The University of Manchester

Post-Doc, Archaeology

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

About

I am currently working on a British Academy post-doc, looking at Death, Bodies and Identity in the prehistory of Southwest Asia (the Near East), or to give the project's formal title,  'Being in the World: Perceptions of the body and identity from the earliest villages to state societies'. This includes relationships between the living and the dead, and engagements with material culture, animals and the environment.

Whilst I continue to research the body in Near Eastern archaeology, I am now extending this framework to a new area of research, Polynesian prehistory. This includes investigating relationships between rock art, the body, and a re-evaluation of the anthropomorphic moai on Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

Prior to starting my post-doc, I was Archaeology Academy Coordinator for the Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology (based at Liverpool University), where I researched and worked on topics such as diversity and inclusivity, fieldwork, employability and enterprise, and sustainability. This prior work and my current research reflect my interest in methodological issues of interpretation, representation and portrayal of the past in the present.

My PhD, at the University of Manchester, was on 'Treatment of the Body in the Ancient Near East', completed in 2005, under the supervision of Dr. Stuart Campbell.