
Dr Lucy Cramp
BA(Hons), MSc(Oxon.), PhD(R'dg)
Expertise
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Contact
Media contact
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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
01/08/2021A call for caution in the analysis of lipids and other small biomolecules from archaeological contexts
Journal of Archaeological Science
Finding Oxford’s medieval Jewry using organic residue analysis, faunal records and historical documents
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
L’analisi dei residui organici: nuove prospettive per lo studio delle tradizioni culinarie nel mondo Fenicio-Punico
La alimentacion en el mundo Punico
Chemical evidence of dairying by hunter-gatherers in the highlands of Lesotho in the late first millennium AD
Nature Human Behaviour
Compound-specific radiocarbon, stable carbon isotope and biomarker analysis of mixed marine/terrestrial lipids preserved in archaeological pottery vessels.
Radiocarbon