Profile

Biography

I spent the earlier part of my career in the Department of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, as an undergraduate (BA, 1970), a research student (PhD, 1976), including a one year Royal Society Leverhulme Trust overseas studentship in the Department of Anthropology in the University of Sydney, Australia, and successively as British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow (1974), Assistant Lecturer (1976) and Lecturer (1981).

In 1990 I was elected as Fellow and Senior Tutor at Clare Hall, a College for Advanced Study in the University of Cambridge with an international community of Graduate Students and Visiting Fellows, and in 1996 as a Life Member.

In 1996 I moved to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne as Professor of Archaeology and Head of Department. I took up my present position in York in 2004 as the holder of a new Anniversary Chair created to mark the University's 40th anniversary.

Departmental roles

• Course Director: MSc in Coastal and Marine Archaeology
• Member: Departmental Research Committee

University roles

• Member: Arts and Humanities Promotions Sub-Panel

Research

Overview

My principal research interests are in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Archaeology, Quaternary landscape history, palaeoeconomy, and the archaeology of prehistoric coastlines. 

I have world-wide interests in shell middens as the most common archaeological expression of past coastal settlement, and the prehistoric use of coastal environments and marine resources, the ways in which human populations interact with the geological instabilities of the physical landscape, and how that engagement has shaped our long-term evolution, expansion and social development.

I have investigated these themes through excavation and fieldwork innovation, development of new laboratory methods, and interpretive theory, conducted fieldwork in Africa, Australia, Britain, Denmark, Gibraltar, Greece, Spain, and Saudi Arabia, and run major field projects in Epirus (Northwest Greece: the Klithi Project), and the Farasan Islands (Saudi Arabia: the Southern Red Sea and DISPERSE Projects).

My current research is focussed on the analysis of human response to tectonically active environments, and the exploration of the submerged landscapes that were exposed on the continental shelf as prime territory for human occupation during the periods of low sea level that have dominated the Pleistocene and early Holocene, effectively most of human existence on this planet.  

A major preoccupation is the integration of long-term archaeological, geological, palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic records within a spatial and geographical framework, and the development of large-scale research programmes that facilitate international and interdisciplinary collaboration.   

Working at the boundaries between many different disciplines has also led me into a deeper interest in archaeological theories of time and the influence of time scale, time resolution and time perspective on archaeological interpretation and the relationship between archaeology and other disciplines.

Current projects

• 2009–2013 Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf (SPLASHCOS), funded by COST Action TD0902 of the European Union (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)
• 2011–2016 Dynamic Landscapes, Coastal Environments and Human Dispersals (DISPERSE), funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through its Advanced Grant scheme for frontier research under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union
• 2011-2013 Enhancing Cultural Heritage for Mining Operations, directed by Patricia Fanning (Macquarie University) and Simon Holdaway (University of Auckland), and funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Projects Program and Rio Tinto Alcan Propietary Limited   

Research group(s)

• Bioarchaeology
• Landscape and Society
• Coastal Prehistory

Grants

• 2011–2016 ERC. Dynamic Landscapes, Coastal Environments and Human Dispersals: DISPERSE
• 2009–2013 EU RTD/ESF COST. Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf (SPLASHCOS)  
• 2009–2011 National Geographic Society. Coastal and Underwater Archaeology of the Farasan Islands
• 2007–2009 British Academy. Southern Red Sea Project Farasan Islands
• 2007–2009 Leverhulme Trust. Submerged Landscape Archaeology of the Continental Shelf
• 2007–2008 AHRC. Underwater Cave Excavation in Gibraltar
• 2003–2006 NERC. Africa-Arabia Connections: Coastal Environments, Tectonics and Human Dispersals
• 2003–2005 British Academy. Coastlines, Human Dispersals and the Palaeolithic of the Arabian Peninsula 
• 2002–2004 AHRB Northumberland Rock Art: Web Access to the Beckensall Archive
• 2002–2005 AHRB Coastal Shell Middens and Agricultural Origins in Atlantic Europe
• 2001–2004 Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship
• 2000–2005 Howick Archaeological Project (with Clive Waddington and Nicky Milner)
• 2003 British Academy Exchange with the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science
• 1999–2003 Leverhulme Trust. Late Stone Age Hunter-Gatherer Exploitation of Riverine Resources in the Lesotho Highlands(with Peter Mitchell)

Collaborators

Abdullah Alsharekh, King Saud University

Nicholas Flemming, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

Geoffrey C.P. King, Institut de Physique du Globe, Paris

Kurt Lambeck, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra

Garry Momber, Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology

Dimitris Sakellariou, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research

