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Articles by Abhipsa Samal
From Materials to Meanings: Discover Scientific Approaches in Mesoamerican Archaeology « Anthropology# « Cambridge Core Blog
From Materials to Meanings: Discover Scientific Approaches in Mesoamerican Archaeology As part of the Humanities in focus seminar series, we are bringing together authors of recent articles (published in Cambridge journal Ancient Mesoamerica) that employ archaeological science to investigate diverse aspects of Mesoamerican societies.
Beyond the ‘Lady Spy’: Noor Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, and the Making of SOE Agents « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Beyond the ‘Lady Spy’: Noor Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, and the Making of SOE Agents The phrase “lady spy” is hard to escape when writing about women of Britain’s Special Operations Executive. It appears in headlines, documentaries, book blurbs, and popular retellings of World War II. The 2019 film A Call to Spy even made the phrase part of its dialogue: “Get used to lady spies.” It is easy to understand the appeal.
What matters in archaeology right now? Insights from EAA 2026 « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
At the recent European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting in Athens, we invited visitors to our stand to answer a simple question: What matters to you in archaeology right now? Researchers, practitioners, heritage professionals and students responded by leaving their comments on nearly 100 sticky notes, creating a wall of thoughts and ideas that highlighted the challenges and opportunities shaping archaeology today.
Do We Have Evidence to Support Clinical Staging in Eating Disorders? « News# « Cambridge Core Blog
Do We Have Evidence to Support Clinical Staging in Eating Disorders? In cancer care, doctors use clinical staging to describe how far an illness has progressed, shaping treatment decisions and establishing opportunities for early intervention to improve outcomes. This idea has gradually made its way into psychiatry. In psychosis and mood disorders, clinical staging has challenged the traditional reactive approach to treatment and helped drive a shift towards early intervention.
I joke that I avoid fieldwork. It’s not really a joke. « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
I joke that I avoid fieldwork. It’s not really a joke. On disability, exclusion, and archaeology’s enduring fieldworker archetype. I always joke that working mainly with computers and satellite imagery was the best way to avoid long, uncomfortable field seasons — the ones without my pour-over coffee station, my powerful computer, and the welcoming space of my office and fidget toys (Figure 1 below).
Archaeology has a sampling problem: Here’s how we can start fixing it « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Archaeology has a sampling problem: Here’s how we can start fixing it As archaeologists one of the main things we teach and are taught is that the archaeological record is not complete. On the contrary, the materials we recover are almost always but a small fraction of the things that were used or created by the ancient peoples we study. The archaeological record is fragmentary, biased, and incomplete, and we rarely can recover a significant proportion of what does remain.
Was Concorde Really the Flying Brexit? « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Was Concorde Really the Flying Brexit? 11 August 2026 Last update: 11/08/26 11:59 The Anglo-French supersonic airliner, Concorde, is well known as a symbol of European collaboration. With its dubious economics, it is no surprise that Britain partly stayed in the project to ease its application to the European Economic Community (EEC).
Between Rome, Berlin and Brussels: Rexism and the Circulation of Fascist Models in Europe « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Between Rome, Berlin and Brussels: Rexism and the Circulation of Fascist Models in Europe On 10 July 1938, several thousand supporters of the Rexist movement gathered in the Flemish village of Lombeek-Notre-Dame, on the outskirts of Brussels. Uniformed activists marched in columns before their leader, Léon Degrelle, beneath a triumphal arch emblazoned with the letters “REX”, in a spectacle that the Belgian press quickly dubbed the “poor man’s Nuremberg”.
Photogrammetry in Three Acts « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Photogrammetry in Three Acts The article focuses on three practices that emerged from, changed through, or responded to community relationships during my doctoral work on the Old D’Hanis Archaeological Mapping Project: oral history, archival work, and close-range photogrammetry. For this blog post, I take a closer look at how community scaffolded the process of photogrammetry, from initial access to the site to the eventual outputs and outcomes that the models made possible.
“Danke, Amerika!?” Gratitude and German-American Relations under Trump 2.0 « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
“Danke, Amerika!?” Gratitude and German-American Relations under Trump 2.0 In June 2025, German foreign minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) gave a keynote speech at the annual dinner of the Arthur F.
