Research
The Archaeology research community in Manchester provides a lively and innovative context for the work of academic staff, postdoctoral scholars and research students. The quality of our work is demonstrated by the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, in which 62.5% of the books and articles that we submitted were judged to be 'world-leading' (4*) or 'internationally excellent' (3*). The unique character of Archaeology research at Manchester results from the combination of theoretical sophistication, a concern with the contemporary social and political context of the discipline, and a commitment to practical field and laboratory based investigations. This makes our research culture unusually coherent, and as a result, rather than being divided into a series of mutually-exclusive research clusters, we have a set of overlapping themes. The work of individual staff contributes to a number of these research themes:
- History, theory and practice of Archaeology (Melanie Giles, Tim Insoll, Sian Jones, Julian Thomas)
- The archaeology of cultural identity (Ina Berg, Eleanor Casella, Hannah Cobb, Tim Insoll, Sian Jones)
- Landscape, monuments and architecture (Ina Berg, Stuart Campbell, Eleanor Casella, Hannah Cobb, Melanie Giles, Sian Jones, Colin Richards, Julian Thomas)
- Technology and society (Ina Berg, Eleanor Casella, Stuart Campbell, Chantal Conneller, Lindy Crewe, Elizabeth Healey, Kevin Gibbs, Colin Richards, Ferran Borrell Tena)
- Death and the body (Stuart Campbell, Chantal Conneller, Lindy Crewe, Melanie Giles, Karina Croucher)
- Archaeological heritage and the contemporary significance of the past (Eleanor Casella, Lindy Crewe, Tim Insoll, Sian Jones)
To find out more about our exciting research projects, please see individual staff profiles and our research projects page. We also carry out significant research in the area of teaching and learning; see here for further information.
Here at Manchester, we have a wide range of great facilities. Since 2007, Archaeology has been situated in new premises with dedicated teaching and research laboratories. An illustration room with computers and specialised archaeological software was added in 2009. In addition, we have a good range of conventional survey, geophysical survey and excavation equipment.
The John Rylands University Library (JRUL) is one of the great research libraries in the UK and complements our in-house Archaeology and Art History reference library. The John Rylands Deansgate Library has an outstanding collection of manuscripts and antiquarian texts. Archaeology has fostered close links with The Manchester Museum whose collections are essential to our teaching and research. The Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit (which houses the Historic Environment Record) is another major resource for our teaching and research.
There is a bi-weekly research seminar in archaeology, with visiting speakers from within and beyond the UK, complementing the speakers invited by the University's Archaeology Society. A Near East and Eastern Mediterranean archaeology seminar series also meets several times a semester. The inter-disciplinary research centre of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, CIDRA, provides a series of seminars, lectures and master-classes from visiting speakers, many of them of interest to Archaeology staff and students. Archaeology also has strong links with the inter-disciplinary research forum Chimera (Cultural heritage, identity and memoryresearch area), which brings together the University's internationally significant research in this area.