Trees-DLA funded PhD projects available

The TREES Doctoral Landscape Award (DLA) is an innovative, inclusive, and interdisciplinary PhD training programme dedicated to preparing the next generation of environmental scientists.

Supported by NERC, with a collaboration of 10 Hosting Partners and over 70 industry, academic, and NGO partners, TREES combines cutting-edge research training with a strong focus on equity, diversity, and sustainability.

The following funded PhD projects are available at the UCL Institute of Archaeology.

Project 1: How old is slash-and-burn in Amazonia?

Supervisors: Manuel Arroyo-Kalin and Dorian Fuller (UCL)

Slash-and-burn is the dominant strategy for plant cultivation in rural Amazonia yet its antiquity in pre-Colonial times is unclear. Ascertaining both its antiquity and differences compared to modern swidden cultivation can significantly expand current understandings of the extent to which Amazonian rainforests were modified by human populations in the past, e.g.: Were pre-colonial plant cultivation systems extensive or intensive?   How were they transformed by the introduction of new tools / new cultivars? How much of the landscape was managed through agroforestry strategies? How did this impact past human demography? 

This PhD project will apply geoarchaeological/archaeobotanical methods to document the variability of anthropogenic soil modification and plant cultivation practices associated with indigenous settlement in the NW Amazon. Techniques to be employed include soil micromorphology, taxonomic identification of plant macro / micro remains, geochemical characterisation, isotope analysis, luminescence profiling, magnetic susceptibility, and/or particle size analysis. 

Locales to be studies in the NW Amazon will be sampled as part of the archaeological component of a Brazil-UK project scheduled to begin in 2025, the PhD candidate may be involved in the fieldwork. Archaeological, land use, ethnobotanical, and palaeoecological evidence produced by multiple research partners will provide broader context to the PhD.

Apply for this TREES-DLA PhD studentship

Project 2: Human or Animal? Biomolecular Analysis of Upper Palaeolithic Bone Artefacts to Explore Raw Material Selection

Supervisors: Rhiannon Stevens (UCL) and Selina Brace (NHM)

Bone and antler became important raw materials for Upper Palaeolithic people. Osseous materials were used to make tools such as harpoons, projectile points, needles, and portable art. It is generally assumed that archaeological osseous artefacts were made from animal skeletal remains. However, the manipulation of skeletal remains by Palaeolithic people was not limited to animals. 

Magdalenian human groups (with Goyet Q2 genetic ancestry) practiced funerary cannibalism and ritualistic manipulation of human remains, including the shaping of skull cups and engravings. By contrast, Epigravettian human groups (with Villa Bruna genetic ancestry), who replaced Magdalenian people, practiced primary burial behaviour rather than cannibalism. This raises the question of whether Magdalenian people only manipulated human skeletal remains as part of their funerary practices or whether human remains are a hidden part of Upper Palaeolithic osseous industries. 

This project will use palaeoproteomic techniques (ZooMS) to determine the species used to make Upper Palaeolithic osseous artefacts.  It will examine whether certain species were selected as raw material for specific artefact and how the ZooMS identified species reflect the zooarchaeological record at archaeological sites. Where artefact raw material is identified to be human bone, ancient DNA will be used to explore their genetic ancestry and stable isotopes to explore their diet and geographic origin.

Apply for this TREES-DLA PhD studentship

Project 3: Establishing Limits of late Neanderthal Presence in Britain 

Supervisors: Matt Pope and Rhiannon Stevens (UCL)

For over a quarter of a century the late Neanderthal record of Britain has been considered to relate entirely to a short period between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. This episode of reoccupation is thought to have followed almost 120,000 years of absence of any human species in Britain and ended with the appearance of Homo sapiens in the region after 43,000 years ago. The data this hiatus-reoccupation paradigm is based on is very limited, has been challenged by specific findings from development-responsive archaeology and looks very different to the records documented for adjacent areas of northern France and the Channel Islands.  

This project will review the British record for Late Middle Palaeolithic sites, contemporary faunal assemblages, stone artefact technology and dated interventions in Quaternary contexts from MIS 6 to the end of MIS 3. This process will allow for the identification of previously undated sites with artefacts or modified animal bone and apply direct dating of fauna through C14 or by OSL dating of associated sediments. This programme of scientific dating will be interpreted alongside a geoarchaeological appraisal of each record, direct comparison with the continental sequence and the scrutinization of our sampling coverage and biases. The aim is to test the reliability of the hiatus-reoccupation paradigm and provide a new, robust characterisation of the record of the last Neanderthal populations in northwest Europe.

Apply for this TREES-DLA PhD studentship

Deadline

• The deadline for all applications is 20 January 2025 (5pm UK time) 

Read more about graduate research at the UCL Institute of Archaeology

Image: © Trees DLA 2024