skip to content

Department of Archaeology

 

Biography

In 2015, I graduated from Durham University with a BA (Honours) in Archaeology. I then successfully completed my MA in Archaeology at Leiden University in 2016, where I investigated reuse in Maya monumental architecture of pre-and post-colonial Yucatán in relation to heritage formation within local indigenous communities. In the subsequent years, I worked as a leading excavation director and professional archaeologist in Germany.

Beyond finalising my doctoral research at Cambridge, I am currently conducting collections research at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, as a Visiting Researcher; as part of this, I analyse the iconography and provenience of its Costa Rican jade, jadeite stone, and greenstone adze-like objects and (amuletic) pendants. I am intrigued by the role of these objects as indicators of rank and prestige as well as expressing ideology and religion through material culture – including the use of jade artefacts in social, political, and religious contexts. This will be a particularly interesting starting point for the study of social complexity in Costa Rica.

Research

Dissertation title: Living (with the) past – on the everyday experience, valuation, and performance of heritage

 

Related and general fields of interest further include:

  • (adaptive) reuse and transformation
  • Intermediate Area archaeology
  • valuation
  • built environment, materiality, and spatiality
  • monumental architecture
  • collaborative archaeology and anti-colonial, anti-racist archaeologies
  • complex societies and state-formation
  • the Archaeology-Heritage divide

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching: 

I am a Teaching Assistant in Heritage Studies (G23 Heritage Management) and am teaching and supervising students in the modules A1 World Archaeology and G24 Special Topics in Heritage Studies.

Research supervision: 

Other Professional Activities

Job Titles

PhD Student in Archaeology
kim_ruf_profile_pic.jpg

General Info

Available for consultancy
Research Expertise / Fields of study: 
Material Culture
Socio-Politics of the Past
Built Environment
Field Methods
Heritage Management
Cultural Heritage

Contact Details

Affiliations

Subjects: 
Archaeology
Heritage Studies
Themes: 
Environment, Landscapes and Settlement
Material Culture
Heritage
Rethinking Complexity
Geographical areas: 
Americas
Europe
Southeast Asia
Periods of interest: 
Other Historical
Other Prehistory