People
Charles Andrew Ivey French
Reader in Geoarchaeology
Director of the McBurney Laboratory for Geoarchaeology
Office: 1.3, West Building
Phone: +44 (0) 1223 333533
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 333503
Email: caif2@cam.ac.uk
Entry in the University's Lookup directory service (restricted access)
Dr French came to the Department in 1992 from Fenland Archaeological Trust, where he had been assistant director in charge of contract archaeology and palaeoenvironmentalist since 1983. During that period he was a team member of the Fenland Project, and also worked for the British Museum on the Stonea Grange excavations. Prior to that he combined his MA and PhD research at the Institute of Archaeology in London with digging at the Fengate, Maxey and Etton sites, 1975–1983. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Wales at Cardiff.
He has held most administrative jobs in the Department, but most notably Academic Secretary, Equipment Sub-Committee Chairman, and Head of Department from 2000–2005. In addition, he manages a fully equipped geoarchaeological and micromorphological laboratory (see below) which undertakes a variety of projects funded by research bodies and developer funded archaeology on material from around the world, and he directs the Departmental training excavation in conjunction with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.
Current research interests
For more than the past two decades his main research interests have centred around the application of archaeological techniques and micromorphological analytical techniques to the interpretation of buried landscapes, and more recently on the interpretation of the use of domestic space on settlement sites. Particular emphasis is placed on the recognition of formation processes and human impact on landscapes, especially deforestation, agriculture, soil erosion and desertification.
He also acts as an environmental archaeology consultant and micromorphologist for numerous contracting units in many parts of southern and eastern England. Regions and countries of special research interest include the East Anglian fenlands and the river systems that drain into them, the chalk downlands of Wessex, central Portugal, central Hungary, the Danube Gorges of Serbia, Keros in Greece, northern India, northern Ethiopia, South Korea, southern Patagonia in Chile, and New Mexico.
Dr French is currently involved with ten research projects: multi-disciplinary investigations of Neolithic/Bronze Age environmental change in the Avon River basin around Durrington Walls; geomorphological and micromorphological investigations of Holocene erosion and palaeosol sequences in the upper Tejo valley of Portugal, the lower Benta valley in Hungary, the Aksum area of northern Ethiopia, the Rio Puerco basin of New Mexico, and coastal and steppe regions of southern Patagonia in Chile, as well as more site specific investigations of the votive and settlement site on Keros in the Cycladic Islands of Greece, the early prehistoric settlement and burial site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges in Serbia, the Bronze Age dry field and paddy field settlement at Cheonan in South Korea, and the Harappan period sites north and south of Delhi in northern India. In addition, he oversees a variety of projects by doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows on the use of space in domestic structures using micromorphological techniques, for example in Turkey, India and Iceland.