Research Projects in the Department of Archaeology

The above photo shows: A left lateral aspect of a cranium from Catignano (a Middle Neolithic village in Abruzzo), showing two healing trepanations on the left parietal bone and healed fracture on the left frontal and parietal bones of a 40-50 year old female

Archaeological data is often biased and incomplete. This is a well-known issue for most archaeologists. Although studies of specific sites and small regions can have this into account, the effect of this problem increases exponentially as archaeologists expand their chronological and geographic frame, and try to answer questions related to general dynamics and broad human processes.

The 10th-5th centuries BCE (the first centuries of the Iron Age) witnessed significant societal transformations across the Mediterranean. Populations grew in many regions, the first genuine economic integration of the basin occurred through maritime interaction and overseas settlement, and, for the first time, communities characterisable as urban and state-like are identifiable from the sea’s eastern littoral (where they had a deeper Bronze Age history) through to its Atlantic border.

‘BODIES MATTER’ focuses on the material culture of bodies (and the self) in colonial borderlands by comparing three frontiers at various periods and geographies: the Spanish Empire’s southern borderland in the Americas in the AD 16th-19th century, the Punic western Mediterranean in the 6th-2nd century BC, and the Islamic-Christian Ethiopian frontier between the AD 10th and 15th century.

Study of the sustainability and subsequent radical change amongst the Maltese Temple Building populations of prehistoric Malta in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.

A large-scale multi-disciplinary study of pre-Roman iron technology in the Iberian Peninsula.

The project focuses on the models of circulation of raw materials during the Iberian Late Prehistory, as well as the use and social value given to the different materials, with special attention to metals and amber. 

This project aims to gain a better understanding of the relationship of Crete with the world outside the island through the lens of a key body of materials: goldwork.

The aim of this project will be to investigate the nature and impact of Roman imperialism on the frontiers of North Africa (specifically the Maghreb), especially in considering the role of Roman imperialism on the political economy of the region and its impact on both pre-existing communities and the formation of new communities in the provinces. The notion of frontier is wide-ranging and is inspired by Border Studies, and considers the impact of the frontier in community-formation at both the border and the provincial cores of the Roman Maghreb.

The project Science @ Tarquinia aims to provide the complementary scientific support for the long-standing study of the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia by the University of Milan. This Unesco World Heritage site is well known for its magnificent painted tombs, its city walls, the Temple of Ara Regina and the monumental zone where the University of Milan has worked for over 30 years. The collaborative work (which started in September 2019) includes flotation, micromorphology, AMS dating, isotopic analysis and aDNA.

Cambridge is home to world-leading researchers across archaeological science, technical art history and heritage science, based at Department of Archaeology, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Hamilton Kerr Institute, among others. There are multiple synergies across these institutions in terms of research methodologies, goals and ambitions in the field of technical and scientific investigation of works of art and archaeological objects.