Manhood, Money and Survival: Rethinking Child Soldiers in Somalia « Area Studies# « Cambridge Core Blog
Manhood, Money and Survival: Rethinking Child Soldiers in Somalia Why understanding contemporary youth militancy demands history Al-Shabaab fighters patrolling Afgooye-Mogadishu road (2025) In civil war-era Somalia in the early 1990s, global media headlines about ‘stoned teenagers’ cruising Mogadishu on jeeps mounted with machine guns became synonymous with the construction of Somalia as a ‘chaotic African country’ in which one could be killed for nothing more than ‘the clothes on your back’...
The One Where Joey Meets Marcel Mauss: Theories of Giving, Receiving and Gratitude « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
The One Where Joey Meets Marcel Mauss: Theories of Giving, Receiving and Gratitude “Joey: Anyway, I started on what I’m gonna say for the ceremony. You want to hear it? Joey: Listen, this is just the first draft, so… “We are gathered here today on this joyous occasion to celebrate the special love that Monica and Chandler share.” Eh? “It is a love based on giving and receiving as well as having and sharing. And the love that they give and have is shared and received.
Biomedicine, Scientific Internationalism, and the Containment of Soviet Power « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Biomedicine, Scientific Internationalism, and the Containment of Soviet Power By the end of the Second World War, Britain and the United States discontinued their scientific and technological collaboration with the Soviet Union. Yet, the circulation of knowledge between East and West did not cease entirely — it continued through trade channels, academic exchanges, and medical missions.
Zoological colour on HMS Beagle: Charles Darwin’s chromatic language « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Zoological colour on HMS Beagle: Charles Darwin’s chromatic language Image credit: Charles Darwin’s copy of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1821) by Patrick Syme. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. On 25 April 1832 the Royal Navy vessel HMS Beagle was anchored in the blue waters of Botafogo Bay, Brazil.
A gift with unexpected – and lasting – consequences « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
A gift with unexpected – and lasting – consequences It’s always nice to receive a gift. However, receiving a gift that permanently transforms the living conditions of a significant proportion of society is disruptive, much like a product or process innovation. This is precisely what happened with the so-called “Hoover gift” in August 1919: the donation of 150 million francs to Belgian universities and the establishment of a university foundation.
The Melsonby Hoards: rerouting the evidence for vehicles in Iron Age Britain « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
The Melsonby Hoards: rerouting the evidence for vehicles in Iron Age Britain Our article for Antiquity provides the first overview of the Melsonby Hoards, probably the largest deposit of Iron Age metalwork ever encountered in Britain. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the hoards were deposited in the Late Iron Age (c. 40BC-AD40), in the decades before the Roman conquest of northern England.
Far-Right Extremism in Post-1945 Europe « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Far-Right Extremism in Post-1945 Europe As far-right extremism surges across Europe, the editors of Contemporary European History have been searching through the journal’s archives to see what we have published on the topic over the years. In this virtual special issue, we highlight three decades of scholarship published in CEH on the post-1945 radical right.
‘Are you tough enough?’: Rethinking the safety, culture and care of archaeologists in the field « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
‘Are you tough enough?’: Rethinking the safety, culture and care of archaeologists in the field From the old ‘Cowboys of Science’ adage to swashbuckling fictional characters like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, the perception that fieldwork, and archaeology generally, is a job for tough people pervades both the discipline and public perception.
Contact Dermatitis Caused by a Grass, Axonopus compressus in a Healthy Adult Male Practising Open Defaecation
CONTACT POINT Contact Dermatitis Caused by a Grass, Axonopus compressus in a Healthy Adult Male Practising Open Defaecation Abhipsa Samal, Abhipsa Samal Department of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, Srirama Chandra Bhanja Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, India Search for more papers by this authorChandan Kumar Sahoo, Chandan Kumar Sahoo Department of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, Srirama Chandra Bhanja Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, India Search for more...
Framing Corruption: The Discourse in Operation Lava Jato and the Judicial Activism in Brazil « Area Studies# « Cambridge Core Blog
Framing Corruption: The Discourse in Operation Lava Jato and the Judicial Activism in Brazil For years, Operation Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) was the “spectacle” of Latin American politics. From 2014 to 2021, the world watched as a group of Brazilian prosecutors and a provincial judge dismantled a seemingly untouchable web of corruption involving the state oil giant Petrobras and the country’s largest construction firms.
