Archaeology & Palaeoecology MPhil

Overview

The research undertaken within Archaeology & Palaeoecology largely falls under two interdisciplinary Research Clusters; Environmental Change & Resilience (ECR) for more environmentally-related projects, and Culture & Society (C&S) for more humanities-related Archaeology projects.

Projects involving Palaeoecology or Scientific Archaeology focus on themes such as long-term changes and resilience in ecosystems, humans, environments and climate, using approaches such as pollen analysis, tephra dating, dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating. Much of our research spans several disciplines - for example projects on the hydrogeology and restoration of bogs.

Research in the C&S cluster explores the material manifestations of culture through time and space. We combine innovative scientific methods with theoretically-informed analyses to understand past human experience, bringing together the humanities and the sciences.

The combination of environmental archaeology, and especially bio-archaeology, with more traditional approaches to the past, helps to differentiate Queen's from most other Archaeology departments and is seen as both a strength and stimulus to future developments.

Career Development

• Long-standing record of inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding the relationship between past humans and their environment.