[Aqualist] Two three-year PhD studentships, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge

[Simon Haberle]

Please find below an advert for 2 PhD studentships (stipend £13,290 p.a.) in the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge


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Two three-year PhD studentships (stipend £13,290 p.a.)
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
Further Particulars 
Applications are invited for two full three-year PhD studentships (stipend, University fee, and College fee), to contribute to an international project entitled “Cultural transformations and environmental transitions in North African prehistory” (TRANS-NAP) funded by the European Research Council. The project, directed by Professor Graeme Barker, is investigating the relationship between environment and human settlement over the past 200,000 years, combining the excavation of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica, northeast Libya, with geoarchaeological and archaeological survey in the region. One studentship is in isotope studies of climate and palaeoenvironment, the other is in microwear and residue analyses of stone tools. The studentships, to start 1 October 2009, are open to applicants of any nationality.
The Department of Archaeology
The Department of Archaeology (www.arch.cam.ac.uk) is the oldest Department of Archaeology in the UK, with a long-established international reputation for its excellence as a centre of research and teaching in archaeology. Cambridge archaeologists work on all major periods of antiquity from deep prehistory to recent centuries, in most regions of the world, and across the full spectrum of humanities and scientific approaches. The Department is home to the largest community of academic staff researching and teaching archaeology at Cambridge, but there are also archaeology staff in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (www.macdonald.cam.ac.uk) (with which the Department has particularly close relations), in the Faculty of Classics (www.classics.cam.ac.uk/), the Institute of Continuing Education (www.cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/), the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies within the Department of Bioanthropology (www.human-evol.cam.ac.uk/), the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (museum-server.archanth.cam.ac.uk/), and the Fitzwilliam Museum (web site). The Department of Archaeology, the McDonald Institute, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, are on Cambridge University’s Downing Site in the town centre.
The project
Two three-year PhD studentships are available to contribute to a European Research Council-funded project entitled Cultural transformations and environmental transitions in North African prehistory directed by Professor Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology and Director of the McDonald Institute.  The project started on 1 March 2009 and runs until 28 February 2014.  The two PhD studentships will run from 1 October 2009 to 30 September 2012.
The project is combining excavations, archaeological survey, and a suite of geographical approaches, to address two sets of major research questions about human settlement in the region.
The first set of questions relates to Modern Humans in the Pleistocene. Given its position between Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, North Africa is likely to have been one of the critical routeways by which modern humans arrived in Europe in the Pleistocene. Questions about ‘the Human Revolution’ that the project is addressing include: 
·      -when did anatomically modern humans first arrive on Africa’s northern shores? 
·      -were they behaviourally modern? 
·      -was behavioural modernity critical to the successful colonization of North Africa?  
·     - was the emergence of behavioural modernity in North Africa related to changes in climate and environment, and to humans’ strategies for dealing with these? 
The second set of questions concerns the beginnings of farming in the North African littoral in the late Pleistocene and/or early Holocene, a process which is currently less understood than in the Sahara or on the northern side of the Mediterranean basin. In particular:
·      -when did domesticated plants and animals first appear in the region?
·    - were they domesticated locally, or acquired from people in the Sahara or elsewhere in the Mediterranean?
·      -what were the respective roles of crop cultivation and pastoralism once domesticates were acquired?
·      -were the beginnings of cultivation and/or pastoralism related to changes in climate and environment, and to humans’ strategies for dealing with these?
The project is addressing these questions through a programme of archaeological and geographical fieldwork, science-based archaeology, and environmental science in Cyrenaica, Northeast Libya (Barker et al., 2007, 2008, 2009). One component consists of an archaeological and geomorphological survey, and allied palaeoecological studies, across the Gebel Akhdar (Green Mountain) massif from the Mediterranean to the Sahara. The other is a programme of targeted archaeological excavation combined with palaeoenvironmental studies and fine resolution dating including at the major prehistoric cave of the Haua Fteah, which 1950s excavations (McBurney 1967) have shown represents a unique opportunity for high resolution analysis of long-term changes in climate and environment, and of hominin responses to these. The combination of spatial behavioural data and landscape reconstruction from the surveys, and deep time cultural and palaeoenvironmental data from the excavations, should enable the project to reconstruct the strategies developed by past human populations to utilize a typical North African landscape of Mediterranean littoral, uplands, pre-desert, and desert, and to understand how they responded to the challenges of profound climatic and environmental change.
The PhD students will join the Cambridge-based team of Professor Barker, three post-doctoral research fellows (Dr Lucy Farr: geoarchaeology; Dr Sacha Jones: lithic analysis; Dr Ryan Rabett: archaeozoology), and PhD student Robyn Inglis (micromorphology), and a large international team that includes two other PhD students: Annita Antoniadou (Queens University Belfast: coastal geoarchaeology);  and David Simpson (Queens University Belfast: cave palynology).  Both positions will involve working in the annual field team in Libya