Community collaboration: My experience as an undergrad Production Assistant on ‘Advances’ « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Community collaboration: My experience as an undergrad Production Assistant on ‘Advances’ My name is Adrianna Wagner, and I am a third-year student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I study English literature with minors in marketing and anthropology. From May to October, I served as a Production Assistant for the Society for American Archaeology journal Advances in Archaeological Practice (AAP).
Excavating the British tin trade that shaped the Bronze Age « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Excavating the British tin trade that shaped the Bronze Age In 2025, we published an article in Antiquity, demonstrating through chemical and isotopic analyses that, c. 1300 BC, tin ingots made from tin ores in southwest Britain are found on shipwrecks off the coast of Israel, around 4000 km away. We also showed that the tin from the Rochelongue shipwreck, found off the south coast of France and dating to c. 600 BC, also came from southwest Britain.
From Mycenaean Frescoes to Hellenistic Sculpture: Women’s Research in the Early Years of the ABSA « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
From Mycenaean Frescoes to Hellenistic Sculpture: Women’s Research in the Early Years of the ABSA The first volume of the Annual of the British School at Athens was published in 1895, almost a decade after the foundation of the School in 1886.The Annual was intended to report on archaeological work undertaken in Greece, and to present “more popular accounts of travel and research” to supplement the Journal of Hellenic Studies.
I just talked to a Stone Age priestess and it could change everything « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
I just talked to a Stone Age priestess and it could change everything In our new, game-based dissemination experiment, you can enter a mysterious Stone Age world with megalithic graves where life and death are more fluent concepts than today. But whatever you do, don’t go into the woods! You can hold a button and speak freely with an archaeologist, a Neolithic priestess and midwife, and get a tour of Stone Age cave paintings from a shaman.
Methods-Forward, discipline-agnostic: a CHR 2025 restrospective « Computer Science# « Cambridge Core Blog
Methods-Forward, discipline-agnostic: a CHR 2025 restrospective Computational Humanities Research (CHR) was founded on the premise that a strong community of scholars, method developers, and software creators is essential for innovative, responsible computational work. As Editors-in-Chiefs (EiCs), we look back at a year in which the CHR journal emerged: methods-forward, data-grounded, and openly reproducible.
A Dialogue on Expanding Access to Archaeology Through Bilingual Digital Public Archaeology « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
A Dialogue on Expanding Access to Archaeology Through Bilingual Digital Public Archaeology Making Cultural Heritage Accessible: Mohammad Najjar (Jordanian, ELRAP Co-Director): Archaeologically, the Islamic period (7th to 16th centuries AD), in general and the Ayyubid-Mamluk period in specific (12th to the 16th centuries AD) is little known in Faynan/Southern Jordan.
Re-imagining Landscapes through Indigenous Literature « Area Studies# « Cambridge Core Blog
Re-imagining Landscapes through Indigenous Literature “Maize Landscapes in Indigenous Literatures: Toward Alternative Cartographic Imaginaries” discusses the work of four 21st century poets who write bilingually in Spanish and their Indigenous language: Ethel Xochitiotzin Pérez (Nahuatl), María Dolores Dzul Barboza (Yucatec Maya), César Vargas Arce (Central Peruvian Quechua), and Emilio Corrales (Bolivian Quechua).
The Chilean Christians for Socialism Movement: Liberationist, Third Worldist, and Utopian « Area Studies# « Cambridge Core Blog
The Chilean Christians for Socialism Movement: Liberationist, Third Worldist, and Utopian Recent scholarship on the long 1960s has moved beyond the solely political dimensions of the era to recognize the religious impulses that shaped cultural and social transformations across the Atlantic.
A Look at the Society for American Archaeology’s Day of NAGPRA « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
A Look at the Society for American Archaeology’s Day of NAGPRA Enacted in 1990 and now in its fourth decade, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) remains one of the most important legislative acts shaping the discipline of archaeology.
Rural Scotland and the Kapp Putsch « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Rural Scotland and the Kapp Putsch The Scottish Farm Servant is not a well-known journal. Established in 1913, amongst the wider maelstrom of the ‘Labour Unrest’, the journal served as the official organ of the Scottish Farm Servants Union (SFSU) and was explicitly aimed towards Scotland’s agricultural labour force.
