Research Projects in the Department of Archaeology

At the intersection among the arts, science, and technology, printing is widely recognised as the invention of the millennium. However, and in spite of a resurgence of traditional typographic methods among artists and craftspeople, letterpress equipment and technology face an uncertain future.

This project aims to study the crucibles and finished metal objects recently recovered from the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage site, using techniques from earth and materials sciences.

The archaeology of Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly gaining momentum, thanks to renewed efforts to decolonise and empower indigenous narratives of agency and creativity that have been bolstered further by the increasing application of scientific methods. However, important challenges remain. One is the scarcity of training and archaeological science capacity in sub-Saharan Africa, which is necessary to make these efforts sustainable.

Archaeometallurgical contributions to various research areas such as the provenance of Shang bronzes, ingenious adaptations of metallurgical technologies to different ecological and socioeconomic constraints, and regional developments of metallurgical traditions.

The metalwork of Pre-Columbian America has long fascinated scholars and the public alike. In addition to the sheer allure of gold, this attraction is exacerbated by the extraordinary technical skill that underpins many of these artefacts, as well as their mesmerising iconography, which evokes a rich symbolic world and an appreciation of metals that goes beyond their material worth. Most of these objects were made for ritual use.

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.

Analysis and evaluation of bronze axe hoards during the Late Bronze Age - Iron Age transition. The project investigates provenance, chronology, technological and cultural aspects of bronze deposition of the European Atlantic region.

The aim of the ERC project Beasts to Craft (B2C) is to document the biological and craft records in parchment in order to reveal the entangled histories of improvement and parchment production in Europe from 500-1900 AD.

EHSCAN is a Horizon-MSCA-2022-PF scheme Fellowship Funded by UKRI and hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. 

In Western Europe the main use for artificial monuments out of stone, wood or earthy materials extends from the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (4th and 3rd millennium BCE).  This unique period of landscape adaptation has a lasting, visible imprint on the present. However, as monuments are by definition visual landmarks, there is currently a lack of research regarding the perceptive clues offered by these structures to the people who built and frequented them.

The last decades have witnessed marked achievements of STEM in understanding the remains of humans, animals, and plants from the past by analyzing different materials, both inorganic and organic. These developments have opened-up the great potential for increasing our understanding of cultural heritage, and hence for developing better strategies for its protection and management.

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

Taking as its starting point the radically new perspective offered by recent archaeological discoveries at Rendlesham in SE Suffolk, and with the East Anglian kingdom as the primary case study, this interdisciplinary project (running 2017-2020) aims to establish a new understanding of pathways to territorial lordship and regional kingship in early post-Roman eastern England through analysis of the development and role of central-places in society, economy, politics and ideology, and the networks of which they were a part.

The Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project, funded by Arcadia charitable foundation, is documenting and compiling a trans-national inventory of Africa’s rich archaeological heritage, including many previously unidentified sites and monuments. Particular emphasis is being given to mapping and recording sites under threat, whether from urban growth, conflict, sea-level change or infrastructure development, among other adverse impacts.

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.

How did the biomechanics and ergonomics of the human hand influence the use and production of Palaeolithic stone tools? Traditionally, stone tools have been analyzed for their morphological properties and technological characteristics to infer the cognitive and social evolution of early hominins and modern humans. However, the role of musculoskeletal aspects in the effective use of these tools has been largely overlooked, resulting in an incomplete understanding of Palaeolithic technologies.

The Promised project forms a network of excellence in Bioarchaeology and Archaeological Materials Science within the Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center (STARC) at the Cyprus Institute linked with the advanced research centres in Archaeological Science at KU Leuven and the University of Cambridge.

Cooperation is a markedly human mix of innate and learned behaviour, and a key to tackling some of our greatest concerns. Paradoxically, studies of social dynamics often focus on hierarchies, state formation and political structures ruled by coercive power, with comparatively little regard to the mechanisms whereby humans voluntarily collaborate. Encouragingly, new research on collective action is reconciling classic anthropology with game theory and empirical studies of group resource management, thus heralding a fundamental transformation.

SILKGLASS is a Horizon Europe MSCA-PF fellowship funded by UKRI and hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.

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.

This project will challenge the extant model on the beginning and spread of Islamic glazes, which asserts that they were all derived from the Middle East and spread with Arab expansion, and that new technologies were adopted passively by conquered societies. It will include a variety of glazed ware types dating to the 9^th to 13^th centuries CE from different regions of Central Asia.

PersianTRAIL is a research project using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), and historical-archaeological data to reconstruct the Persian Royal Road (PRR), a key infrastructure of the Achaemenid Empire (6th–4th century BCE). The project examines factors like topography, resource distribution, economy, military logistics, and environmental constraints to understand the empire’s strategic planning.

The PlaCe network is a high-profile partnership focused on the interdisciplinary study of pre-modern ceramics and plasters. This Innovative Training Network aims at training Early-Stage Researchers to conduct state-of-the-art, science-based research on the technology, use, and provenance of ceramics and plaster, integrating archaeological materials science with biomolecular archaeology. The geographic focus is the Eastern Mediterranean, but we are hoping to push methodological developments of significance in other regions.

The transition from Oldowan to Acheulean technologies are hypothesised to be concomitant with advances in cognition and behaviour. However, the nature of these shifts, and their cultural and evolutionary implications are poorly defined and understood. While extensive literature exists on these technologies, significant differences in research methods and traditions make comparative and comprehensive analyses problematic.