Staff

Dr Robin Skeates, B.A., D.Phil., F.S.A.

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41156

Member of the Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East

Contact (email at robin.skeates@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Through my research over the last 15 years, I have contributed in particular to the prehistoric archaeology of Italy and the Central Mediterranean region. My publications explore a wide variety of themes within the overlapping inter-disciplinary fields of material culture, visual culture, museum and heritage studies. A central concern is with interpreting social relations, strategies and transformations between the Upper Palaeolithic and the Bronze Age, including those relating to age, gender and the body. This relates to my interest in ritual performance, including mortuary practices and meanings, and in the cultural construction and transformation of landscape, including liminality, the underworld, the social dynamics of enclosure, and commemoration. It equally relates to my interest in the biographies and power of objects, including the production, exchange and ascription of value to early copper artefacts, greenstone axe-amulets, flint arrowheads, decorated pottery, shell trumpets, coral, and prehistoric objects in museum collections. Out of this has evolved my strong interest in archaeologies of art and visual culture, including ways of seeing, creativity and tradition, visual communication and transformation, the politics of representation and display, and the symbolising of social boundaries, identities, status and prestige. I am interested in settlement strategies and resource exploitation, including transitions to agriculture in Italy, and upland archaeology in Wales where I have undertaken extensive field-survey work. I work on radiocarbon chronologies relating to prehistoric Italy, and promote a more widespread and critical use of them. More generally, I am interested in the history of archaeological thought, including the intellectual and political history of archaeological collectors, museum collections and exhibitions in the Mediterranean and beyond. I am also concerned with archaeological ethics, and have contributed to debates surrounding public archaeology in Britain and abroad.

Research Groups

Research Projects

Research Interests

Archaeological collecting
Archaeological theory
Artefact studies
Cave archaeology
Cultural representation
Ethics
Heritage studies
Material culture studies
Museum studies
Politics of the past
Prehistoric art
Prehistory of the central Mediterranean
Public archaeology
Sensory culture studies
Visual culture

Teaching Areas

Central Mediterranean Prehistory
MA Museum & Artefact Studies

Indicators of Esteem

2009: External Examiner: External Examiner for BA Archaeology Programme at the University of Leicester
2007: AHRC Peer Review College Member: Member of AHRC's Peer Review College (2007-)
2007: BSR Faculty Member: Member of the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters of the British School at Rome, from 2007-2011.
2005: External Examiner University of Southampton: 2005-present - External Examiner for Archaeology - Department of Archaeology
2005: F.S.A.: Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
2000: Assessor of research grant applications: Assessor of research grant applications for The British Academy, AHRC, The Social Scinences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Templeton Foundation, The Research Council of Norway

Selected Publications

Articles: review

Skeates, R. 2009. Book review: M. Fitzjohn ed. Uplands of Ancient Sicily and Calabria. European Journal of Archaeology 12(1-3): 255-257.
Skeates, R. 2006. The Power of Art: Aesthetics and Rock Art, edited by Thomas Heyd & John Clegg, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16(2): 261-262. (View publication online)

Books: authored

R. Skeates 2005. Visual Culture and Archaeology: Art and Social Life in Prehistoric South-East Italy. London: Duckworth. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Skeates R 2000. Debating the Archaeological Heritage. London: Duckworth. (Additional information)
Skeates R 2000. The Collecting of Origins: collectors and collections of Italian prehistory and the cultural transformation of value (1550-1999). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. (Additional information)

Books: booklets

Hicks, D., Milne, G., Shepherd, J. & Skeates, R. 2009. Excavating the Archives: Archive Archaeology and the Higher Education Sector. London: HEFCE. (Additional information)

Books: reviews

Skeates, R. 2007. Review: Menotti, F. (ed.) 2004. 'Living on the Lake in Prehistoric Europe: 150 Years of Lake-Dwelling Research'. London: Routledge. Environmental Archaeology 12(1): 95-97. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2002. What’s in store: Regional Museums Store, Beamish Open Air Museum, Durham. Museums Journal 102(9): 37. (Additional information)
R. Skeates 2001. Book review: Making City Histories in Museums, by Gaynor Kavanagh and Elizabeth Frostick (eds), London: Leicester University Press, 1998. Urban History 28(1): 133-134. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Edited essays

Skeates, R. & Gheorghiu, D. 2008. Prehistoric Stamps: Theory and Experiments. Bucureşti: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti. (Additional information)

Edited works: journals

eds. Skeates, R. & Robb, J. 2008. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 21 (1): Equinox Publishing Ltd. (Additional information)

