Among the stickier issues to be tackled at the "Theoretical Archaeology Group conference" in December will be "The Origin of Faeces: The Archaeology of Bodily Waste Products".
The organisers from Bournemouth University declare: "Because the sanitised western world has flushed the discussion of toilet habits and behaviour out of our daily lives, we often find ourselves confounded by the archaeological reality and intellectually constipated with ways to deal with this subject." They have taken the first step to clear up this mess - a call for papers.