Dr Kris Lockyear

Senior Lecturer

Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square

Institute of Archaeology

Joined UCL: 29th Apr 1999

Research summary

Geophysical survey in archaeology
Archaeological methods, especially in field archaeology, including field survey, photography, and excavation.
Iron age and Roman archaeology and numismatics particularly in the UK and Romania.
Multivariate Statistical methods.
The archaeology and history of Hertfordshire
Community Archaeology

Having become interested in geophysics during my undergraduate degree, I returned to the subject in the early 2000s, and it has subsequently become a major focus of my research. With the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group I have worked on 33 sites in the region between 2013 and 2019 using magnetometry, Earth Resistance Survey, GPR and Resistivity pseudo-sections. These include a major new survey of the Roman city of Verulamium. The Verulamium survey now consists of 1km² of magnetometry survey as well as extensive areas of GPR and Earth Resistance survey. The project won the prize for poster poster at the ISAP conference in December 2018. I have also undertaken surveys in Poland, Romania, Iraq, Italy and the US.

Having worked for three years as a professional field archaeologist, I maintain an interest in the field and the development of techniques. I have worked on, or undertaken, excavations and surveys in the UK, Poland, Romania and Italy. In 2000, I, in collaboration with Adrian Popescu (Cambridge) and Tim Sly (Southampton) began a field project at the major Roman and Byzantine site of Noviodunum which lies on the banks of the Danube in eastern Romania. The project involved field survey and geophysics, with major excavation seasons between 2005-10. I am working on the analysis of the Roman ceramic building materials, and the project is currently being written-up.

One major strand of my research has been into coinage, and especially Roman Republican coin hoards. The focus has been on hoard formation processes, and the information that hoards can give us about patterns of coinage manufacture, supply, circulation and use. My database of Roman Republican coin hoards is available from the American Numismatic Society. I have been involved with the Nomisma project and the European Coin Finds Network since 2013 and was a contributor to the hoards working group designing an ontology for coin hoard studies.

I have an interest in multivariate data analysis especially Correspondence Analysis (CA) and its application to archaeological data. I have published on Dmax-based cluster analysis, detrended CA and bootstrapped CA. I am currently researching compositional data analysis.

I have had an interest in the archaeology of my home county for many years. I have undertaken excavation, field survey and geophysical surveys in the county. I organised the first three Archaeology in Hertfordshire: Recent Research conferences, the first of which was published in 2015. I am on the council of the Hertfordshire Association for Local History and organised their symposium on Local History, Landscape and Archaeology in 2019.

I am academic advisor to KDK Archaeology, a commercial archaeological company.

Community archaeology forms a large proportion of my work, both in geophysics and other aspects of archaeology.

Teaching summary

I coordinate the following modules:

ARCL0038 Research and Presentation Skills (UG core)
ARCL0015 Roman Coinage (UG)
ARCL0042 Theory and Data for the Ancient World (UG)
ARCL0032 Advanced Field Methods (UG)
ARCL0087 Exploratory Multivariate Statistics in Archaeology (PG)
ARCL0143 Remote Sensing (PG)

I jointly teach the following modules:

ARCL0016 History and Archaeology of Roman Britain
ARCL0001 Introduction to Roman Archaeology

as well as contributing sessions to a wide variety of other classes.

I previously ran Introduction to Archaeological Field Methods (1999-2013), Databases in Archaeology (1997-2007), Archaeological Surveying (2000-2001), Photography (2014) and Digital Imaging (2014).

I was Tutor for Fieldwork from 1999 to 2013.

Education

University College London: Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 1996
University of Southampton: Other higher degree, Master of Science | 1989
University of Durham: First Degree, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) | 1987

Biography

I became interested in archaeology when I was nine during a school visit to St Albans/Verulamium in 1975. I subsequently joined the Welwyn Archaeological Society later that year. In 2009 I became the society's Director. As well as excavating with the society on a variety of sites, I worked at the St Albans Chapter House excavation with Martin Biddle in 1978, and at the Wroxeter Baths Basilica site each summer from 1980 to 1984.

In 1983-84 I worked as a field archaeologist for a year working for various professional units. Following my undergraduate degree, I again returned to field archaeology working with the Chelmsford Archaeological Trust and the Hertfordshire AT. Following my masters degree in 1989, I once more returned to field archaeology working for the Test Valley Archaeological Trust before starting my PhD in 1990.

As part of my undergraduate studies, I took courses on the Later Roman Empire and Roman coinage with the late John Casey. The latter course had a strong influence on my later and on-going research into coinage. I worked with WAS for my undergraduate dissertation undertaking systematic field survey and Earth Resistance surveys of the site at Great Humphreys.

During my master's degree in archaeological computing (1988-9) I became especially interested in multivariate statistics and databases, and combined these in my dissertation on Roman Republican Coin Hoards. This study was expanded greatly for my PhD (1990-6) at UCL. During this time I developed an interest in the archaeology of Romania visiting regularly and studying in Iasi for six months in 1993.

Following my PhD I was a HRB Research Fellow for three years before becoming a lecturer in 1999. Having returned to live in Hertfordshire in 2002, I became involved in the archaeology of the region. I have organised three Archaeology in Hertfordshire: Recent Research conferences (in 2012, 2016 and 2018) as well as jointly organising a conference with SAHAAS on Verulamium in 2019. I regularly give talks to local groups. In 2019/2020 Welwyn Hatfield Museum Service obtained a NLHF grant to run a project with WAS and the St Albans YAC entitled What's under our feet? which featured geophysics and excavation at the Welwyn Roman Baths site directed by myself.

Having attended the US National Parks Service workshop on Non-Destructive Methods in Archaeology in Chillicothe, Ohio in 2005, I have subsequently been a tutor on the workshop teaching and demonstrating Earth Resistance survey as well an providing an overview of geophysical survey techniques. The workshop has been held on a wide variety of sites in the US.

In 2013, I founded the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group as part of an AHRC-funded project. The group is an umbrella organization with members from many local archaeological and historical groups. Since 2013, the group has undertaken surveys on 33 sites (up to the end of 2019) in Hertfordshire and surrounding counties. I maintain a project blog that presents our results. I won the Provost's Award for Public Engagement for this project in 2017, and we were a highly commended project in the CBA Marsh Award for Best Community Archaeology Project in 2018.

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