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Research

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Bioarchaeology Research Group

A research group of the Department of Archaeology.

The Bioarchaeology Research Group at Durham is undertaking and expanding cutting edge and internationally renowned research reconstructing human lifeways using biological remains. Members of the group have a broad range of expertise in biomolecular archaeology, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, palaeoecology, and palaeopathology. We are involved in a wide range of research projects on diverse geographical and temporal scales.

The group focuses on a number of related research themes, addressing major archaeological questions with the development of new techniques, alongside established methods:

We have obtained funding for this work with research grants from the AHRC, NERC, the British Academy, the Wellcome Trust and the Leverhulme Trust. Visiting scholars in recent years have included Prof Prof Yuan Jing (Institute of Archaeology, Beijing, funded by Leverhulme Trust) and Prof Jane Buikstra (Arizona State University, funded by the Institute of Advanced Studies).

The group includes a number of post-doctoral researchers and postgraduate and undergraduate students undertaking dissertations on key research areas. Major collaborative projects are a hallmark of the Bioarchaeology Research Group and thus we believe the academic environment for such work within the Department of Archaeology at Durham is currently unsurpassed anywhere in the UK. We welcome enquiries about potential research projects at post-graduate and post-doctoral levels.

Dispersals and Diasporas

Our group uses a variety of cutting edge techniques to investigate the movement of people and the animals that travel with them. Andrew Millard and Mike Richards are experts in the application of strontium and oxygen isotopes to identify individuals who have migrated, with post-doctoral or PhD projects applying this methodology to Medieval Britain (NERC funded), the Beaker period (AHRC funded), Crusaders (British Academy funded), the Dutch Neolithic (NWO funded) and Minoan Crete (Wiener Foundation funded). Charlotte Roberts and Sarah Groves are applying similar methods in collaboration with colleagues from NCIET in Earth Sciences (Graham Pearson and Colin MacPherson) to the people buried at the Bowl-Hole Anglian cemetery at Bamburgh (AHRC funded). Recent British Academy funding (Charlotte Roberts, Andrew Millard, and Earth Science colleagues) is exploring the origin and mobility of pre-Columbian syphilitic individuals from Hull.

Keith Dobney and Greger Larson are using novel genetic and morphometric methods to study the dispersal of animals across Europe (pig and Orkney vole), and the Pacific (pig and Pacific rat), which has led to a new model for Austronesian dispersal. Mike Church uses innovative approaches to dating and charcoal production in Norse and medieval Iceland to investigate the timing and impact of Norse landnám in the North Atlantic.

Origins and Spread of Agriculture

Our projects in this area focus on the origins and spread of domesticated animals and plants, and the later innovations in husbandry and cultivation practices. The on-going Pig Project has had a number of grants and involves Peter Rowley-Conwy, and Greger Larson in wide-ranging studies of pig domestication and exploitation, which are having a major impact in this field. An initial Wellcome Trust and AHRB funded project on the bioarchaeology of pig domestication and husbandry established that pigs were domesticated in a number of different places and at different times. Current work by Keith Dobney focuses on the wider issues of the origin and spread of stock-keeping in the Near East and Europe (AHRC funded), whilst Peter Rowley-Conwy continues his high profile work on the Mesolithic of Denmark and Southern Sweden. A recently awarded grant from NERC to Keith Dobney and Greger Larson with Una Strand Viðarsdóttir (Anthropology) and Rus Hoelzel (Biological Sciences) will further develop and apply the combined techniques of aDNA and geometric morphometrics in domestic and wild pigs to explore signatures for independent domestication and the dispersal of early farmers in Europe.

Post-doctoral researchers in this area: Sue Colledge, Thomas Cucchi, Liora Horwitz, Barbara Stopp.

Diet

Mike Richards and Andrew Millard use carbon and nitrogen isotopes to investigate diet. Chronologically their work ranges from Neanderthals to the nineteenth century, and has a global coverage. Prehistoric diet is a major theme of this work, encompassing Palaeolithic diets, the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Europe, and Beaker period diet, but we also research later periods, notably through Charlotte Roberts and Sarah Groves' work on the Anglian cemetery at Bamburgh. Keith Dobney, Peter Rowley-Conwy and Jacqui Huntley use more traditional investigations of animal and plant remains to investigate bioarchaeological remains from archaeological sites, notable recent work has focussed on the Anglo-Saxon site at Flixborough, Lincolnshire, and on Qasr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia.

Health

Charlotte Roberts, Becky Gowland and Tina Jakob investigate past human health through question and hypothesis driven research,and place it in a socio-cultural context. Major projects focus on specific diseases and include studies of the origin and evolution of tuberculosis using biomolecular analysis (Roberts, NERC funded), the bioarchaeology of leprosy (Roberts, Leverhulme Trust funded) and biomolecular and histological approaches to identifying tuberculosis and syphilis in skeletal remains (Roberts and von Hunnius, SSHRC Canada funded). More general approaches to the health of communities form the basis of studies of Littleport Anglo-Saxon Cemetery (Gowland), the Bowl-Hole, Bamburgh (Roberts with Groves, AHRC funded) and ancient Rome (Gowland, British Academy funded) and the Global History of Health project (Roberts). Keith Dobney uses investigations of animal health to further our understanding of past societies.

Staff

Academic Staff

Archaeological Services Durham University

Research Student

From other departments

Publications by staff in this group

Books: authored

Books: edited

Edited works: contributions

Journal papers: academic

Journal papers: popular

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

Books: reviews

Other publications: research

Books: sections

Edited works: conference proceedings

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