Current Research Postgraduates

Dr Becky Gowland

Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology

Member of the Centre for Roman Cultural Studies

Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

Contact Dr Becky Gowland (email at rebecca.gowland@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

I studied for my undergraduate degree at this very Department and it was during this time that I first developed an interest in studying human bones. On completing my degree, I spent a year working for various archaeological units; excavating sites of all periods and types from settlements to cemeteries. This work gave me the opportunity to excavate and analyse human skeletal remains from a variety of time periods. Having enjoyed this experience immensely, I undertook the MSc in Osteology, Palaeopathology and Funerary Archaeology taught jointly between the Universities of Sheffield and Bradford. It was during this time that I began to specialise in skeletal age estimation techniques and age as an aspect of social identity, and I returned to Durham University to pursue this subject at doctoral level. During the course of my PhD I became interested in the divide between science and social theory in archaeology and the implications of this for human skeletal analysis and funerary archaeology. This became the subject of a book The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains that I co-edited with Dr Chris Knüsel (University of Exeter).

After completing my PhD, I became a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, where I worked on a project examining skeletal indicators of age-at-death and the palaeodemography of both catastrophic and attritional skeletal assemblages. On completing this post I was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, which I began in February 2003. Whilst at Cambridge I began to collaborate with several members of the Classics Faculty on projects involving human skeletal remains from Rome and this collaboration continues today.

In October 2006 I was appointed as Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Durham. I am very happy to be teaching and researching human skeletal remains in the department where I first became fascinated by them myself.

I currently teach human skeletal analysis at both Undergraduate and Masters level. I also co-organise and teach a short course in Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology with Dr Tim Thompson at Teesside University. Tim and I have recently completed a co-authored book Human Identity and Identification which examines the inter-relationship between social identity and the biological tissues of the body.

Supervises

Publications

Books: authored

Gowland, R. L. & Thompson, T. J. U. (2013). Human Identity and Identification. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

Books: edited

Gowland, R. & Knusel, C. (2006). Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxford: Oxbow.

Books: reviews

Gowland, R. L (2010). Palaeoepidemiology: the measure of disease in the human past. Medical History 54(3): 407-408.
Gowland, R.L. (2009). Children, Identity, and the Past. Edited by Liv Helga Dommasnes and Melanie Wrigglesworth. Childhood in the Past: An International Journal
Gowland, R.L. (2004). Review of 'Burial in early medieval England and Wales', edited by Sam Lucy and Andrew Reynolds. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 14(2): 145-147.

Books: sections

Gowland, R. (2006). Age as an aspect of social identity: the archaeological funerary evidence. In Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Gowland, R. & Knusel, C. Oxford: Oxbow. 143-154.
Gowland, R. L. & Knusel, C. J. (2006). Introduction. In Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Gowland, R. L. & Knusel, C. J. Oxford: Oxbow. ix-xiv.

Edited works: conference proceedings

Lewis, M. E. & Gowland, R. L. (2009). Infantile cortical hyperostosis: cases, causes and contradictions. Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, University of Reading, Archaeopress.
Gowland, R. L. & Chamberlain, A.T. (2005). Estimating age-at-death from the pubic symphysis: past, present and future. British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 2003, Southampton, Archaeopress.
Gowland, R.L. (2004). The social identity of health in late Roman Britain. Thirteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Leicester, Oxbow.
Millard, A. & Gowland, R. (2003). A Bayesian approach to the estimation of age-at-death from tooth development and wear in humans.
Gowland, R. L. & Chamberlain, A.T. (2003). A new method for estimating gestational age from skeletal long bone length. Archaeological Sciences 1999, Bristol, Archaeopress.
Gowland, R. (2001). Playing dead: implications of mortuary evidence for the social construction of childhood in Roman Britain. Tenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, London, Oxbow.

Edited works: contributions

Redfern, R. C. & Gowland, R. L. (2012). A bioarchaeological perspective on the pre-adult stages of the life course: implications for the care and health of children in the Roman Empire. In Families in the Roman and Late Antique World. Harlow, M. & Larsson Loven, L. Continuum. 111-140.

Journal papers: academic

Gowland, R.L. & Western, A.G. (2012). Morbidity in the Marshes: Using Spatial Epidemiology to Investigate Skeletal Evidence for Malaria in Anglo-Saxon England (AD410-1050). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 147(2): 301-311.
Thompson, C. E. L., Ball, S., Thompson, T. J. U. & Gowland, R. L. (2011). The abrasion of modern and archaeological bone by mobile sediments: the importance of transport modes. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 784-793.
Gowland, R. L. & Redfern, R. C. (2010). Childhood health in the Roman World: perspectives from the centre and margin of the Empire. Childhood in the Past: An International Journal 3: 15-42.
Gowland, R. L. & Garnsey, P. (2010). Skeletal evidence for health, nutritional status and malaria in Rome and the empire. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 78: 131-156.
Gowland, R. (2007). Age, ageism and osteological bias: the evidence from late Roman Britain. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 65: 153-169.
Gowland, R. (2007). Beyond ethnicity: symbols of identity in fourth to sixth century AD England. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 14: 56-65.
Lewis, M. E. & Gowland, R. L. (2007). Brief and precarious lives: infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 134(1): 117-129.
Samworth, R. & Gowland, R. (2007). Estimation of adult skeletal age-at-death: statistical assumptions and applications. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 17(2): 174-188.
Gowland, R. & Chamberlain, A.T. (2005). Detecting plague: palaeodemographic characterisation of a catastrophic death assemblage. Antiquity 79(303): 146-157.
Gowland, R. L. & Chamberlain, A.T. (2002). A Bayesian Approach to Ageing Perinatal Skeletal Material from Archaeological Sites: Implications for the Evidence for Infanticide in Roman-Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science 29(6): 677-685.

Journal papers: popular

Redfern, R, Gowland, R & Powell, L (2013). La sante des enfants sous l'Empire romain. Dossiers d'Archaeologie 356: 80-83.

Research Groups

Bioarchaeology Research Group

Research Projects

Health, diet and living environment in the Roman Empire: the skeletal and funerary evidence
Investigating Morbidity and Malaria in Anglo-Saxon Wetland Environments
The Taphonomic Effects of Marine Submersion on Human Skeletal Remains