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Dear all, We're delighted to announce that our session, 'Zooarchaeology of Pastoralism' has been approved for this year's TAG conference in Cardiff. We've tried to include a broad range of questions in the abstract but there are, of course, others related to the theme which we'd welcome papers on as well. If you'd like to discuss any potential papers before submitting them, or have any other questions about the session, then please feel free to contact either of us. The deadline for submissions is not until August 25th 2014 and we will circulate further calls for papers before then, if you would like to submit a paper then please follow the instructions here: http://tag2017cardiff.org/submissions/ Kindest regards, Lee G. Broderick (Oxford Archaeology, [log in to unmask]) and Suzi Richer (University of York, [log in to unmask]). The Wind in the Willows: Employing the Narrative in Environmental Archaeology Scientific communication is often presented as logical and empirical (context-free). The facts, however, do not speak for themselves and context serves a very necessary function in providing meaning for data. Honestly, who cares that there were 14 ducks a-dabbling, or that the Wild Wood was bigger at some point? Secretly, even most specialists do not. Yet as specialists, we continue to complain that our reports are consigned to the graveyard of the appendices where they can be safely ignored by non-specialists. Storytelling might appear to be anathema to rigorous scientific approaches to data. Literary theory and psychology research both suggest though that readers better understand narrative writing in comparison with expository writing. It has also recently been demonstrated that climate change science papers which adopt a narrative style are both more likely to be cited by peers and more likely to have a wider impact beyond the specialist audience. Environmental archaeology is in a unique position - able to contribute equally to archaeological debates and to the discourse surrounding climate change. As such, it is especially important that our voice is heard - not just that our data is published but that our interpretations are understood and remembered. We believe that adopting a narrative approach in our writing may be one way in which to achieve these aims. This session welcomes papers which use literary theory and psychology to critique environmental archaeology - the state of the discipline, its development, its impact and accepted paradigms. We also welcome papers which use narrative structure to interpret environmental archaeology evidence.