Dr Steve Ashby
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Profile

Biography

Steve Ashby is a medieval archaeologist with specialism in the archaeology of portable material culture and technology. He is trained in geology, zooarchaeology, and artefact studies, and is particularly interested in the relationship between the various regions of Britain and Scandinavia before, during, and just after the Viking Age. His research is characterised by the application of leading-edge scientific techniques to familiar materials, in the context of novel anthropological theory, with a view to using oft-overlooked objects to answer the big questions in Viking studies.  

Before starting up at York, Steve was employed by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, as Finds Liaison Officer for Northamptonshire, a role that involved working closely with local communities, amateur archaeologists, and metal detectorists in order to preserve by record the vast numbers of chance finds recovered by members of the public. Steve continues his association with the PAS, and is interested in exploiting the potential of the data it produces, particularly regarding early medieval craft, trade, and identity, and battlefield archaeology.

Steve teaches in a range of medieval subjects, as well as in the practical aspects of artefact studies. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London) and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Professional service roles beyond the university have included Editor and Awards Officer for the Finds Research Group, council member for the Society for Medieval Archaeology and Royal Archaeological Institute. He has also chaired the  WRoCAH Heritage and Material Culture cluster (responsible for allocating PhD funding to students studying in Yorkshire). He has been a member of the editorial boards for Archaeological Journal and York Medieval Press (Boydell), and is founding editor of the Viking Europe series of publications (Liverpool University Press).

Within the university, Steve co-founded the interdisciplinary Viking Studies Research Group, and has been a PGCAP supervisor and examiner (training new academics and lecturers across the university).

 You can follow his occasionally active Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/grungeviking.bsky.social ), and see some of his media work here: Living with Vikings

 ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1420-2108

Career

1998 BSc (Hons) Geology (Birmingham)

2001 MSc Zooarchaeology (York)

2006 PhD Archaeology (York)

2006-8 Finds Liaison Officer for Nothamptonshire, Portable Antiquities Scheme (British Museum)

2008- Lecturer, University of York

2015- Senior Lecturer, York

2016- Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy

2023- Reader

2024 - Member, Sachsensymposion

Departmental roles

• Chair of DEC, Centre for Medieval Studies (2026-present)
• Chair of Board of Studies, Centre for Medieval Studies (Oct 2024-26)
• Publicity Officer (Oct 2020-25)
• Acting Chair of Board of Studies, Centre for Medieval Studies (Oct 2017-18)
• Director of Postgraduate Research (Oct 2017-20)
• Director of Studies, MA Medieval Archaeology (Oct 2017- Dec 2018)
• Previously Chair of the Board of Studies (2011-15). Also variously Acting Chair of Teaching Committee, Chair of Graduate Schools Board,
• Previously Acting Higher Degrees Officer, and Acting Director of MA Medieval Archaeology
• Previously (2011-12) Chair of the Archaeology and History Combined Honours Executive Committee
• Previously (2008-10) Chair of the Board of Examiners, Centre for Medieval Studies

University roles

• PGCAP (Staff Training) Supervisor (2012-19)
• York Award Panel (2013-15)
• Various University-level committees

Research

Overview

In general terms, Steve is interested in the integration of scientific techniques with contemporary theory, in order to ask questions about society, trade, and identity. He is passionate about the promotion of artefact studies in medieval research (to which end he set up and oversees the Geoff Egan Prize for Finds Research and the Finds Research Fund. 

Steve's PhD thesis and early work focused on bone and antler hair combs in Britain and Scandinavia between c.AD 800 and 1400, and he retains an active interest in this field.  He uses novel archaeological and scientific techniques to examine the manufacture, exchange, and use of these often overlooked items, and considers their role as dress accessories in politics and the construction of identity. This work opened up a number of broader questions, and Steve has used combs and related evidence to answer big questions about what the Viking Age was, when and how it started.

Steve has directed and Co-I'd a number of funded research projects:

CNVT: Crafting Networks in Viking Towns (with Soren Sindbaek, Aarhus; multi-craft, British Academy)

Melting Pot: Food and Identity in the Age of Vikings (focused on ceramics, AHRC)

Culture and Communication in the Long Viking Age (focused on metal-detected finds from around the North Sea littoral, University of York).

