Editorial: A new year for The Post Hole

Emily Taylor
University of York
elt509 [at] york.ac.uk

Firstly, I would like to start off by wishing you all a ‘Happy New Year’. I hope you had an excellent holiday. A lot happens over the Christmas period and we thank you for your maintained interest and continued support.

I would like to apologise for the delay in releasing Issue 34. Due to University deadlines and exams, we have had to postpone the release. Now that essays are all handed in and exams completed, we are happy to announce the release of the new issue. Over the holidays, we managed to release the beginning of our ‘Digging through the Profession of Archaeology,’ with our first interviewee Nick Pearson, a commercial archaeologist. We hope to release the next few in the series, so keep checking our Facebook, Twitter and website pages for details. The interviews, along with our special interview series, can be found on our homepage or at https://www.theposthole.org/read/interviews. If you would to participate in this series, please email editor [at] theposthole.org for more details.

Don’t forget there is still time to send your photographs, illustrations or paintings in to us for The Post Hole Photo competition! The closing date is the 25th of January and the winner’s image will be published as the front cover of February's issue of The Post Hole, with the winner also receiving a free poster and copy of the February issue. We will publish a selection of worthy runners-up on our website. The team and I look forward to receiving your entries, and for more details head to https://www.theposthole.org/photo-competition.

The first issue of 2014 contains five exciting and stimulating articles. Within this issue, we have included a special feature interview which will be made available in the ‘special features’ section of the website at a later date. The team are very excited to announce that the special feature interview is with Tim Sutherland. If you are unaware, Tim is a battlefields archaeologist and a lecturer at The University of York. The founder and coordinator of CAIRN: Conflict Archaeology International Research Network, and the director of Towton Battlefield Archaeological Survey Project, Tim has an extensive research background within this field. For more details on his previous work and external activity, see https://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/honorary-visiting/tim-sutherlan.... This rare interview, facilitated by Charlotte Argue, is a special insight into Tim’s recent TV series ‘Medieval Dead’, and other current projects he is working on.

Also within issue 34, Sophie Harper gives a first-hand account into the rise of blogs and their role within archaeology today. An interesting article, it gives food for thought into what the future holds for archaeology in the media.

James Perkins provides us with an interesting article review of Kennett D.J & J.P "Early State Formation in Southern Mesopotamia: Sea Levels, Shorelines, and Climate Change". The original article is published in Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology, 2006, 1:67-99, and can be accessed via this link http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uica20/1/1#.UtJr7unuPmQ. Well worth a read, it would be excellent if we could get some responses to this article review.

Arnaud F. Lambert once again provides us with another stimulating and inspiring article. Lambert explores throughout this article, Olmec-style art focussing mainly on the insect-like animal figures. Lambert continuously writes for us, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank him. His articles are original and fascinating – other papers written by him are featured in issues 26, 27, 29 and 32 (https://www.theposthole.org/archive).

Finally Jordan Scott Myers presents an interesting argument in ‘Homo heidelbergensis, with an emphasis on the type specimen from Mauer’. Myers tackles a controversial topic addressing common theories in palaeoanthropology in a subjective and considerate manner. Incorporating the differing theories, Myers is able to provide a strong argument to reach a sound conclusion.

The team is very excited for the release of this issue and what 2014 holds in store for The Post Hole. As always we rely on your submissions, so please send them in to Taryn Bell, our Submissions Editor, at submissions [at] theposthole.org. In our last issue, we put out a call for anyone interested in becoming a member of the team; whether you are at university, working within the field or just have a general interest, we need you! The offer still stands so if you are interested or have any questions, please email the Editor-in-Chief at editor [at] theposthole.org.

Best wishes,
Emily Taylor|
(Editor-in-Chief of The Post Hole - editor [at] theposthole.org)

Click to enlarge

The Post Hole team (minus Alex Drosinaki, Phoebe Haigh and Sophie Austin).

The Post Hole team (minus Alex Drosinaki, Phoebe Haigh and Sophie Austin).