Geoarchaeology

Geoarchaeology at Aberdeen integrates a broad range of expertise and analytical facilities in the Departments of Archaeology, Geography and Environment, Geology and Petroleum Geology, Chemistry, and Plant and Soil Science.

Earth science approaches are being applied to departmental projects spanning the entire history of human occupation in northern Europe and the North Atlantic region, from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Early Modern Period, and through our partnership with the University of Hokkaido, new projects also currently emerging in northern Japan.

With particular strengths in the techniques of:

• soil micromorphology
• multi-element
• trace-element and stable isotope analyses
• particle-size analysis and palynology

researchers at Aberdeen are engaged with key questions about the dynamism of past environments, the diet and mobility of humans and animals.

1. How landscapes have been impacted by human activities such as agriculture and mining, the technologies and social choices involved with fashioning earthen materials into material culture?
2. How past societies organised activities at the site and landscape scales?

• Dr Kate Britton
• Professor Kevin Edwards
• Dr Dmitri Mauquoy
• Dr Tim Mighall
• Dr Ed Schofield
• Véronique Forbes

• Palaeoenvironmental and Palaeoclimatic Reconstruction at the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Site of Neumark-Nord, Germany