Mobility Report: Sara Essert at the University of Cambridge

From 17-29 October 2016 I completed my short-term mobility (STM) at Cambridge University. The organizer and host of my mobility was Dr. Preston Miracle (Division of Archaeology, Cambridge University). I got my education in George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory for Bioarchaeology (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research).

I came to Cambridge University in order to get as much information as possible, about the process of (archaeological) charcoal identification. Well-known expert in this field, Australian Robyn Veal introduced me to the topic of my interest. With her I spent around 10 working hours and got instructions about how to make the preparation of samples and how to organize the research. I was also introduced to the relevant literature and equipment that I’ll need for the analysis of charcoal. One part of our time, Dr. Veal and I used for preliminary analysis of several samples from Vela Spila (Korčula, Croatia) and it was concluded that the samples are quite badly preserved, but we managed to determine few cf. wood genera. In order to give me some practical knowledge about charcoal, Dr. Veal showed me on the microscope, as much charcoal features as possible. During my stay I started working on my comparative collection of charcoal residues of various tree species. This collection will be used not only for my future researches, but also for workshop, that I am going to organize next year for Zagreb students, within MendTheGap project.

On Saturday, 22/10/2016 I participated from 9-16 h in the preparation of the event “Prehistory Day” and with Mrs. Sara Harrop I led there “Spear throwing” workshops for children and other interested citizens.

During my stay I attended two meetings of Bio-Archaeology Group of Mc Donald Institute and there I introduced myself to all the members and listened to two short lectures: Plant domestification and Demistifying the archaeobotany of Tivland.

I consider my mobility to Cambridge University very valuable for my scientific progress and an excellent first step in adopting the demanding skills of charcoal identification.

I would like to thank once again Dr. Preston Miracle, who was great host and organizer of my mobility and Dr. Robyn Veal for generously sharing her time and skills with me.