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Tag: archaeology

9nov26

Published November 9, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I sat through the Avengers trailer at the cinema on Saturday night. Does anyone know why Robert Downey Jr is doing Werner Herzog’s voice?

If you’re just joining me: this is my digital notebook, which gets added to one or twice a day, usually just once, sometimes not at all.

TODAY:

  • Serpent Mound is a Native American earthwork – I did a bunch of research on these a few years ago for a graphic novella that comes out in 2027 – and I came across this wonderful bit in a new article on it: “Those who built Serpent Mound could not have known that it sits amid an astrobleme, Greek for “star wound”—a five-mile-wide eroded crater left behind by a meteor impact 320 million years ago.”
  • The Eden Book Society: a literary hoax project from Dead Ink Books
  • An asteroid photographed from 37 miles away

Heard from my old friend Mac Rey last night, who’s developing his personal project STRANGE COMBAT. Back in the 60s and 70s, DC used to mash up genres in odd ways, and one of the stickiest was the “supernatural war story.” The Haunted Tank and that sort of thing. If you’re my age, then you found tattered copies of these in charity shops and rummage sales at fairs, and thought, what the fuck even is this thing? But if you were Mac, it got stuck in your head and laid eggs:

Quick happy exchange with Nika Zola Jesus about her launching her own label/house, which I find completely inspirational. And she joined the growing group of people poking me to start my own house, which I’ve been thinking a lot about this year. Self-publishing is hardly new to me, and I have an ebook process partly figured out. I just need the jolt, and it hasn’t come yet.

New Soeur L’Enfer song is dropping later today.

OPERATIONS: I need to get 8pp of script out the door and then pivot to personal projects
STATUS: this first cold of the winter is hanging on. Spent yesterday offline batching meals and fixing the coffee machine. Tonight I need to clean out and reposition the coffee bean roaster. I love roasting coffee: the sound, the aroma, and that golden seam on the bean.


READING:THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)

Nineteen fifteen, Robert King, “Occult Aspects of the Battlefield,” invoked “swirling groups of combatants who had left the body, locked together in an intense emotional stress, fancying they were still engaged in slaughter.” You could be sure the War Office had its copies of that. What’s the word for something that is a nightmare and a dream, a dreaded outcome and an aspiration all in one?


LISTENING: THE WAY APPEARS, India Gailey & Leah Plave

On The Way Appears, cellists India Gailey and Leah Plave offer a collection of uniquely collaborative new music for two celli. From the synchronicity of flocking birds and the fractal symmetry of snowflakes, to the self-organized structures of political movements, the music illustrates emergence…


LAST WATCHED: HAMLET AT ELSINORE was on last night, preceded by a short interview with Steven Berkoff. I enjoy Berkoff, as he is completely mad and never not acting. Berkoff also gave us one of the great televisual moments of 2003. He was so restrained and almost respectful in performing Stilgar in CHILDREN OF DUNE, keeping the volume turned down so he didn’t run over the other actors. And then, finally, he couldn’t take it any more:


DRINK: Fraoch Heather Ale

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Find me at Orbital Operations every Sunday.

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6nov26

Published November 6, 2026 by Warren Ellis

New phones arrived, so doubtless I will lose a ton of today to setting them up. But our iPhone 14 Pro’s batteries are shot and the devices themselves are starting to glitch a bit, so it’s time.

For my next trick, I need to back 3000 photos off my current phone….!

STATUS: still sick
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: BOOK OF CAROLS, Sarah Davachi
DRINK: Benylin

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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morning computer dem bones again

Published July 27, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Jason Limon.

An Early Bronze Age metalworker and shaman discovered over 200 years ago in a lavish burial near Stonehenge and long assumed to be male was actually female, a new genetic analysis reveals.

The results of the ancient DNA analysis of the “Upton Lovell Shaman,” carried out by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London, break the previously held stereotype of Early Bronze Age women, according to a statement from the Wiltshire Museum, where the remains and grave goods are housed.

I was rather hoping to find a scan of Mike Moorcock and Mal Dean’s JERRY CORNELIUS comic, as I seem to have misplaced my old copy of Moorcock’s MY EXPERIENCES IN THE THIRD WORLD WAR, so pretend there’s a picture of Jerry Cornelius saying “dem bones” here.

Lordess Foudre and I talk about THE PRISONER a lot.