Essays in edited volumes

Skeates, R. 2009. Trade and interaction. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology. Cunliffe, B., Gosden, C. & Joyce, R.A. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 555-578. (Additional information)
Skeates, Robin 2007. Abstract and figurative representation and the politics of display in Neolithic Southeast Italy. In Image and Imagination:a global prehistory of figurative representation. Renfrew, C. & Morley, I. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. 199-210. (Additional information)
Skeates, Robin 2007. Religious experience in the prehistoric Maltese underworld. In Cult in Context: Reconsidering Ritual in Archaeology. Barrowclough, David & Malone, Caroline Oxford: Oxbow Books. 90-96. (Additional information)
Skeates, R. 2005. Chronological bibliography of Luigi Cardini’s publications. In Explorations in Albania, 1930-39: the Notebooks of Luigi Cardini, Prehistorian with the Italian Archaeological Mission. Francis, K. London: British School at Athens. 205-9.
R. Skeates 2005. Luigi Cardini (1898-1971): a biography. In Explorations in Albania, 1930-39: the Notebooks of Luigi Cardini, Prehistorian with the Italian Archaeological Mission. K. Francis London: The British School at Athens. 4-9.
R. Skeates 2005. Museum archaeology and the Mediterranean cultural heritage. In The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory. Blake, E. & Knapp, A. B. Oxford: Blackwell. 303-320. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Skeates,R.G. 2005. Visual culture in Neolithic South East Italy. In Papers in Italian Archaeology VI: Communities and Settlements from the Neolithic to the Early Medieval Period. Attema,P., Nijboer,A. & Zifferero,A. Oxford: Archaeopress. II: 541-544. (Additional information)
R. Skeates 2003. Radiocarbon dating and interpretations of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Italy. In The Widening Harvest. The Neolithic Transition in Europe: Looking Back, Looking Forward. Ammerman, A. J. & Biagi, P. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America. 157-187. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2002. The Neolithic enclosures of the Tavoliere, South-East Italy. In Enclosures in Neolithic Europe: Essays on Causewayed and Non-Causewayed Sites. G. Varndell & P. Topping Oxford: Oxbow Books. 51-8.
R. Skeates 2001. Archaeologies of art: contributions to World Art Studies. In Raising the Eyebrow: John Onians and World Art Studies. An Album Amicorum in his Honour. L. Golden Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. 289-300.

Journal papers: academic

Skeates, R. 2010. Review: Prehistoric Europe: Theory and Practice, edited by Andrew Jones, 2008. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20(1): 132-133.
Skeates, R. 2008. Embodiment and visual reproduction in the Neolithic: the case of stamped symbols. Documenta Praehistorica 35: 179-184. (Additional information)
Skeates, Robin 2008. Making sense of the Maltese Temple Period: An Archaeology of Sensory Experience and Perception. Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 1(2): 207-238. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Skeates, R. 2007. Book review: Dougless W. Bailey. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic. Abingdon & New York: Routledge; 2005. Antiquity 81(313): 801-802. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Skeates, R. 2007. Neolithic stamps: cultural patterns, processes and potencies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(2): 183-198. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2003. New radiocarbon dates for prehistoric Italy: supplementary list 5. The Accordia Research Papers 9: 163-182. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2003. Prehistoric chert exploitation in the Valle del Cesolone (Macerata): a preliminary project report. Papers of the British School at Rome 71: 1-15. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2003. Speaking for the past in the present: text, authority and learning in archaeology museums. Public Archaeology 2(4): 209-18. (Additional information)
R. Skeates 2003. Visual culture in prehistoric South-East Italy. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 68: 165-83. (Additional information) (View publication online)
R. Skeates 2000. The social dynamics of enclosure in the Neolithic of the Tavoliere, south-east Italy. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 13.2: 155-88.

Journal papers: professional

Skeates, Robin 2009. Archaeological discoveries in the caves of Seulo, Central Sardinia. The European Archaeologist (32): 4-5.
Skeates, R. 2008. Pounding and grinding stones in prehistoric Malta. The European Archaeologist (29): 8. (Additional information)

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Grants Awarded and Grant Applications

2009: JOURNEYS TO THE UNDERWORLD, The Prehistoric Society, £350.00
2006: THE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION (£2797.00 from The British Academy)
2005: PREHISTORIC PINTADERAS AND VISUAL (£2400.00 from The British Academy)
2004: FDTL5 SAMIAN PROJECT (£31140.00 from Higher Education Funding Council)
2004: VISUAL CULTURE IN PALAEOLITHIC S.E. ITALY (£2100.00 from The British Academy)
2003: THE FIFTH WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS CONFERENCE (£450.00 from The British Academy)