He was co-PI on the AHRC Network grant  The York-Dublin Axis Reconsidered - An Interdisciplinary Approach to Viking Towns (with Stephen Harrison, Glasgow)

His wider research interests include dress and identity, medieval craft and industry, exploitation of the Norwegian outlands, and the articulation of human and animal worlds in the Middle Ages. Steve's work also intersects with the archaeologies of appearance and self-representation, and the social role of technologies.

 He would be interested in supervising research students working in any of these areas.

Projects

Ongoing and completed projects

• The York-Dublin Axis Reconsidered - An Interdisciplinary Approach to Viking Towns
• Melting Pot: Food and Identity in the Age of Vikings
• Culture and Communication in the Long Viking Age
• Entrepot
• Crafting Networks in Viking Towns
• Torpel Manor Archaeological Research Project
• Combs and Communities in Viking-Age Britain: Biography and Ecology
• An Atlas of Viking and Medieval Combs from Northern Europe
• The TASTE Group: Technologies of Adornment, Strategies of Transformation and Enchantment

Research group(s)

• Roman Medieval and Historical Archaeology
• Animal Matters
• CMS Viking Studies Research Group // external site: www.vikingstudies.net

Grants

• Royal Archaeological Institute and  Tony Clark Fund for scientific research, 2025, Combs and Contacts: Exploring British-Scandinavian Connections in the Viking Age. 
• Society for Medieval Archaeology, 2025. The North-South Connection: Contacts between the Scandinavian Peninsula and Denmark, Germany and Poland in the Viking Age.
• AHRC Early Career Research Grant, 2016 Melting Pot
• University of York RPF Grant, 2016 Cultures in Communication
• Learning and Teaching Grant 2013 'Travelling the Viking World'
• Danish Research Council 2012 for Entrepot, (Co-I; directed by Soren Sindbaek)
• British Academy Small Grant 2010 for Crafting Networks in Viking Towns (with Soren Sindbaek)

Awards

• Mick Aston Prize for Archaeological Photography 2017
• Vice Chancellor's Teaching Award, 2013
• Commended,  Martyn Jope award 2010 for best novel interpretation published in Medieval Archaeology
• University of York/YUSU Supervisor of the Year 2010

Collaborators

• Joann Fletcher (TASTE)
• Soren Sindbaek (CNVT, ENTREPOT)
• Gitte Hansen and Irene Baug, Bergen Museum (Actors and Affordable Crafts)
• Oliver Craig, Ailsa Mainman, Gareth Perry, Anita Radini  (Melting Pot)
• Dries Tys, Pieterjan Deckers, Michael Lewis, Nelleke IJsssennagger, Stijn Heeren, Andres Dobat, Anne Pedersen (Cultures in Communication)
• Jessica Hendy, Sam Greeves (BoneWorX: Proteomic Analysis and the Comb Trade)
• Aleks McClain, Frieda Gosling†  (Torpel Manor Research Project)

Available PhD research projects

I am interested in supervising PhDs on any area of study in the fields of Viking-Age craft, trade, identity, or material culture.

Supervision

I currently supervise the following Research Students

• Jim Glazzard : The tools and techniques of the Viking-age non-ferrous metalworker (with Aimee Little)
• Hanna Heron: Chamber Graves of the European Viking Age (with Dawn Hadley)
• Raymond Sauvage: Tracing the Origins and Cultural Dynamics of Antler Comb Production in Late Iron Age Northern Scandinavia (NTNU, Trondheim, with James Barrett)

Alumni

• Anne Brundle † The Bone/Antler Objects of Iron-Age Orkney
• Dr Alison Leonard    Nested Negotiations: Landscape and portable material culture in Viking-Age England
•  Dr Harriet Evans Tang Animal-Human Relations in Medieval Iceland   (with Matt Townend) 
• Dr Paul Edward Montgomery Ramirez: Branding Barbarians. A Study into The Use of Renewable Heritage Tourism Destinations as Platforms for Decolonial Options. 
• Dr Robert Webley: Conquest and Continuity: portable metalwork in Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, c, AD 1000-1200 
• Dr Megan von Ackermann: Early Medieval Locks and Keys in England and Scandinavia
• Mariana Munoz Rodriguez: Biomolecular Analysis of Viking-Age Combs
• Vanessa Castagnino (with Aleks McClain) Copper Alloy Acquisition And Object Production At Monastic Houses In Late Medieval England c. 1100-1540
• Carl Savage: Coinage, landscape and society in the borderlands: economy, politics and identity in Scotland and northern England, 1136-1603 (with Aleks McClain)
• Chris Wakefield:  Exploring Social Media as Engagement in UK Development-Led Archaeology  (with Colleen Morgan)
• Gwendoline Pepper: Following a Thread: Tracing Technology and Techniques along the Silk Road (with Aimee Little and Penelope Walton Rogers†)

