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As a key player in the development of archaeology as a profession the Institute has unique archival holdings and collections for its history while work on archaeological theory underpins all research.
Institute contributions to archaeological theory underpins research within our other themes. Institute staff explored general Darwinian approaches, and their relationship to interpretive archaeology. Work is also undertaken on art history and social theory as well as cultural memory and landscape. Monumental architecture and elaborately crafted works of visual art are amongst the most compelling and important evidence available to the study of past societies. Their interpretation draws upon a wide range of perspectives within archaeology and related disciplines, from style analysis and iconography in art history, through archaeologies of contextual meaning, sociologies and anthropologies of art. Institute research on the history of archaeology is facilitated by our unique archival holdings and collections. Research includes studies of Petrie’s workforce and the wider context of his work as well as Central European archaeology. Institute staff contribute to cross-disciplinary research on the origins of humanity and the dynamics of civilizations.
Projects
Current projects
- Art History and Social Theory
- Central Asian Archaeological Landscapes (CAAL)
- Collections in Exile, Persons in Exile
- Computational Modelling and Human Use of Space
- Decolonising Archaeology: Ethnographies in Egypt
- Early Medieval Atlas
- Filming Antiquity
- From correlations to explanations: towards a new European prehistory (COREX)
- Heritage Protection and AI
- Hunting for Neanderthal and Human Fossils at the Periphery of Palaeolithic Europe
- Image of the Black in Western Art
- Imperial Logistics: The Making of the Terracotta Army
- Interpretive and Evolutionary Archaeologies
- Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments
- PALAEOTHAW: Unlocking records of past permafrost thaw through isotopes of fossil bones
- Petrie Palestinian Project
- Sensing the Iron Age and Roman Past
- Shanxi Digital Documentation Project
- St Patrick’s Chapel Excavation Project
- Sussex climatic reconstruction
- Theatres of the Past
- The Violet Bank Survey: Capturing Fragile Intertidal Prehistory at Scale
Recent projects
- AG Forschungsgeschichte/History of Archaeology (external network)
- Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neolithikum/Neolithic Workgroup (external network)
- Automating Site Detection
- Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe (EUROEVOL)
- Digital Lahun Papyri
- Egypt Object Subject: 'treasuring things' as knowledge-histories
- Macroevolutionary Patterning in Technological Evolution
- ORACEAF: The Origins of the Acheulean in East Africa
- Popular Publishing and the Construction of an Archaeological Identity in the 19th and 20th Centuries
- Theorie AG - Arbeitsgemeinschaft Theorie (external network)
- TOPOI: The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilisations (external network)
- Training in Action