PREVIOUSLY:

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21apr26

Published April 21, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Trifid Nebula.

Anduril, Palantir and SpaceX are changing how America wages war.

the Trump administration is turning to a new clique of defence upstarts that are reimagining how to wage war. They are led by Palantir, a software giant providing intelligence systems; SpaceX, whose Starshield satellite network provides reconnaissance and connectivity; and Anduril, an up-and-coming favourite that makes air and sea drones alongside anti-drone weaponry. This trio of so-called “neo-primes” have close ties with gung-ho figures in the Trump administration. And they are making the giants of the military-industrial complex increasingly nervous.

America’s legacy “prime” contractors have, in the government’s telling, grown stodgy, overpriced and risk-averse as a result of their lucrative sinecures. “If the [newcomers] are good and they get their sea legs, they’re going to win some of that business that otherwise would have gone through a traditional prime,” Mr Michael says.

n case you haven’t gotten around to reading Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska’s 2025 book, The Technological Republic, (because why would you do that to yourself?), the company best known for supplying AI-driven defense and surveillance software to the likes of the US Army, ICE and NYPD shared a 1,000-word X post this weekend covering its main points. The entire thing is both bizarre and deeply concerning. “The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal,” one of the 22 points states. “It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.”

The book is billed as “a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality,” and other excerpts in the social media post include assertions such as: “Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public”; “National service should be a universal duty”; “The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone”; and “Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive.”

The Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, run by the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies (IPOA) at the University of Barcelona and led by Maite Mascort and Esther Pons, has identified a papyrus containing a fragment of Homer’s “Iliad” inside a Roman-era tomb dating to approximately 1,600 years ago, in the Egyptian town of Al Bahnasa, ancient Oxyrhynchus. The discovery is exceptional: it is the first time in the history of archaeology that a Greek literary text has been found deliberately incorporated into the mummification process

Link to shop. May have to get myself one of these.

My colleagues’ takes are often quite diverse, but this year a chorus has emerged — of strategists proclaiming 2026 to be the year of nostalgia. Wired headphones, workwear (back, so soon), medievalcore, landlines for kids, #90s TikTok. Reading this year’s reports, I find myself agreeing with the observations — nostalgia is big right now, and there’s an opportunity for brands to tap into it. 

But I also see nostalgia not just as a passing 2026 trend but a full-scale, post-digital revival — one that’s been a long time coming and will last beyond the end of the year.

OPERATIONS: aiming for another ten pages, plus other stuff
STATUS: incoming, new plants for the local wildlife to destroy before I can get them in the ground
READING: THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, Giuliano da Empoli (UK) (US+)
LAST WATCHED: rewatched several episodes of TWIN PEAKS Season 3.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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ded: 3feb26

Published February 3, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Still gripped by plague. The weather outside is dismal and has been for days – the garden has become an intractable bog and I have new plants sitting in buckets of water, waiting for the possibility of me having two days without rain and the ability to move without coughing or otherwise dripping.

TODAY:

I looked at my Instagram on desktop and saw they’ve finally wrestled the algo to the point where it didn’t show me anyone I’m actually following.

This is very Andy Goldsworthy:

New Kali Malone collaboration record:

(Previous Kali Malone notes)

OPERATIONS: work is for people not drowning in their own fluids
STATUS: ded. Less than 7hrs sleep. Inbox 150. Connecting the Retro Nano to the phone and doing podcasts all day.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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Caves And Waves: 29jan26

Published January 29, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Paper flowers preserved in a sealed Chinese cave for a thousand years.

TODAY:

This is a tripwire crossbow. I discovered Will Lord some years ago, when he was on an episode of FIRST MAN OUT, and have been following his work ever since.

FIRST MAN OUT was a show where survival expert Ed Stafford would race against someone with similar skills through some inclement part of the world. The episodes would all follow a similar pattern – Stafford would almost kill himself to win, and his competitor would rock up to the finish line a short time later having had a nice time and usually arriving in some style. I have a memory of Will Lord’s episode featuring him basically whittling a hotel room and dining like a medieval king while Stafford nearly died a couple of times and crawled around in the dark eating ants.

