Postgraduate Research

The School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology has a vibrant postgraduate research culture and welcomes applications from prospective students on a range of subjects (see individual Staff pages for contact details).

Support is available centrally through the Postgraduate Research Office but your main contact will be with academic staff within the School where you will be allocated a supervisory team. Your Director of Studies may be your primary contact and will be the staff member most closely allied with your research area. The Director will be complemented with two further staff supervisors that can act as advisors.

A regular seminar series operates to enhance the research environment and reflects the diverse expertise and research culture within the School. Postgraduate Research students are encouraged to attend these sessions as part of their training and often become involved in the organising committees of conferences and workshops held at the University.

Facilities within the School comprise a  Research Postgradute Student Suite with computing facilities and wifi access. The School's Geographical Information Systems Laboratory provides further computing, especially for those students who require digital mapping access. The Palaeoenvironmental Archaeology Laboratories support contract, research and teaching within the School and our field and survey equipment is state of the art. The Roderic Bowen Library provides an enviable manuscript and archive for historians and electronic resources are supplied through remote access as well as at the University's Learning Resource Centre.

Current Research Postgraduates

Pauline Bambrey Ritualised performance: creating/establishing 'membership/'belonging to The Beltane Fire Society

The aim of this doctoral research project is to investigate the notion that taking part in a public ritualised performance is instrumental to creating a sense of belonging and/or membership to a community. In this instance the community is The Beltane Fire Society based in Edinburgh.  This will then be considered in relation to whether such festivals/ritual performances have an important role to play in a contemporary world.

David Fisher Employing 3-Dimensional Computer Simulation to Examine the Celestial Dating of Scottish Megalithic Sites.

This research has three aims, first to validate the value of computer simulation as a viable means to represent ancients megalithic sites, not as pure reconstructive, but as they may be have been viewed within their actual landscape by their builders. Secondly, to determine, through the simulations, if there where any correlation between the stones at these sites and celestial events, such as winter solstices, lunar extremes or what are referred to in the annual calendar as quarter days, e.g. Beltane. This second aim is executed with adjustments being made for land movement, due to plate tectonic shift and glacial isostatic rebound – sciences unknown to the initial surveyor of the sites under investigation. Lastly, if there are celestial correlations with the stones, what may be the feasible date range for the construction and use of the sites?

Adrian Davis Wittgensteinian perspectives on context, loss and the archaeological sceptic: a treatise in philosophical archaeology.

My research project within the history, theory and philosophy of archaeology, is situated in the relatively neglected area of ‘conceptual analysis’ and how that might be used when studying and accounting for past beliefs and intentionality in the archaeological sciences. More specifically, my current research is directed toward showing how scepticism toward other minds and notions of ‘privileged access’ central to certain questions in the philosophy of mind, is a potentially useful analogue and tool with which to approach understanding the ‘attenuated’ nature of the archaeological record.

Kathleen Day A Reconstruction of Unangan Mortuary Rituals.

The Unangan or indigenous natives of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska practiced mummification. However, unlike the fascination with mummies and mummification in other parts of the world, not much has been written about this practice in Alaska and there is little understanding of why they practiced mummification. My dissertation will attempt to reconstruct pre-contact mortuary rituals by surveying the historical, archaeological and ethnographic literature in to determine why some men,women and children were mummified and placed in caves, while others were given more conventional types of burials for their time frame and region. I will also attempt to examine the theories that have been developed to explain this practice as well as contribute to the anthropological literature of the region.

Cyllene Griffiths Identifying, Assessing And Managing the 'Group Value' of Heritage Assets - The Spa Towns Of Mid-Wales (and associated case studies).

Builth Wells, Llandrindod Wells, Llanwrtyd Wells and Llangammarch Wells: four small towns in mid Wales that owe their development to the special ‘waters’ which run under their streets. The development of these Welsh spa towns left each settlement with a legacy of historic buildings, open spaces and social history, analogous to each other but each simultaneously unique and independent. This research seeks to establish how, within the parameters and legislation currently available to heritage professionals, this legacy can be defined and its value identified, protected and enhanced. 

Cheryl Hart The Examination and Analysis of the Rosette Motif in the Iconographic Art of the Near East, Egypt and the Aegean from the Fourth to First Millennium BC.

