Professor Joanna Bruck

Summary

My primary area of research is the archaeology of the British Bronze Age. I am particularly interested in the treatment of the human body and concepts of the self; depositional practices and what these reveal about the meanings and values ascribed to objects; and the relationship between space and society including domestic architecture and the changing organisation of landscape. I co-organise the Bronze Age Forum, which holds biannual conferences on the British and Irish Bronze Age. I have a longstanding interest in archaeological theory, particularly relational ontologies and phenomenological approaches to archaeological landscapes, and I am an editor of Archaeological Dialogues. I have a developing research interest in historical archaeology, including Victorian and Edwardian public parks as landscapes of improvement in which normative models of class, gender and colonial identities were constructed. I have recently published an edited volume on the material and visual culture of the 1916 Rising in Ireland, arising out of my work on the archaeology of internment from 1916-1923.

Biography

I completed my BA and PhD in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, where I also held a Junior Research Fellowship at Clare Hall.  Before joining Archaeology and Anthropology at Bristol, I was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin.  My primary area of research is the archaeology of the British Bronze Age. I am particularly interested in the treatment of the human body and concepts of the self; depositional practices and what these reveal about the meanings and values ascribed to objects; and the relationship between space and society including domestic architecture and the changing organisation of landscape. I co-organise the Bronze Age Forum, which holds biannual conferences on the British and Irish Bronze Age, and edit PAST, the newsletter of the Prehistoric Society. I have a longstanding interest in archaeological theory, particularly relational ontologies and phenomenological approaches to archaeological landscapes, and I am a member of the editorial board of Archaeological Dialogues. I have a developing research interest in historical archaeology, including Victorian and Edwardian public parks as landscapes of improvement in which normative models of class, gender and colonial identities were constructed. I am also currently editing a volume on the material and visual culture of the 1916 Rising in Ireland, arising out of my recent work on internment camp craftwork from 1916-1923.

Keywords

• British Bronze Age
• funerary archaeology
• settlements and landscapes
• ritual and ideology
• material culture studies
• archaeological theory
• Victorian and Edwardian public parks
• the archaeology of the 1916 Rising

Memberships

Organisations

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology

Academics by department

• Anthropology and Archaeology

Selected publications

• Bruck, J, 2013, ‘Landscapes of desire: parks, colonialism and identity in Victorian and Edwardian Ireland’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol 17., pp. 196-223
• Bruck, J & Fontijn, D, 2013, ‘The myth of the chief: prestige goods, power and personhood in the European Bronze Age.’. in: The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age. Oxford University Press, pp. 197
• Bruck, J, 2009, ‘Women, death and social change in the British Bronze Age’. Norwegian Archaeological Review, vol 42., pp. 1-23
• Bruck, J & Carlin, N, 2012, ‘Searching for the Chalcolithic: continuity and change in the Irish Final Neolithic/Early Bronze Age’. in: Michael Allen, Alison Sheridan, David McOmish (eds) The British Chalcolithic: people, place and polity in the later third millennium. The Prehistoric Society, pp. 193-210
• Fyfe, R, Bruck, J, Johnston, R, Lewis, H, Roland, T & Wickstead, H, 2008, ‘Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK’. Journal of Archaeological Science, vol 35., pp. 2250-2261

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Recent publications

• Brück, J & Davies, A, 2018, ‘The Social Role of Non-metal ‘Valuables’ in Late Bronze Age Britain’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol 28., pp. 665
• Bruck, J & Jones, A, 2018, ‘Finding objects, making persons: Fossils in British Early Bronze Age burials’. in: E Harrison-Buck, J Hendon (eds) Relational identities and other-than-human agency in archaeology. University of Colorado Press, pp. 237-262
• Bruck, J, 2017, ‘Reanimating the dead: The circulation of human bone in the British Later Bronze Age ’. in: Jennie Bradbury, Chris Scarre (eds) Engaging with the dead: Exploring changing human beliefs about death, mortality and the human body. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 138-148
• Bruck, J, 2017, ‘Gender and personhood in the European Bronze Age’. European Journal of Archaeology, vol 20., pp. 37-40
• Bruck, J & Stutz, LN, 2016, ‘Is archaeology still the project of nation states?’. Archaeological Dialogues, vol 23., pp. 1-3

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system