The People & Place Theme brings together researchers with a range of backgrounds in the disciplines of archaeology, ecology, geology, and (palaeo)environmental science. We use stable and radiogenic isotopes to better understand the natural world and the complex interplay between it and human societies.
Our research into human ecodynamics often builds up from the local and regional, with researchers working or topics in the present through to the deep past. For this reason, chronology figures heavily into what we do – be it investigating the seasonal migration of animals or social/environmental changes over centuries or millennia.
We focus much of our current research activity on:
Food Webs and Diet
- Dietary changes through time
- Agricultural practices
- Effect of diet-linked reservoirs on 14C chronologies
Movement and Mobility of People and Animals
- Human migration
- Land management/Economic practice
- Habitat use
Settlement Dynamics and Local/Regional Environmental Changes
- Humans as dominant drivers shaping the Earth’s biological and physical systems
- Response/mitigation to climatic/environmental changes
- Effect of the emergence, spread, and intensification of agriculture
Technological and Stylistic Developments in Material Culture
- Creation of independent chronologies for artefacts
- Transculturation and technological/stylistic change of material culture
- Material culture and ‘networks of ideas’