The Scientific Interpretation of Experimental Results
How do scientists interpret the results of an experiment? How do they draw conclusions from experiments? In January of 1939, the young Alan Hodgkin decided to break in some new lab equipment and he had a simple question in mind. He accepted the then-standard view—based on Julius Bernstein’s membrane hypotheses—that when an axon is depolarized, it generates an action potential that falls close to zero. He wondered how close.
Forging a Bronze Age City: The Next Chapter at Semiyarka « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Forging a Bronze Age City: The Next Chapter at Semiyarka Our recent Antiquity Project Gallery article introduced Semiyarka as one of the most extensive and carefully planned Bronze Age settlements yet identified on the Kazakh steppe — a 140-hectare landscape including rectilinear compounds, a larger central structure, and unmistakable evidence of organised tin-bronze production. But in many ways, that publication represents only the beginning of the story.
Training for Transformation: Rethinking Archaeological Readiness in California and Beyond « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Training for Transformation: Rethinking Archaeological Readiness in California and Beyond “You get in, you get out, and you get the job.” That line from a recent The CRM Archaeology Podcast (Ep 315) about academia’s responsibility to CRM and vice versa stuck with me. It resonated because it echoes a broader shift happening across higher education, especially in new career-readiness initiatives across the California State University system (Inside Higher Ed).
How climate change is threatening Indigenous Yup’ik heritage « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
How climate change is threatening Indigenous Yup’ik heritage On 12 October, 2025, Typhoon Halong reached the shores of Southwestern Alaska, with devastating consequences for many of the Indigenous communities living here. Whole villages were destroyed and forced to evacuate. The Yup’ik village of Quinhagak was relatively lightly hit, but c.
How climate change is threatening Indigenous Yup’ik heritage « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
How climate change is threatening Indigenous Yup’ik heritage On 12 October, 2025, Typhoon Halong reached the shores of Southwestern Alaska, with devastating consequences for many of the Indigenous communities living here. Whole villages were destroyed and forced to evacuate. The Yup’ik village of Quinhagak was relatively lightly hit, but c.
Arizona marks the spot: Locating the first European settlement in the American Southwest « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Arizona marks the spot: Locating the first European settlement in the American Southwest Recent Coronado Expedition (1539-1542) research has produced abundant and rich evidence pointing to the surprising interpretation that the first European settlement in the American Southwest was established in southern Arizona in 1541. The first European settlement was established in the western US in 1541 as part of the 1539-1542 Coronado expedition.
Empire in the Soil: Superphosphate and the British and French Imperial Manufacture, 1914-1937 « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Empire in the Soil: Superphosphate and the British and French Imperial Manufacture, 1914-1937 The history of European imperial agriculture has often been told through the lens of technological innovation, such as the development of the agricultural automotive industry or the application of advanced irrigation systems. But within this history there has remained one product that has been overlooked by historians: superphosphate (SSP).
Elements in Victorian Literature, Science, and the Environment « Humanities# « Cambridge Core Blog
Elements in Victorian Literature, Science, and the Environment Many eco-scholars today have lamented our current tendency to soft denial. We acknowledge major environmental concerns such as climate change while continuing to go about our lives as if they don’t exist. As the co-editors of this series, we aim to contribute to a critical dialogue that encourages a richer understanding of our past that will foster perspectives for the future that are hopeful and actively engaged.
Revisiting the Cinema Special Topic « Humanities# « Cambridge Core Blog
Revisiting the Cinema Special Topic In the May 1991 issue of PMLA, then editor John W. Kronik begins his “Editor’s Note” by announcing that the current volume of the journal “has elicited strong responses, praise as well as reproof, even before the year is out” (393).
National Endowment for the Humanities-Funded Archaeological Archive of Huhugam Archaeology Delivers Lasting Impact in the Southwest « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
National Endowment for the Humanities-Funded Archaeological Archive of Huhugam Archaeology Delivers Lasting Impact in the Southwest In an era of shrinking research budgets and political pressure to justify public investment, federally funded digital archives in archaeology are delivering measurable, lasting benefits to scholars, land managers, Indigenous communities, and the public.
