Environment, Archaeology, History and Anthropology
Our research contains world-leading and internationally excellent research from a wide range of disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities, including Environmental and Marine Sciences, Archaeology, Geography, History and Anthropology.
Research in this area ranges from the modelling of historic climate change records through tree dating ancient wood and global policy on climate change and shoreline management, to the practices and cultures of food heritage and consumption, to the study of medieval texts and their sources. Noted for its high research impact, research in this area has contributed to significant applied advances on an international basis.
Operation CLIC Europe is a research and innovation application to the work programme: Disaster resilience and climate change
- Forest Resources for Iberian Empires: Ecology and Globalization in the Age of Discovery
- Consuming Authenticity: Assembling Welsh Cider
- Coastal and Marine Research Group
- The Newport Medieval Ship
- Strata Florida Project
- Fetternear and the Scottish Episcopal Palaces Project
- Archaeology of the Mabinogion
- Monastic Wales
- Wales Qatar Archaeological Project
- Tregaron Elephant Project
- Consuming Materialities: Bodies, Borders and Encounters
- Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture
- Arediou-Vouppes (Lithosouros) A Late Bronze Age Farming Community on Cyprus
- Arediou: Hidden Pasts
Like all research in the cluster, the seascapes and coastal zone themes focuses on physical processes and coastal research on resilience and adaptation to climate change impacts as well as the discovery and prediction of new archaeological sites. Work here is organised through the following themes, much of which has an applied and policy focus with high level international representation in global forums. The theme is explored in various ways through the following projects and areas of research activity:
- Survey in shallow marine and estuarine zones
- Inundated landscapes
- Anthropogenic processes and waste management
- Shoreline morphological responses to climate change
- Integrated Coastal Zone Management; marine reserve networks
- Coastal & marine policy; critical habitats for cetacean and morphological responses to climatic flux
- ForSEAdiscovery: Forest resources for Iberian Empires
- Dendrochronology and the construction of climate records
- Dendrochronology: Maritime Heritage and Shipwrecks
- The Newport Medieval Ship
Research in this area has had a significant impact on a number of different non-academic beneficiaries, most recently with the Strata Florida project which has acted as catalyst for the raising of Strata Florida’s profile to one which is recognised as a site of both national and international significance. Work in Qatar and Scotland has informed the relevant historic records through close participation with national heritage agencies, while novel approaches to the study of astronomy and ‘skyscapes’ are forging new research agendas. This broad theme is explored in various ways through the following projects:
Community is variously interpreted as rural communities, community archaeology, connected communities, and textual communities. Research has in each case sought to engage contemporary audiences in their heritage through representation, whilst also exploring the ways in which issues of sustainability are implicated in the relations between the past, the present and the future. Key research areas and projects include:
- Connected communities and digital archaeologies
- Food and sustainability
- Geoarchaeological research on Iron Age Shetland
- The religious communities of Fetternear
- Medieval monastic houses
- Norton Priory and the Norton Priory ‘Monastery to Museum 900’ initiative
- Medieval texts
- Middle English manuscripts and early printed books
- The Welsh Experience of World War One
This strand brings together research on technologies and the chains of production of material culture, as well as a broader concern with concepts relating the use of material culture in the ancient and modern world. Key aims in relation to archaeology and text based studies are to ensure that the our research contributes to the development and understanding of how museum collections are used by a community of curators, researchers, students and other visitors; in the case of food heritage, political, economic and medical anthropological approaches are brought together to explore the meanings and practices of food consumption. Key projects include:
- Dr Emma-Jayne Abbots (2)
- Dr Andrew Abram
- Luci Attala
- Prof David Austin
- Dr Roderick Bale
- Dr Martin Bates (2)
- Dr Jemma Bezant
- Dr Erika Guttmann-Bond
- Prof Janet Burton
- Dr Nicholas Campion
- Dr Ros Coard
- Michael J Cullis (2)
- Dr Penny Dransart (2)
- Christopher House
- Dr Rhian Elizabeth Jenkins
- Dr William Marx
- Dr Lester Mason
- Associate Professor Nigel Nayling
- Dr Andrew Petersen
- Prof Michael Robert Phillips
- Dr Louise Steel
- Prof Allan Thomas Williams
- Dr Katharina Zinn
- Dr Tony Thomas