Profile

Biography

Dominic Powlesland has been deeply committed to archaeology ever since he joined a local excavation in Colchester at the age of 11. By the age of 16, he was engaged on projects in Winchester, and, soon after, here in York.  After several years at the University of Manchester, he moved back to Yorkshire to undertake a small rescue excavation at West Heslerton in the Vale of Pickering. As Director of the Landscape Research Centre, he has run an extended programme of survey and excavation in the Vale of Pickering at West Heslerton. This programme has revolutionised the understanding of prehistoric to early medieval period settlement patterns and is widely regarded as one of the most important landscape archaeology projects in Europe. 

Career

Research

Overview

Research interests include the archaeology of landscapes from the Palaeolithic to the present; practice and process in archaeological excavation; air-borne and ground based remote sensing; computer applications in archaeology; geospatial data integration and analysis; hidden landscape reconstruction; the archaeology of Eastern Yorkshire; early medieval settlement, death and burial.

Publications

Selected publications

Full publications list

• Early Anglo-Saxon Settlements, Structures Form and Layout', in  The Anglo-Saxons, from the Migration Period to the 8th Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. by J. Hines (San Marino: Boydell, 1997), pp.101-24.
• 'West Heslerton - The Anglian Settlement: Assessment of Potential for Analysis and Updated Project Design',  Internet Archaeology,  5 (1998)
• With C. A. Haughton,  West Heslerton - The Anglian Cemetery, 2 vols, Landscape Research Centre Monograph, 1, (Yedingham , 1999)
• 'The Anglo-Saxon Settlement at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire', in  Northumbria's Golden Age, ed. by J. Hawkes and S. Mills (Sutton: Stroud, 1999), pp. 55-65.
• 'West Heslerton: Aspects of Settlement Mobility', in  Early Deira: Archaeological Studies of the East Riding in the Fourth to Ninth Centuries AD, ed. by H. Geake and J. Kenny (Oxford: Oxbow, 2000).
• 'The Heslerton Parish Project: An Integrated Multi-Sensor Approach to the Archaeological Study of Eastern Yorkshire, England', in  Remote Sensing in Archaeology, ed. by Forte and S. Campagna, XI Ciclio di Lezioni sulla, (Florence, 2001), pp. 233-35.
• 'The Heslerton Parish Project: Twenty Years of Archaeological Research in the Vale of Pickering', in  The Archaeology of Yorkshire An Assessment at the Beginning of the 21st Century, ed. by T. G. Manby, S. Moorhouse and P. Ottaway, (Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 2003), pp. 275-92.
• 'The Early-Middle Anglo-Saxon Period' in  Historical Atlas of North Yorkshire, ed. by Robin Butlin, (Leeds, 2003) pp. 62-65.
• Twenty-five Years' Research on the Sands and Gravels of the Vale of Pickering  (Yedingham: Landscape Research Centre, 2003)
• With P. Budd, C. Chenery, J. Montgomery and J. Evans, 'Anglo-Saxon Residential Mobility at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, UK from Combined O- and SR-Isotope Analysis', in  Plasma Source Mass Spectrometry: Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Plasma Mass Spectrometry, ed. by G. Holland and S. D. Tanner (London: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003).
• With D. Lyall, G. Hopkinson, D. Donoghue, M. Beck, A. Harte, and D. Stott, 'Beneath the Sand: Remote Sensing, Archaeology, Aggregates and Sustainability: A Case Study from Heslerton, the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England',  Archaeological Prospection  (2006)
• With Lyall, D, 'Beneath the Sand: Multi-Sensor Studies Within the Archaeological Landscape of the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England',  Archaeological Prospection, (2006)
• 'Why Bother? Large-Scale Geomagnetic Survey and the Quest for "Real Archaeology"', inGeophysics for Landscape Archaeology: Papers Presented at the 15th International Summer School for Archaeology, University of Siena, Grosseto, July 2006, ed. by R. Francovitch, S. Campana and S. Piro

Teaching

Undergraduate

First year

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Second year

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Third year

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External activities

Memberships

Memberships, etc.