Staff profile

I joined the Iinsitute for Advanced Study in 2020 as an administrator, where I perform a variety of day-to-day administrative tasks. 

I have a background in Archaeology. My research interests focus on landscape archaeology of the medieval to modern periods with a particular focus on medieval to post-medieval landscapes, and North-East England. I hold a BSc and PhD in Archaeology from Durham University and an MA in English Local History from University of Leicester, thus my expertise bridges Archaeology and History.

• Non-Representational Theories
• 20th century archaeology
• Medieval and post-medieval archaeology
• Landscape archaeology
• The use of historical methods and sources within archaeological research
• The relationship between landscape, society and land tenure
• Agricultural history

Authored book

• O'Donnell, R. (2015). Assembling Enclosure: transformations in the rural landscape of post-medieval north-east England. University of Hertfordshire

Chapter in book

• Gerrard, C., & O'Donnell, R. (2021). The pot, knife and the ring: an archaeology of later medieval material culture. In M. Müller (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003194866-25
• Gerrard, C., & O'Donnell, R. (2020). The Medieval Village Plan. In L. Butler, & C. Gerrard (Eds.), Faxton: Excavations in a Deserted Northamptonshire Village 1966-68 (254-257). Routledge
• Gerrard, C., & O'Donnell, R. (2020). The Long Process of Desertion. In L. Butler, & C. Gerrard (Eds.), Faxton: Excavations in a Deserted Northamptonshire Village 1966-68 (261-263). Routledge
• Butler, L., O'Donnell, R., Hall, D., & Stamper, P. (2020). Place and Landscape. In L. Butler, & C. Gerrard (Eds.), Faxton: Excavations in a Deserted Northamptonshire Village 1966-68 (17-36). Routledge
• O'Donnell, R. (2018). Field Systems and the Arable Fields. In C. Gerrard, & A. Gutiérrez (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain (86-101). Oxford University Press
• Huxtable, M., & O'Donnell, R. (2018). Medieval Colour. In C. Gerrard, & A. Gutiérrez (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain (742-758). Oxford University Press

Journal Article

• Petts, D., O’Donnell, R., & Armstrong, K. (2021). Material Responses to the Great Depression in Northeast England. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 25(4), 1165-1193. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-021-00595-7
• O'Donnell, R., & Armstrong, K. (2020). The Archaeology of 20th Century Factory Management: Four Factories on the Team Valley Trading Estate. Industrial Archaeology Review, 42(2), 154-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/03090728.2020.1799523
• O'Donnell, R., & Petts, D. (2019). 'Rural' Rhetoric in 1930s Unemployment Relief Schemes. Rural History, 30(1), 53-69. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956793319000049
• O'Donnell, R. (2015). The creation of ring-fence farms: some observations from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Northumberland. Agricultural History Review, 63(1), 39-59
• O'Donnell, R. (2014). Conflict, agreement and landscape change: methods of enclosure of the Northern English countryside. Journal of Historical Geography, 44, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2013.09.004
• of Leicestershire's Open Fields. Landscapes, 12(2), 63-83. https://doi.org/10.1179/lan.2011.12.2.63