
Dr Lucy Cramp
BA(Hons), MSc(Oxon.), PhD(R'dg)
Expertise
Current positions
Associate Professor in Archaeology
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Research interests
My interdisciplinary research centres on the investigation of ancient patterns of human subsistence, culinary choices and technological practices through the development and application of biomolecular proxies to reconstruct ancient resource use. Specifically, this has focused on biomarkers for processing aquatic products and cereals in pottery vessels using highly sensitive mass spectrometric methods. I apply these proxies to address large-scale questions regarding human responses to cultural or environmental stimuli, with previous research spanning diet of the first farmers in the British Isles and Fennoscandia, to the use of Roman-style culinary vessels in Britain, through to identifying components of balms used in mummification in ancient Egypt. My most recent research project, funded by a bilateral AHRC-DFG award, involves a major programme of radiocarbon dating and spatio-temporal modelling to investigate the origins and large-scale dynamics of early maritime connectivity in the Mediterranean associated with the spread of the so-called ‘Bell Beaker’ phenomenon.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Roman melting pots. Tracing food residues and cultural diversity in a frontier zone
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Anthropology and ArchaeologyDates
14/02/2022 to 13/02/2025
Seascapes: Tracing the emergence and spread of maritime networks in the Central and Western Mediterranean in the 3rd millennium BC
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Anthropology and ArchaeologyDates
01/05/2020 to 31/03/2025
Seascapes: Tracing the Emergence and Spread of Maritime Networks in the Central and Western Mediterranean in the 3rd Millennium BC
Principal Investigator
Description
This project involves a major programme of radiocarbon dating and spatio-temporal modelling to investigate the origins and large-scale dynamics of early maritime connectivity in the Mediterranean associated with the spread…Managing organisational unit
Department of Anthropology and ArchaeologyDates
01/05/2020 to 01/05/2023
The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe (YMPACT)
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Anthropology and ArchaeologyDates
01/01/2019 to 31/12/2023
PALAEOLIPIDOMICS: A NEW BIOMARKER APPROACH TO TRACE CEREAL AGRICULTURE IN PREHISTORY
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Anthropology and ArchaeologyDates
08/08/2016 to 23/04/2021
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Recent publications
10/03/2023Lipids in Archaeology
Handbook of Archaeological Sciences
Direct evidence of the use of beehive products in pre-Roman Sardinia
Archaeometry
Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe
Nature
Neolithic culinary traditions revealed by cereal, milk and meat lipids in pottery from Scottish crannogs
Nature Communications
A call for caution in the analysis of lipids and other small biomolecules from archaeological contexts
Journal of Archaeological Science