Current Research Postgraduates
Dr Dan Lawrence
(email at dan.lawrence@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
Dan Lawrence’s research interests include landscape archaeology, the archaeology of the Near East and the use of remote sensing and GIS techniques in archaeological analysis. He is also interested in methods for creating and displaying archaeological data, the relationship between archaeology and scales of analysis and more generally the uses of anthropological and sociological theory in archaeological contexts. Dan completed his PhD in Durham (November 2012) after studying at University College London and the University of Cambridge, and is currently a post-doctoral researcher on the ERC funded Sasanian Frontiers Project run by Professor Tony Wilkinson. Using a combination of excavation, geophysical prospection, survey and remote sensing data, the project aims to investigate the nature of the western edge of the Sasanian Empire from Azerbaijan and Iran in the north to the Gulf in the south. Dan is involved in the project as a remote sensing and GIS specialist and also conducts landscape survey across the region.
Dan’s PhD research focused on the emergence of large scale urban centres in the Northern Fertile Crescent (encompassing Syria, northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey) during the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, as well as the impact of landscape transformation processes on the archaeological record. This was undertaken as part of the Durham based Fragile Crescent Project. Dan also spent a semester as a fellow at the Digital Institute for Archaeology in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Technology, University of Arkansas.
Publications
Theses: PhD
- Lawrence, Dan (2012). Early Urbanism in the Northern Fertile Crescent [electronic resource] a comparison of regional settlement trajectories and millennial landscape change. PhD.
Research Groups
- Landscapes of Complex Society Research Group
