Archaeology of the North
Research in this area is diverse but a major focus is the global impact of Viking culture. Research topics range from palaeoecological reconstruction and the impact of cultures on settled and non-settled lands, to the role played by domestic architecture in the structuring and negotiation of social relations. This work has received over £2 million funding from the Leverhulme Trust. An additional focus has been a cutting edge programme of archaeological field work , ethno-archaeology and community archaeology based around a flagship project with the Yup'ik community in Alaska. This has recently been supported by a £1.1 million AHRC grant.
Human Palaeoecology
Our work here engages with advancing methodological and empirical research related to the origin, nature and rate of long-term environmental and climate change and its general or specific links to human behaviour and activity. This includes the application of a range of cutting edge palynological methodologies, including recent £0.8 million NERC support of work in Patagonia. It also involves use of advanced bioarchaeology techniques in understanding, for example animal domestication including current NERC funding to establish the timing of dog domestication in different parts of the world.
Research in this theme is distributed across two groups: