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![[Photo of Graeme Barker]](gb314.jpg "Graeme Barker")
Graeme Barker
Disney Professor of Archaeology; Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research; Professorial Fellow, St John's College, Cambridge; FBA, FSA, MIFA
Office: 1.6, Courtyard Building
Phone: 01223 339284
Fax: 01223 339285
Email: gb314@cam.ac.uk
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Research interests
The focus of my research can broadly be described as `human landscapes', the relations, both short- and long-term, between people and environment in the past: How have past human societies and the environments they inhabited constructed and transformed each other? And can understanding these past relationships help inform the present and the future? It is an interest that I have pursued in different ecologies (temperate, semi-arid, arid, rainforest) and with societies at different levels of complexity from the emergence of our species to Roman farmers and, currently in Borneo, present-day rainforest farmers and foragers. The transitions to farming (the `agricultural revolution in prehistory') have been a particular focus for many years, but more recently my interests have moved backwards in time to the origins of modern human behaviour and the adaptations (from environmental to cognitive) made by our species in their migrations out of Africa.
Current research projects
I am currently Principal Investigator on four projects:
- The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project: A a reinvestigation of the ?100,000- year long settlement record of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica, northeast Libya, and the contemporary landscape record. (Funder: Society for Libyan Studies)
- The Cultured Rainforest Project: A study of the history of rainforest foraging and farming in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak. (Funders: Association of SE Asianists, UK; AHRC)
- Rainforest Foraging and Farming in Island Southeast Asia: The Niah Cave Project, a multi-institutional and inter-disciplinary investigation of the 50,000-year history of human settlement in the Niah Caves, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. (Funders: AHRC; British Academy; British Academy's Committee for Southeast Asian Studies; NERC)
- Patterns of horse domestication in Eurasia, a study integrating archaeozoology (Dr Marsha Levine) and modern and ancient DNA studies (Dr Mim Bower). (Funder: Leverhulme Trust)