Research
We are the only four-field anthropology department in the UK, combining archaeology with social, evolutionary, and linguistic anthropology. We foster research that is inherently multi- and interdisciplinary, in order to understand the past, present and future of everyday human lives.
Research Areas
Ranging from community-based ethnography to archaeological science, our research takes place in village households, radiocarbon labs, schools and workplaces, and at world heritage monuments, policy forums and cross-cultural databases. The breadth of our innovative interdisciplinary research was highlighted by the REF2021 panel as a unique and distinctive strength of the Department.
Activity to support research in the Department centres around our core areas:
- Social and linguistic anthropology
- Evolutionary and biological anthropology
- Archaeological science and practice
Many of us practice across subfields, creating the intellectual agility that fosters our extensive collaborations beyond our discipline, from animation to zoology. Regionally, we have specialisms in South America, East Africa, and East Asia/Oceania, and a focus on British history from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages.
Cross-cutting Themes
Over the last decade, two cross-cutting strengths have emerged in the Department: Adaptations to adversity, and Innovative methodologies.
Adaptations to adversity
Our enquiries track the challenges faced by human beings past and present, exploring how lives and material cultures are impacted by technological, social, and environmental changes. These questions drive our research:
- Theresia Hofer: How are large-scale shifts to formal schooling and urbanisation affecting the lives of ethnic minorities across the Greater Himalayan region? How are global movements for disability rights enacted in local sites and to what ends?
- Amy Penfield: What are the lived experiences and moral quandaries faced by people who actively engage in extractive activities that destroy Amazonian environments?
- Adom Philogene Heron: How do Caribbean communities make life in the face of existential threats caused by planetary warming? How do humans live on from the losses of life, livelihood and homes caused by hurricanes and tropical storms?
- Juan Zhang: What kinds of futures do people search for when they leave homes and homelands, cross multiple borders, and embark on journeys of hope and uncertainty?
- Mhairi Gibson: How and why does gender based violence persist? Are harmful norms socially transmitted and maintained, and what are the potential pathways to change?
- Kit Opie: How did kinship, power and hierarchies emerge in cultures and societies across the world? In particular, what were the drivers of change from small egalitarian societies to large-scale states with widespread inequalities?
- Lorena Becerra-Valdivia: How did humans adapt to abrupt climatic and ecological changes in the past, particularly in the initial settlement of South America? What does human ‘resilience’ mean and how is this expressed and interpreted from the archaeological record?
- Stuart Prior: How do people cope with unrest, conflict, anarchy and war? What are the driving factors in dissension? How do people respond to widespread change, and what evidence remains to be unpicked by future generations?
Innovative Methodologies
We share a strong commitment to empirical and ethnographic research. We develop and co-create cutting-edge approaches that lead to rich, previously-untapped knowledge and new methodological engagement with past and contemporary societies.
- Neil Carrier: How can we co-create and develop more equitable and realistic drug policy? Could better drug policy lead to more sustainable futures?
- William Tantam: How do survivors of violence develop strategies for living well in post-trauma? What creative and practical methods do survivors develop to cope and respond?
- Mark Gillings: How can we use World Heritage sites to challenge and confront dangerous narratives and give voice to previous silenced and elided stories?
- Camilla Morelli: How can we use animation to empower young people to have their voices heard on the impact of climate change?
- Lucy Cramp: How and why did major dietary transitions in the past take place, and how did foodways respond to cultural or environmental stimuli?
- Helen Fewlass: How can we develop methods that strike a balance between generating important biomolecular insights and preserving precious human fossils?
- Fiona Jordan: What cultural evolutionary processes shape cultural and linguistic diversity?
We run the Bristol Anthropology and Archaeology Research Seminar, a regular research seminar series. Other workshops and meetings are listed on our events page.
Research events
We run a regular research seminar series and are frequently involved with one-off research events.