Department of Archaeology

Overview

York has a particular strength in research into prehistoric periods. With a wide range of staff contributing to this research, specialisations include subsistence and shell middens (Milner), colonisations and migrations (Bailey), coastal and submerged prehistory, taphonomy (O'Connor), cognitive and social evolution (Spikins), soils (Walsh).

Our research spans from primate ancestors (Elton, Cobb, O'Higgins) to Palaeolithic (Spikins, Bailey), Mesolithic (Milner, Spikins, Bailey), Mesolithic-Neolithic periods (Milner, Edmonds, Walsh) and Later Prehistory (Edmonds, Walsh, Mytum).

Projects include those into coastal colonisations and human dispersal, artefact distribution patterns, landscapes such as in the French Alps, Orkney, south-west Wales, and the Wolds and new fieldwork such as at Star Carr and submerged prehistoric sites.

Members

• Prof. Geoff Bailey
• Prof. Don Brothwell
• Prof. Matthew Collins
• Prof. Mark Edmonds
• Prof. Terry O'Connor
• Oliver Craig
• Allan Hall
• Robyn Inglis
• Harry Kenward
• Nicky Milner
• Kirsty Penkman
• Lisa-Marie Shillito
• Penny Spikins
• Kevin Walsh

Research Projects

• Coastal Middens and Agricultural Origins (AHRB funded)
• Star Carr and Early Mesolithic archaeology in the Vale of Pickering
• Dating the Pleistocene (Wellcome funded)
• Web-based access to rock art: the Beckensall Archive (AHRB funded)
• Howick: the earliest house in Britain (funded by English Heritage, Heritage Lottery fund, Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne
• Ancient Yemeni burial practices (Leigh Douglas Memorial fund)
• Searching for submerged sites (AHRB funded)
• Burial practices at Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, Jordan
• Predicting the Location of Hominin Sites in Africa and Asia
• DISPERSE: Dynamic Landscapes, Coastal Environments and Hominin Dispersals (ERC)
• Southern French Alps Landscape Project
• Orkney Iron Age Landscape Project
• Cercopithecine models as a contextual framework for human evolution (funded by the Leverhulme Trust, run in collaboration with the Universities of Durham & Liverpool)
• Palaeoinformatic approach to the context of the earliest human dispersals (PACED) (NERC Funded, based at Liverpool John Moores).
• Carnivores in Craven Caves
• The Wolds Research Project
• Small Enclosures Project (funded by Cadw and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, run in collaboration with Cambria Archaeology)