The aim of my PhD research is to examine and analyse the prolific use of the rosette motif in the Eastern Mediterranean region during the Bronze and Early Iron Age. Although the daisy-like form of this particular motif may imply it to be culturally insignificant, its widespread geographic and temporal use suggests that, as with other motifs in the region, it had symbolic significance and was invested with meaning. However, despite the longevity of its use, previous consideration of this particular motif has been limited; the few claims made regarding its potential meaning often being unsubstantiated. My research, therefore, aims to challenge previous assertions and question the deeper symbolic significance and meaning of this motif with a view to bringing a fresh insight into interconnections between the Near East, Egypt and the Aegean.

Mary-Lyn Jones An examination of welfare and education provision for children in Carmarthenshire and Glamorganshire between 1918 and 1945 and the influences that evacuation during WW2 had on their further development.

The aim of this project is to place the health and education structures in two Welsh counties in the context of their social and economic development; establish the status of provision during the interwar period and particularly to consider the possibility that war time evacuation influenced development. The influences on the changes to welfare and education provision during the 1940’s will be a key element in this research. In order to examine these issues I will draw comparisons between aspects of the evacuating areas and receiving areas as this dichotomy presents a historiography that reflects the class prejudices of the period. I will investigate whether these stereotypical images were present in the evacuation areas of south and south west Wales. There will also be an in-depth consideration of the effects that war time disruptions had on the education and health provision in both evacuation and receiving areas and the consequences of this for children.

Michael Mark Ludlow On the Road of Birds and the Discovery of Grenada: Avian Assisted and Sight Assisted Early Human Migration in a Caribbean Islands Context: An Example in the Developing Theory of Confluential Behavior (Pre-Columbian Caribbean Nesophilic Ornitho-Archaeology)

This doctoral research thesis demonstrates for the first time this authors discovery of the inter-visibility between either of the islands of Trinidad or Tobago and the island of Grenada. Prior to this authors discovery it was thought throughout Caribbean archaeological history that all the possible routes for the first human migration(s) into the interior islands of the Caribbean, from any mainland areas or from any mainland islands, were by oceanic passages that lacked inter-visibility and that all the interior islands of the Caribbean were thereafter inter-visible. Through the application of the proper mathematical formulas derived from the field of earth atmospheric optics it is clearly demonstrated that the first human migrants from South America moving into the insular Caribbean via the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles could have done so via the only route that is inter-visible without optical enhancement. Thereafter all Caribbean islands were thought to be inter-visible and generally do suggest a 'stepping stone' senerio, one in which migration and movement was facilitated with the exception of the authors discovered effective gap of inter-visibility created by the Anagada Passage. Discovered inter-island inter-visibility is coupled with the proposition that the human observations of the seasonal avian migration patterns and voluminous numbers of migrating birds though the area in question demonstrated a 'pathway'.This thesis demonstrates that there was a complex series of factors that result in human event phenomena and are part of the authors developing theory of confluential behavior.

Lynn Morgan A social topography of the commote of Caerwedros in Ceredigion within its regional context 1400-1600

This research defines the historical-geographical 16^thcentury landscape in southwestern Ceredigion by using retroactive analysis, referring to the area’s social topography.  Ecclesiastical and secular settlements will be compared and the social, political and economic factors controlling the dynamics of Welsh culture will be investigated. The research will contribute to the study of the influences of farming communities on the cultural landscape in parts of Ceredigion during the medieval and post medieval period.

Will Rathouse Contested Heritage: Examining interactions and relations between archaeologists and heritage professionals and contemporary Pagans.

Sadie Watson Digging Down, Looking Back: A reflexive look at archaeology in the western part of the City.

This research is being undertaken during my full-time employment in the Field Team at Museum of London Archaeology and will examine the historical and contemporary methodologies utilised in the urban core of London. As well as undertaking a reflexive discussion of my own excavation and publication career in professional field archaeology the study will also outline the developments in analytical techniques used in London and discuss the potential for change. 

Peter Young An Edition and Study of the Charters of St Giles’s Hospital, Beverley (East Riding of Yorkshire), 1160-1277.

St Giles’s Hospital, traditionally said to have been founded before the Norman Conquest, was annexed to Warter Priory (East Riding of Yorkshire) in 1277. The Priory inherited the Hospital’s series of charters, and the texts of around 150 of these are preserved in the Priory’s early fourteenth-century cartulary. A small number of original charters which may have formed part of the series survives. My research involves the production of an edition of the Hospital’s charters for use as the basis of an investigation into its place in the wider community. The main themes of the investigation are the Hospital’s relationships with its patrons and benefactors, and the development and management of its estate.