Independent Researcher

About

I am a self-employed archaeologist based in Sheffield (UK) where I work on pottery assemblages on behalf of a variety of commercial archaeology units, community groups and others.  My area of competence covers later prehistoric pottery in north-eastern England and the Peak District, medieval pottery in more or less the same area and later pottery (post-medieval, early modern and recent) from northern England more generally.

My PhD thesis (completed in 1991) dealt with the trade and exchange of late La Tene slip decorated pottery (often known as 'painted pottery' although I consider that a misnomer) in central Europe (southern Poland, eastern Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics).  Several articles came out of this work although it was unsuitable for publication as a monograph.

My original intention in becoming self-employed was to develop my research interest in ceramic technology and its social dimensions within the context of commercial archaeology and in pursuit of this I have published a number of articles in which I have reflected upon some of the wider social and economic issues around the manufacture and consumption of medieval and post-medieval pottery.  In general however, the project has not proved to be a successful one in that I have found myself constantly racing to finish one project before starting on the next with little or no time to pursue the many research possibilities generated by the individual projects.  It is a matter of considerable concern to me that research and the production of pottery reports on a commercial basis seem to be incompatible.  As a result of this I have published  number of papers with my colleague Paul Blinkhorn in which we have tried to warn of the dangers inherent in the wholesale commercialisation of archaeology.  Sadly these warnings have gone largely unheeded within the profession.

I have recently completed a report on an extremely interesting assemblage of Stamford ware from a pottery in Pontefract in West Yorkshire (as described in an interim report in the current (2009) issue of 'Medieval Archaeology'.  I am currently working on some large assemblages of hand-made pottery from later prehistoric and Roman period sites in eastern Yorkshire.

Beyond pottery I have a general interest in archaeological method and theory, particularly connected with material culture but also including the relationship between archaeology and nationalism, the result of several periods of work on sites in Beirut in the mid to late 1990s and at Catal Hoyuk (Turkey) in 1997.  I have also worked on projects in France, Germany and Syria.

I am currently vice-chair of RESCUE - The British Archaeological Trust having previously served for five years as secretary.