I’ve been on sick leave so a hiatus has been inevitable.

One thing is certain: Archaeodeath will endure in some form in spite personal and institutional attacks on my research and public engagement from different quarters over recent months. I haven’t discussed much of this publicly and much of it is ongoing so I cannot.

However, although I’ve missed it by a week or more, I wanted to mark my one-year anniversary of Archaeodeath joining TikTok!

After just over 1 year on that app, I’ve acquired a niche audience of 3,565 followers, I put out c. 40-50 short videos of between 10 and 60 seconds per month on aspects of my archaeology and heritage interests, mostly relating to art, sculpture, memorials, ancient monuments, historic cemeteries and burial archaeology. I’m refusing to adopt a standardised pedagogic model of simply relaying snippets of information. Instead, I’ve deployed a somewhat varied approach in relation to the study of the human past. These can be broken down into:

  • lipsyncs of music or comedy clips to convey archaeological issues or concepts or contribute to archaeological debates;
  • clips of material culture, ancient monuments, historic buildings and landscapes supported by carefully selected music, captions and/or voiceovers to introduce their subjects and their wider significance;
  • more serious information-sharing to-camera pieces, including responses to comments left on earlier videos.
  • a few duets and stitches to counter or augment other content-creators’ videos.

Most videos get between 200 and 400 views and between 10 and 50 likes. However, occasionally I will get 1k+ views and 100+ likes for no clear and logical reason. Rather than mass-consumption, as with this blog, this is niche, specialist material.

However, I’m buoyed when I see enthusiasts, amateurs and students – those with a clear passion for travel and exploring heritage sites and monuments as well as for studying the human past do follow me. Also, it’s nice when popular TikTokers follow and like my content, including some bright and great archaeologists, ancient historians, historians, literature and language experts and art historians. I’m perhaps in a small way a TikTok creators’ TikToker as much as a TikToker in my own right! Whoever you are, thanks for following!

Check them out yourself here:

https://www.tiktok.com/@archaeodeath?lang=en

A major impedance of TikTok is the inability to add links to more academic resources to allow viewers to follow up on the information and ideas I convey. However, they are directed via my bio to this Archaeodeath blog where viewers can read up further on themes and topics as well as find links on to my published academic resources.