Teaching

Undergraduate

First year

• Prehistory to the Present (The Early-Medieval period)

Second year

• Practical Skills: Small Finds Recording

Third year

• Viking-Age Scandinavia

Postgraduate

• Viking Worlds
• Using Archaeology (Centre for Medieval Studies)
• Towards an Interdisciplinary Methodology (Centre for Medieval Studies)

External activities

Memberships

• Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
• Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of London
• Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
• Member, ICAZ Worked Bone Research Group
• Awards Officer, Finds Research Group
• Council Member, Society for Medieval Archaeology

Editorial duties

• Founding Editor, Viking Europe, Liverpool University Press.
• Editorial Board, York Medieval Press (Boydell)
• 2017-2024 Editorial Board, Archaeological Journal
• 2007- 2013 Datasheet Editor for Finds Research Group

Invited talks and conferences

• 2026 Invited delegate, Viking Congress, Norway
• 2024 Invited Speaker, Iron-Age and Historical Archaeology Research Group, NTNU, Trondheim
• 2024 Invited Speaker, North Lincolnshire Museum
• 2023 Speaker, Sachsensymposion, Stavanger
• 2023 Invited speaker (with Stephen Harrison), York Medieval Lecture, CMS
• 2022  Invited delegate, Viking Congress, UK
• 2022. Invited lecture: Helen Thirza Addyman Lecture, Headline public lecture for York Viking Festival 2022).
• 2022. Invited lecture, City of York Council Annual Archaeology Conference.
• 2020. Invited Speaker, Yorkshire Philosophical Society, Annual Lecture.
• 2019 Invited Speaker, British Museum/ Institute of Archaeology  Summer Lecture.
• 2019. Invited lecture and book-signing: Vikings: an Artefact’s View. York: Festival of Ideas
• 2018. Invited Speaker: Locks and Socks. Yorkshire Museum: Vikings: Discover the Legend exhibition lecture series.

• 2017 Invited Speaker, ‘Valhalla’ Public Conference,  Inverness. 

• 2017. Invited Speaker, Centre for Scandinavian Studies, University of Aberdeen.

• 2017 Session Chair, EAA Maastricht
• 2017 Invited delegate, Viking Congress, Denmark
• 2017 Invited Speaker, Finds Research Group, Orkney.
• 2017 Invited Speaker, Inverness Vikings Exhibition
• 2016 Invited Speaker, University of Aberdeen
• 2016 Invited Speaker, University of Newcastle
• 2016 Invited Speaker, Northern Research Network
• 2016 Invited Speaker, UNPAC, Nottingham
• 2016 Invited Speaker, Barnsley Museum Vikings Exhibition
• 2015 Invited Speaker, Society for American Archaeology
• 2015 Invited Speaker, University College Cork, Student Lecture and Research Seminar Series
• 2013 Invited Delegate, Viking Congress, Shetland
• 2010 Invited Speaker, Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2010
• 2010 Invited Speaker, Early Medieval Finds from the British Isles conference, University of Oxford, 2010
• 2009 Session Chair, Early Medieval Archaeological Students Symposium, 2009
• 2009 Invited Speaker, Viking Summer School, University of Aarhus
• 2009 Session Chair and Invited Speaker, Researching Ivories workshops.

Media coverage

Radio: Appearances on BBC Radio Orkney, BBC Radio Northamptonshire.

Web:  Indiana Jones and 21st Century Archaeology

TV:

• History Channel: Secrets of the Vikings and Real Vikings in association with Vikings drama series.
•  NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation): Vinland Saga
• Channel 4: Time Team specials: The Real Vikings  and The Lost Battle of 1066 (advisor).
• Channel 4: Britain’s Most Historic Towns (Viking York) (on screen, and consultant)
• Channel 5: Digging Up Britain’s Past
• BBC 1:  'The One Show'
• ITV local news
• Articles for TheConversation.com on social conscience in Viking Archaeology (2014), and Viking-Age technology (2015)
• As soon as publicly available, I collate my media work, together with my own videos on this site.