. Exploring materiality and sensory experience through Viking Age reenactment. Time and Mind, pp.1–18.
A stack of whoopie pies, which are chocolate sandwich filled with cream but called pies.
Screenshot of a news story about a cowboy-themed bar coming to York, UK
A child wading in the river, carrying a rock. There’s a bridge in the background.
A bridge over a river with some houses in the background.
At Bedern Hall in York, a historical building with people sitting and watching a presentation.
The mug described in the tweet on a desk.
Food not Bombs banner outside in a square
A pixel figure rolling a rock up a hill. The sky and hill combined resembles the flag for anarcha-feminism.
a screenshot that says, "Archaeological evidence for underwear is limited" taken from: Gilligan, I., d’Errico, F., Doyon, L., Wang, W., & Kuzmin, Y. V. (2024). Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress. Science Advances, 10(26), eadp2887.
Bella the cat in a little cast, looking forlorn in a cage.
Doorway into a computer lab in a cellar, with a sign on the door that says "Digital Archaeology and Heritage Lab"
Bas relief carving of a snake on what is thought to be a gutter for a tomb, 2700 - 2000 BCE, found on Umm an-Nar island
Two figures holding hands surrounded by oryxes carved in relief above a tomb entrance.
Outlook from the Wainstones in the North York Moors.
“Explanation is not allowed” sign in many languages.
Photo of a child with face obscures pointing to a sign that says “danger keep children under control”
Woodcut, "Stonehenge by Day" by Yoshijiro Urushibara. It depicts the stones with a sheep and shepherd in front of them. https://www.abbottandholder.co.uk/product/urushibara-yoshijiro-1888-1953-stonehenge-by-day-os20/
An illustration of a maypole, wrapped in ribbons, with each ribbon carrying an anarchist/labour slogan. At the top is a cat. There is a banner that says, "solidarity forever." The illustration is by the extremely gifted artist, No Bonzo https://www.nobonzo.com/
People sitting around tables in a space, playing an archaeology world building game
A hand holding a packet of biscuits/cookies called “Rich Shorties”
A series of cubic stone weights made out of banded chert, reflecting units of measurement in the Indus during the Bronze Age.
“the inability even to think of power wielded and maintained in the absence of hierarchy implies an alarming lack of both imagination and powers of observation” From: Crumley, C. L. (1987). A Dialectical Critique of Hierarchy. In T. C. Patterson and C. W. Gailey (eds.) Power relations and state formation. Washington, D.C: American Anthropological Association, 155–69. Available: https://archive.org/details/powerrelationsst0000unse
Powerpoint slide title that says: Interpreting Prehistory: Bronze Age Week 10: Boats, donkeys and seals (not that kind) University of York
A celadon Longquan dish rom China dating from 1300 - 1400 as a comparator to fragments found in the UAE. In the Zayed National Museum.
A massive dune in Sossusvlei, in the greater Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia. There are small trees at the bottom being engulfed. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune#/media/File:D%C3%BCne_S-Schlag_Sossusvlei.JPG
A selection of archaeological tools and text discussing excavation with the tools. There are various implements including brushes, trowels, a bucket, sieve, measuring tape, and the like. From Roaf’s Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, 1990 🏺
Diagram that is supposed to show doppler spectra-based tomography of a pyramid but instead looks like the pyramid has three legs and is taking off into space. From: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7080/14/3/152
Several reconstructed amphorae in a rack along a wall
Shelves with large stone artefacts. There are people touring around the storehouse.
Loes with a tunic and a VR goggles headset on, in a computer lab. In the foreground is a computer monitor that shows a Roman room.
Book titled “Punk Anarchy in action” with a selection of anarchist stickers.
Walter Benjamin in a library, with a pen in his hand, studying a book closely. He's off-centre, and others are visible in the photo, also reading. There's books on shelves around him.
A sign that says: “if you are here for the bbq, yoose (sic) the side gate”
Lucy lecturing in front of a screen with Wikipedia on it.
Colleen with her tongue sticking out
Two cats curled up asleep on a bed. They look exceptionally adorable.
Several women from the university of York doing a “passing the phone” video wherein they describe their research.
Slide that demonstrates that mental models suffer when an archaeologist just uses photogrammetry. The slide text says: Model of mental model creation during photogrammetry Relatively little interaction with complex mental processes that are key to interpretation in archaeology
There’s a cat dressed in a suit, reading a newspaper with the heading “I should give up computers”
A photo of a camel being led by men. The camel has intricate patterns cut into its hair.
Colleen is in the middle of the photo, surrounded by stone walls and other people working.
A hand-drawn map of Finsbury park that is not particularly accurate but has different elements drawn on it, like hedge elephants, parks, the tube station, etc.
A doorway overlooking a bay, labelled “paradise”
To Daniel Eddisford, this tornado loves you.
A screenshot of one of the publications referenced in the CAA proceedings: "An Experiment in the Use of a Computer for On-Site Recording of Finds"
Polish chocolate covered plums
A slide that says "Module Structure" then: Week 1: What is Digital Archaeology? Week 2: Theory and Digital Archaeology Week 3: Archaeology and GIS Week 4: Fieldwork and Recording in Digital Archaeology Week 5: After the excavation: Data Wrangling in Archaeology Week 6: Archives - Digging the Digital Dark Ages Week 7: Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and BIMs Week 8: Formative Feedback Week 9: Worldbuilding, illustration, and art Week 10: Games and Play, Robots, Futurism, Luddites, Digital Profusion
My spot on the bsky network, on the edge, with the other academic archaeologists.
Figure from Huggett, J. (2021). Algorithmic agency and autonomy in archaeological practice. Open Archaeology, 7(1), 417–434. The figure shows a model of archaeological practice that moves from craft to standardization, systemtization to automation.
Large black sailed black bottomed wooden boat in the middle of a museum gallery.
Noha, our finds specialist in our lab, on temporary tables with a lot of artefacts around her. There are many decorations including mirrors surrounding her.