PhD 1: isotope studies of climate and palaeoenvironments (Three years, from October 2009)
The first PhD topic will be a study of Pleistocene climate and seasonality using oxygen isotope studies of animal teeth and sediments from the Haua Fteah and other caves being investigated by the project, with the overall aim of long-term climatic reconstruction, integrating the results with other proxy environmental data generated by other project members such as charcoals, macroscopic plant remains, pollen, molluscs, microfauna, and micromorphology.   The student will be co-supervised by Professor Barker and Dr Tamsin O’Connell, Director of the Dorothy Garrod Isotope Laboratory in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. The technique measures the ratio of O18 to O16 in the enamel of animal teeth. The ratio is known to vary according to the water ingested by the animal as the tooth grows, which in turn is linked to air temperature at the moment of precipitation. Given that the animals to be analysed can be definitely established (from butchery marks, signs of burning etc) as the prey of hunters using the cave, the climatic signal represented by the isotopic composition of the teeth therefore promises to be a powerful method for investigating past temperatures and temperature changes that can be closely correlated with human activity. The isotope climatic signals will be taken from closely dated deposits, and will be compared with the suite of other palaeoecological indicators from the same deposits (micromorphology, pollen, organic biomarkers, charcoal etc).  The method will also provide a highly localised geographic signal, according to the foraging range of the animal, further increasing precision. Species to be examined will include both larger, more migratory, animals such as Barbary sheep (a key prey species at the Haua Fteah), and small animals with localised ranges such as fox or hare (both represented in the cave fauna). Studies of contemporary populations of these species will allow the results to be converted into a robust climatic signal for each site (Hoppe 2006). 
PhD 2: microwear and organic residues on lithics (Three years, from October 2009)
This PhD will investigate the microwear and organic residues on lithics. The student will be located in the McDonald Institute’s Isotope Laboratory and will be supervised by Graeme Barker and Dr Huw Barton of the University of Leicester.  Different wear patterns have the potential to reveal the activity or activities for which an artefact was used, such as cutting meat, working bone, cutting reeds and grasses, etc. These techniques have been used in archaeology for some time, but never on North African Palaeolithic material.  One component of the work will be experimental, to establish signatures of particular uses that can then be identified in the archaeological material. A second, equally innovative and experimental, approach will be to investigate the presence and significance of organic residues. Typical residues can include cellular tissues, collagen fibres, blood, hair, feathers, pollen, phytoliths and starch granules. At Niah cave, for example, rainforest foragers were collecting and processing a wide range of rainforest tubers and palms 50,000 years ago, identified by the presence of starch granules (Barton 2005). Such residues have been also been recovered from tools stored in museum archives (Barton 2007), so the technique will be applied to selected artefacts in the McBurney Excavation Archive held at Cambridge, as well as to material excavated fresh from the Haua Fteah and the other occupation sites.
Bibliography
Barker, G., Hunt, C., and Reynolds, T. (2007) The Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica (northeast Libya): renewed investigations of the cave and its landscape, 2007. Libyan Studies 38: 93-114.
Barker, G., Basell, L., Brooks, I., et al. (2008) The Cyrenaica Prehistory Project 2008: the second season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the initial (2007) fieldwork. Libyan Studies 39: 175-221.
Barker, G.,Antoniadou, A., Barton, H., et al. (2009) The Cyrenaica Prehistory Project 2009: the third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007-2008 fieldwork. Libyan Studies 40 (in press).
Barton, H. (2005) The case for rainforest foragers: the starch record at Niah Cave, Sarawak. In G. Barker and D. Gilbertson (eds) The Human Use of Caves in Peninsular and Island Southeast Asia: 56-72.  Hawaii: University of Honolulu Press, Special Number of Asian Perspectives 44.
Barton, H. (2007) Starch residues on museum artefacts: implications for determining tool use.  Journal of Archaeological Science 34: 1752-1762.
Foley, R., and Lahr, M.M. (1997) Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7: 3-36.
Hoppe, K. (2006) Correlation between the oxygen isotope ratio of North American bison teeth and local waters: implications for paleoclimatic reconstructions. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 244 (1-2): 408-417.
Hublin, J-J. (2000) Modern-Non-modern hominid interactions: a Mediterranean perspective. In O. Bar-Yosef and D. Pilbeam (eds) The Geography of Neandertals and Modern Humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean: 157-82. Harvard: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Peabody Museum Bulletin 8.
McBurney, C.B.M. (1960) The Stone Age of Northern Africa. London: Penguin Books.
McBurney, C.B.M. (1967) The Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Qualifications and how to apply
Applicants should have a first degree in archaeology or an appropriate cognate subject such as geography, geochemistry, quaternary sciences, or earth sciences, and should have taken, or be taking (in time to have completed the course by September 2009), a Masters degree in archaeology or an appropriate cognate subject such as archaeological science, palaeoclimatology  or quaternary science.
The closing date for applications (to be sent as hard copy to Ms Sara Harrop, The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, Email: slh30 at cam.ac.uk, tel. 44 1223 339284) is 5pm on Monday 1 June 2009. Applications should include the following:
1. a 1-2 page letter of application explaining which studentship you are applying for, how your qualifications and experience fit the job, and any other information about your application that you think the selection panel might find useful;
2. a curriculum vitae
3.  the names and contact details of two academic referees who can comment on your    suitability for PhD research in the selected field. Note that you should ask your referees to write directly to Ms Sara Harrop by the same deadline of Monday 1 June 2009.
The two successful candidates will apply to the University’s Board of Graduate Studies after the interview for formal acceptance, and allocation to a Cambridge College.
Graeme Barker
May 2009