Anthony Sinclair, University of Liverpool

Claudio Vita-Finzi, Natural History Museum, London

Supervision

Current PhD students

Teaching

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

• MSc in Coastal and Marine Archaeology

External activities

Memberships

• Corresponding Member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (Römisch-Germanische Kommission), elected 2010 
• Chair of EU COST Action TD0902 Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf (SPLASHCOS), elected 2009, and Vice Chair of the Deukalion Planning Group
• Joint Chair of the Palaeolithic Working Group of the English Heritage Maritime and Marine Historic Environment Research Framework, 2009
• Member of the European Research Council Advanced Grant Panel SH6 ‘The study of the human past’, 2009–
• Member of the AHRC Convening Panel for the Landscape and Environment Strategic Programme, 2006
• Member of the AHRC Peer Review College, 2004–2009
• Member of the AHRB Postgraduate Studentships Panel for Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology, 2000–2003
• Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, elected 1997
• Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, elected 1987
• Member of the Institute for Archaeologists, elected 1986

Editorial duties

Membership of Editorial Boards:

• Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
• Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Archaeology 
• Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

Invited talks and conferences

Organiser

• 2012  Geology and Archaeology: Submerged Landscapes of the Continental Shelf. Symposium 3.2 of the 34th International Geological Congress, Brisbane, Australia (August 2012, coorganiser with Jan Harff and Friedrich Lüth).
• 2010-2012  Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf (SPLASHCOS) . Meetings at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' (September 2012, coorganiser with Francesco Latino Chiocci), Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency, Amersfoort (April 2012, coorganiser with Henk Weerts), University of Zadar (October 2011, coorganiser with Irena Radic Rossi),  Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin (April 2011, coorganiser with Friedrich Lüth), the Hydrobiological Station of Rhodes, Greece (October 2010, coorganiser with Dimitris Sakellariou), and the University of York (organiser, 2010).
• 2008  Shell Energy: Prehistoric Coastal Resource Strategies. International workshop, Dakar, Senegal (coorganiser with Karen Hardy and Abdoulaye Camara)
• 2006  Coastal Geoarchaeology: the Research of Shell Mounds. UISPP, XV World Congress, Lisbon, Portugal (session coorganiser with Marisa Afonso Coutinho)
• 2005  Shell Middens and Coastal Resources along the Atlantic Façade. International workshop, York, UK (coorganiser with Nicky Milner and Oliver Craig
• 2004 Archaeology of Coastlines and Shell Middens in Europe. European Association of Archaeology Conference, Lyon, France (session coorganiser with Nicky Milner and Oliver Craig)
• 2001 Archaeological Sciences 2001, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (coorganiser with Matthew Collins and Rob Shiel)

Keynote speaker

• 2011 UNESCO Scientific Colloquium on Factors Impacting Underwater Cultural Heritage, Brussels.  
• 2011 International Conference on Archaeology and Predictive Modelling, Centre for Underwater Archaeology, Ahtopol, Bulgaria.
• 2010 IGCP 521-INQUA 501 Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor during the Last 30 ky: Sea level Change and Human Adaptation: Sixth plenary meeting, Rhodes, Greece. Plenary speaker
• 2009  Association of Australian Archaeologists Annual Conference, Adelaide, Australia. Plenary speaker
• 2009  European Association of Archaeology Annual Conference, Riva del Garda, Italy. Underwater Archaeology and the Future of Submerged European Prehistory. Session keynote 
• 2008  First International Workshop on Prehistoric Research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• 2007  Society for American Archaeology Annual Conference, Austin, Texas, Archaic and Mesolithic across the Atlantic Divide. Session discussant
• 2006  Society for American Archaeology Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Shell Mounds in America. Session discussant
• 2003  Society for American Archaeology Annual Conference, Milwaukee, USA Time Perspectivism and Archaeology. Session discussant

Invited speaker

Overseas Lectures

• 2012  Fu Ssu-nien memorial lectures, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Republic of China
• 2011  Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Athens
• 2007  Institut de Physique du Globe, Paris
• 2004  King AbdulAziz University, Jeddah
• 2003  Nara Cultural Properties Research Institute, Japan, Universities of Okayama, Sendai and Tokyo
• 2002  King Saud University, Riyadh 

Media coverage

• BBC4 Around the World in 60 Minutes, 2011
• Winner of the Channel 4 award in the IT category of the British Archaeology Awards (2006) for Web Access to Northumberland Rock Art
• Winner of the Antiquity prize for best article in 2006