Archaeology

This website was originally called ‘finds and features‘ – a commonly used phrase in the ‘grey-literature’ of commercial archaeology. Referring to objects (finds) and the alterations to the landscape below ground (features) that are uncovered during excavation.

I worked in archaeology until 2015. You can find my formal publications, reviews and my PhD thesis here. I am no longer active in archaeological research, but I want my work to be accessible to people who are.

I started writing here in 2008. I was initially inspired by all of the fascinating archaeology I was reading about and analysing whilst working for English Heritage on the Greater London Heritage Environment Record. I continued to write when I started my PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, on the scientific analysis of technological materials. During this period I self-taught myself GIS mapping, and my work for English Heritage combined big datasets with maps so you’ll also see some GIS work here. I held a number of Teaching Assistant positions, and occasionally I posted about my experiences teaching and learning. I like a good dataset, and I also became fascinated with hands-on practical aspects of ancient technologies, including smithing and casting, so there’s quite a mix of blog posts.

You can also see all of my blog posts about archaeology under the following categories:

I have a number of pages of bibliographies relating to archaeological materials research. Why post bibliographies? Many archaeology papers aren’t published online, and older journals sometimes don’t even post indexes of their papers online. How do you know if there are papers out there that cover exactly what you’re looking for? Well, sometimes I’ve been lucky and a search online has revealed an article title in someone else’s bibliography that has been just perfect. So I post mine here, just in case I can return the favour. They are in the following categories, and tend to stop before 2015: