Job Vacancy: Research Fellow in Archaeobotany

A full-time Research Fellow with practical skills and experience in archaeobotany is sought to join the NERC funded project ‘Evolutionary dynamics of vegetative agriculture in the Ethiopian Highlands’, led by Dorian Fuller, which seeks to address fundamental questions around the evolution of genetic diversity in vegetative agriculture and its relationship to ecological variation and sociocultural history. 

The post-holder will work closely with the PI and will be primarily responsible for processing and studying modern reference samples of enset to develop a reliable enset phytolith identification criteria that define parameters of interpretability in terms of domestication, varietal differences, and/or cultural processing parameters, so that these can be applied to archaeological phytolith samples.

Fieldwork is currently planned for winter 2022-23, foreign office travel guidelines permitting.

The post will be available from 1 October 2022 and will be funded for a period of 31 months in the first instance.

The successful candidate will have obtained a PhD in Archaeology, Archaeobotany or a related discipline (e.g. Quaternary ecology/geography with use of plant microfossils), and have an excellent knowledge of archaeobotanical laboratory and field methods.

Applications are encouraged from those who are underrepresented in the sector and in the UCL Institute of Archaeology including, but not exclusive to, people from Black, Asian, and ethnic minority backgrounds, women, and people who identify as having a disability.

Further information

• Further details of the post and the online application facility are available on the UCL website.
• Enquiries about the vacancy may be directed to Dorian Fuller (d.fuller@ucl.ac.uk).
• Queries about the application process may be directed to the Institute’s HR Administrator, Louisa Goldsmith.