Research Cluster: Archaeology, History and Anthropology
This research cluster brings together the often complementary research interests within these disciplines and focuses on the areas of landscape and environment, the mediterranean and the Near East, cultural politics and material culture.
The Monastic Wales Project
In an attempt to identify more firmly Wales's place on the monastic map of Europe, this new large-scale project seeks to establish a comprehensive monastic history of medieval Wales.
The Project seeks also to encourage new research into aspects of Welsh monastic history and to provide a platform for unpublished material and new work. Essays and articles will be available to users on the website. A comprehensive history of monastic Wales, with contributions from leading scholars in the field, will be published in book form.
The Monastic Wales Project website
Strata Florida Project
The Strata Florida Project is major research programme setting Strata Florida in its social, political and landscape contexts, to include not just the period of the Abbey’s existence, but also its antecedents from the later Iron Age onwards and its successors up to the present day.
Strata Florida Project website
Ariedou Vouppes
Ongoing research at Arediou Vouppes (Lithosouros) is exploring a Late Bronze Age rural community in central Cyprus. The project is testing current models of settlement hierarchy and aims to place a previously unknown settlement type within the wider socio-political and economic landscape of Bronze Age Cyprus. Survey and excavation work has not only produced significant evidence for the site’s involvement in internal exchange mechanisms centred around the movement of copper from the mines in the nearby Troodos mountains to the coastal towns, but also its engagement in wider Mediterranean spheres of exchange with Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant.
The project is affiliated with the American Schools of Oriental Research.
The Newport Medieval Ship
The Newport Ship is the most substantial medieval ship excavated in modern times in Britain.
The ship was discovered in 2002 during the construction of the Riverfront Performing Arts Centre on the bank of the river Usk in Newport in South East Wales. Once rescue excavations revealed that over 20 metres of the ship were present in the construction area and threatened by the development, a vigorous campaign both nationally and through a local community group, "Save Our Ship" pushed for the ship's recovery and preservation. Funding was secured and the ship has been lifted for study, conservation and eventual display. These web pages provide an insight into the research being undertaken into the ship through partnership between the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Newport Museum and Heritage Service which curates the ship.
Fetternear (Scottish Episcopal Palaces)
Fetternear was the summer palace of the bishops of Aberdeen. In the 13th century, Fetternear was a masonry castle surrounded by a moat, which was replaced in the 14th century by a perimeter wall. After the Reformation in 1560, the site was redeveloped as a tower-house and, later, as a mansion. It became the family home of the Leslies of Balquhain. This post-Reformation history is particularly interesting because, in the 19th century, the Leslies conducted an early archaeological dig on the site and made a conjectural reconstruction of the foundations of the medieval bishop's palace.
The Submerged Marine Landscape Cluster
Submerged landscapes are now known to exist around the majority of the coast of the British Isles and these contain a potentially rich source of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental material. At UWTSD our investigations have focused on four areas around the British coast line. In Orkney in the Bay of Firth a joint project between ourselves and the University of St.Andrews, Dundee and Aberdeen have been funded by Historic Scotland, the Crown Estates and the Antiquaries Society to examine a small area inundated by the sea sometime during the Neolithic period. In Jersey we have been looking at older landscapes where Paleolithic sites may be submerged in caves or at the foot of ancient cliffs. Study of Holocene 'submerged forests' through the application of dendrochronology has been undertaken subtidally in the Solent with funding from English Heritage, and intertidally at exposures in the Severn Estuary with funding from English Heritage and NERC. Palaeoenvironmental studies of these exposures, associated with coastal developments such as flood defence schemes are undertaken through UWLAS.
Some of our work can be found on the QAEJ website or the Rising Tides website
The Quaternary Archaeology and Environments of Jersey
The Quaternary Archaeology and Environments of Jersey project (QAEJ) is a multi-discipline research programme carried out under the direction of a team drawn from University College London, the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO, University of Southampton), The British Museum (AHOB 3), the University of Manchester and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The principle aim of the project is to provide a reassessment of the early prehistoric record of Jersey through targeted sampling and key-hole excavation of poorly understood find spots and to initiate a major reassessment of the prominent Neanderthal site of La Cotte de St Brélade. Excavations in 2010 and 2011 focused on Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites as well as preliminary work at La Cotte. In 2011 investigation of the seabed began in order to contextualise sites within the broader framework of NW Europe.
Archaeology of the Mabinogi
This project is funded by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, The Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and The Nuffield Foundation. The Mabinogion are a set of Welsh medieval prose narrative tales rivalling the Greek myths in importance. Consistent with late 11th and early 12th century Wales, these tales survive as a series of 13th and 14th century manuscripts, one of which, the White Book of Rhydderch, Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch (NLW Peniarth MS 4), was copied at the Cistercian Abbey of Strata Florida in Mid Wales for a local elite or uchelwr, Rhydderch ab Ieuan Llwyd from nearby Llangeitho. Scholars think that these tales were passed down by word of mouth to convey information about lineage and landscape by relating myth, magic and monsters to real people and places. This project aims to examine the relationship between landscape and myth using landscape archaeology.
Many of the tales mention the mythical king of Dyfed, Pryderi and in the tale Math fab Mathonwy, the bard Gwydion relates myths to the King at his palace at Rhuddlan Teifi. Recent historical and archaeological analysis has highlighted the significance of Rhuddlan Teifi which was documented in the 12th century as a grange granted to Talley Abbey. The estate was an early medieval Welsh Royal site of some significance becoming a Cistercian grange farm in the late 12th century. Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffudd granted a number of royal estates to monastic houses and these are being mapped using Geographical Information Systems. The estate was so valuable that it was eventually usurped by the large and powerful Whitland Abbey.
The Cosmology in Culture Project
The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture is the only research centre in the world which examines the relationship between human culture and theories about the cosmos. The Centre is interdisciplinary, crossing the boundaries between history, philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, sociology and archaeology. It particularly examines the use of astronomy and astrology as story-telling and meaning-creating devices.
The Centre is generating limited research projects through students in the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and wider scholarship through its research students.
Riding the Trod: experimental archaeology / ethnography / oral history
Riding the Trod is a 25 mile ride on horseback from Strata Florida to Abbey Cwmhir along the medieval track way ‘The Monks’ Trod’. The ride took place on Friday 18th June 2010. Riding the Trod aims to recreate past journeys in a bid to better understand the archaeology of the Trod and the relationships between humans, animals and this enigmatic landscape.
Contact: Dr Samantha Hurn
Wales Qatar Archaeological Project
This project is part of the Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage Projects which is run in collaboration with the Qatar Museums Authority and the University of Copenhagen.
The project is concerned with the research excavation and survey of number of coastal sites in northern Qatar. Currently the University of Wales Trinity Saint David is working on two sites Ruwaydha and Rubayqa under the direction of Dr Andrew Petersen. Preliminary reports on both sites have been published in the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. The excavation team comprises a number of former students of archaeology from the University.
In addition to fieldwork in Qatar Dr Petersen has also organised a conference on the archaeology of Wales and Qatar in partnership with LNG South Hook. This international conference, Nations of the Sea, was held at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff in September 2010 and brought together researchers from diverse backgrounds to discuss common themes in the archaeology of Wales and Qatar. Plans for publishing the proceedings are currently in progress.