The Statues from the Antikythera Shipwreck, 125 Years Later « Classics# « Cambridge Core Blog
The Statues from the Antikythera Shipwreck, 125 Years Later In the mid-1st century BCE, a freighter laden with Greek art was sailing westward in the Mediterranean when it crashed and rapidly foundered, taking some of its crew and passengers down with it. In 1900, Greek sponge-divers discovered this astonishing ancient shipwreck in waters some 50-m deep off the northeast coast of Antikythera, a small island located between the Peloponnese and Crete.
A fragment of Aristotle’s lost Eudemus in Tertullian’s De Anima « Classics# « Cambridge Core Blog
A fragment of Aristotle’s lost Eudemus in Tertullian’s De Anima Aristotle is certainly one of the most foundational, influential, and therefore heavily commented on and thoroughly studied figures in the history of philosophy. One would think that we have the full picture by now and there wouldn’t be much to add beyond further nuance or clarification. Yet, what if I were to say that most of Aristotle’s writings have been the subject of little study? Now, such a comment would seem plainly absurd.
Political Disinformation on the Eve of Reform « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Political Disinformation on the Eve of Reform The ‘Vote Leave’ or ‘Brexit’ bus which toured the UK in 2016 plastered with the blunt assertion ‘We send the EU £350 million a week’ is an infamous recent example of political disinformation. The combination of an arrestingly large figure with a brutal simplicity of messaging allowed the factually false claim to circulate widely and rapidly across the internet as well as print and television news.
The IVF Pioneers: Who Really Wrote Their Autobiography? « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
The IVF Pioneers: Who Really Wrote Their Autobiography? For 45 years A Matter of Life has provided the standard account of the science and medicine behind the sensational birth of the first ‘test-tube baby’. Now the ghostwriter of this joint autobiography of geneticist Robert Edwards and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe has finally told all. Or rather, his archive has revealed that he rewrote the book in ways that have shaped the history of IVF (in vitro fertilization) to this day.
Trust and the French revolutionary cahiers of 1789 « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
Trust and the French revolutionary cahiers of 1789 The French Revolution is more obviously associated with paranoid and deadly suspicion than with trust, but it was in the pervasive desire to rebuild a political system that could be trustworthy that much of that suspicion was born. Trust in pre-revolutionary France was a multi-faceted object of attention.
A News Revolution?: The Imperial Public Sphere and the Destabilization of the British Empire « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
A News Revolution?: The Imperial Public Sphere and the Destabilization of the British Empire 25 September 2025 Last update: 25/09/25 16:44 The news connects individuals and communities across space at certain moments in time. One need only think back to recent events like the Arab Spring, the Refugee Crisis, or COVID to find striking examples of this fact.
How cadaver scarcity shaped the racial science of skin in Enlightenment Europe « History# « Cambridge Core Blog
How cadaver scarcity shaped the racial science of skin in Enlightenment Europe In February 1744, the Swedish physician Abraham Bäck (1713–1795) dissected the body of an unidentified African man at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris. Best remembered today as Carl Linnaeus’s best friend and as a leading medical reformer in Sweden, Bäck was then a young anatomist completing his training abroad.
What is Community Archaeology’s Value for Our Discipline’s Future? « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
What is Community Archaeology’s Value for Our Discipline’s Future? Research programs that are deeply engaged with, and responsive to, communities require significant investment to build and sustain. Why, then, should archaeologists — often constrained by time and resources–commit to community archaeology? Reflecting on our own community-engaged Great Bay Archaeological Survey (GBAS), which explores colonial New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary/P8bagok (ca.
What Makes a Good Review Article or Profile « Classics# « Cambridge Core Blog
What Makes a Good Review Article or Profile Classical Review has recently expanded its standard work of publishing reviews and notices of single books to include also longer pieces covering more – and more varied – material. We have previously shared ideas about what makes a good book review and on our work in reviewing digital projects. Here we shed light on how to craft longer review articles and profiles. Both formats offer two major advantages.
Rhapsody in Maya Blue « Archaeology# « Cambridge Core Blog
Rhapsody in Maya Blue Visitors to many of the archaeological sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras are often struck by the bright blue paint on architectural sculptures and frescoed murals at these sites. This remarkable hue, with its brilliant and distinctive character, also adorns pottery and figurines in exhibitions of Maya art and archaeology (Figure 1). Figure 1. Maya Blue painted artifacts. Cacao pod-crocodile rattle-whistle, hand-modeled, ca. AD 700-800.
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