STATUS: went out for a glass of wine and a quick stop at the shops yesterday so of course I have a slight cough and what feels like the beginning of a chest infection today
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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20jan26

Published January 20, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I found a weird little object online – a USB reader for floppy discs. I still have a few boxes of floppy discs from way back when that I didn’t throw out. There’s a fair chance they’re all as corrupted and rotted as shit now, but I picked up said weird little object and I’m going to see if any of those disks are recoverable. Chances are they have a lot of old Marvel, DC and Wildstorm stuff on, and while it’s not crucial to have copies of those old scripts, and they would be painful to look at, I feel like it would be kind of nice to possess them again. I’ve had so many hard drive and storage issues over the years, so many lost scripts and documents and emails, that I’ve gotten used to considering it all volatile and ephemeral and have learned not to be upset at losing things and to let go of things. To be able to recover just a handful of old pieces would have its pleasures.

In retrospect, I should have printed off literally everything and gotten filing cabinets and, I dunno, a full library system or a zettelkasten index or something, and stayed analogue. I have this memory of a bit in the old MAX HEADROOM show where Blank Reg tries to sell a cyberpunk kid a book on the grounds that it’s a “non-volatile storage medium.” Oh, bugger me, the clip’s on YouTube-

TODAY:

Accessions:

CUTS BOTH WAYS, Ed James (UK) (US+)

The 9th Rob Marshall book. I have a great fondness for these less than cosy Scottish crime novels. This one seems to be in the nature of a put pilot for a new series, so it’s probably not the one to start with.

OPERATIONS: script, foreword, prose series development, outline, newsletter
STATUS: what is this outside world you speak of
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Night Tracks
LAST WATCHED: GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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16jan26

Published January 16, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Hello from out here in the Thames Delta. I haven’t written here in a few days, so I’m attempting to make a fresh start with a single daily note for a while.

TODAY:

TELEMETRY:

Accessions:

I was bad at the start of the year and bought myself a few books in Kindle sales. I presume they both do what it says on the tins.

  • THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)
  • THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenburger (UK) (US+)

OPERATIONS: production has been, frankly, fucked this week. I have a script to land and I still need to rebuild the template for the newsletter. Two weeks into the new year and I’m at least four weeks behind.
STATUS: Haven’t been feeling my best and it’s been one of those weeks here where nobody seems to want to allow me the sole uninterrupted use of my own (very tired) brain. Best night’s sleep in a week – 8hrs 7m.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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telemetry 2dec25

Published December 2, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Octothorpes are hashtags and backlinks that can be used on regular websites, connecting pages across the open internet regardless of where they’re hosted.

As with all indieweb stuff, I lost the will to live less than halfway through the “getting started” section of the docs, but maybe this will be useful to someone, and maybe I should return to it after more coffee.

The Hare #9 [December 2025] by Andrew Chapman

Bronze Age/Neolithic complex find, Indian menhirs… and the original rock music

Read on Substack

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morning computer fish church

Published November 10, 2025 by Warren Ellis

White Arkitekter restores Gothenburg’s fish church.

A new collagen fingerprinting tool can help scientists identify species from archaeological bone fragments. Pacific islanders of the late Stone Age, also known as the Neolithic period, were master fishers. Archaeological evidence indicates that these groups caught fish both inshore as well as in open waters.

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Now, researchers have found a way to shed light on the types of fish they feasted on and the advanced fishing techniques used to capture them. The new Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) tool can detect the unique chemical fingerprint hidden within collagen, a structural protein that makes up most of bone mass.

The researchers tested 131 archaeological bones and accurately identified three tuna and five shark varieties

Antarctic fish have built a sprawling neighborhood of neatly arranged nests in the Weddell Sea — a surprising display of organization in some of the coldest waters on Earth. The discovery suggests that these fish strategically group their nests to better protect their eggs from predators, adding to evidence that the Weddell Sea harbors complex, vulnerable ecosystems worth preserving, researchers report October 29 in Frontiers.

The Milky Way galaxy is like a gigantic ocean gyre or eddy that spins and wobbles around its center.

But our home galaxy also has a colossal wave rippling through it, pulling and pushing an ocean of stars and cosmic dust in its wake, according to newly released images from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.

The images show that this wave of motion emanates from the center of the Milky Way and takes up a large portion — a little less than half — of the galaxy’s entire body, which itself is warped in the outer edges. Looking at the galaxy in a vertical sideways view, you see that stars float above or below the disc’s dusty central body, as if they were fish bobbing up and down in a wave of water after a boat passes by.

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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