Archaeology

Professor Michael Parker Pearson

Telephone: 0114 222 2908
E-Mail: M.Parker-Pearson@Sheffield.ac.uk

Mike Parker Pearson is a Professor of Archaeology. He is an internationally renowned expert in the archaeology of death and also specialises in the later prehistory of Britain and Northern Europe and the archaeology of Madagascar and the western Indian Ocean. He has published more than 10 books and over 100 academic papers, on topics that range from architecture, food and warfare to ethnoarchaeology, archaeological theory and heritage management. He has worked on archaeological excavations in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Madagascar, Syria and the United States, and currently directs field projects in the Outer Hebrides, Madagascar and the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

Mike joined the department in 1990, having worked as an archaeologist for English Heritage. He has a BA from Southampton University (1979) and a PhD from Cambridge University (1985). He has been a Member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists (MIFA) since 1989 and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries since 1991. He has been on the council of the Prehistoric Society since 1999 and is currently the Society's conservation co-ordinator.

Teaching

At 1st Year level, I co-ordinate the module in Archaeology in the Field and also teach on the modules Archaeology in the Lab and World Civilisations.

For 2nd and 3rd Year undergraduates I teach a half module in Funerary Archaeology and a module in Archaeological Heritage Management. I also team-teach on modules in Archaeological Theory and Later European Prehistory.

Since 1991 I have run archaeological training excavations for undergraduates on Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Viking period and Medieval sites in England and Scotland, primarily on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides. Closer to Sheffield, I have run excavation courses at Scabba Wood, Sutton Common and Scrooby Top.

At postgraduate level. I teach a module in Funerary Archaeology for the MSc in Osteology, Palaeoanthropology and Funerary Archaeology. I am also involved in teaching on the MA in Archaeology & Prehistory and the MA in Historical Archaeology.

Research interests

Death and burial: funerary archaeology

How we come to terms with death is one of the eternal concerns of our species. Many or even most of the monuments of prehistory were erected for funerary or commemorative purposes, and the human need to mark and understand our mortality goes back to at least 100,000 years ago if not further. My books The Archaeology of Death and Burial and Earthly Remains: the history and science of preserved bodies (co-authored with Andrew Chamberlain) range from the Palaeolithic to the present day. My initial interest began in 1979 with an ethnoarchaeological project on contemporary British burial practices, and it has subsequently guided much of my more recent research. The archaeology of death has become a key theme in this department's research (see work by colleagues Maureen Carroll, Andrew Chamberlain, Dawn Hadley and Paul Pettitt).

Madagascar: society and change in the Indian Ocean

Madagascar was one of the last of the larger land masses to be settled by human beings, having been occupied for only the last 2000 years or so. My initial interest in the large tombs and lavish funerals amongst contemporaty Tandroy and other cattle pastoralists has widened to include the initial human colonisation and extinction of the megafauna such as the Elephant Bird (Aepyornis maximus), the rise and fall of a lost civilisation of stone-enclosed settlements with trade links to the Swahili coast of East Africa, and the extraordinary story of a shipwrecked English sailor who was enslaved by a Tandroy prince between 1703 and 1709 (published in 1729 as Robert Drury's Journal). Our quest for the truth is told in my book In Search of the Red Slave: shipwreck and captivity in Madagascar (co-authored with Karen Godden).

'Barbarian' Europe in the 1st millennia BC and AD

My PhD research was on the Barbarian world north of the Roman frontier, specifically in Denmark, and since then I have continued to work in this field, excavating Iron Age and Viking period settlements in the Outer Hebrides, excavating an Iron Age marsh fort at Sutton Common in South Yorkshire, and writing up the excavation of an Iron Age and Roman votive offering site at Fiskerton in Lincolnshire. Particular aspects of interest have been the relationships between warfare, exchange and religious practices, and the emergence of social and gender inequalities in these northern societies.

Prehistoric Britain: religion, ritual and society over four millennia

'Ritual' and 'religion' are difficult concepts to study in periods with no written records. Occasionally good-quality evidence allows archaeologists to make major breakthroughs which dramatically transform our understanding of prehistoric ritual and religious practices. In my book Fiskerton: an Iron Age timber causeway with Iron Age and Roman votive offerings (co-authored with Naomi Field) Andrew Chamberlain and I have established a link between the construction of timber causeways (at Fiskerton and elsewhere in Britain and Europe) with the marking and prediction of midwinter total lunar eclipses in the 1st millennium BC. I have also been researching the ways in which ritual practices permeated the domestic setting, with the interior use of space and orientation of British roundhouses mimicking the passage of the sun and the human life cycle. Initial hypotheses have been strongly supported by results from our excavations at Cladh Hallan on South Uist where buildings and house floors from the 1st millennium BC have been unusually well preserved. It is there that we have also found the first evidence of mummification in prehistoric Britain, dating to the Bronze Age. Moving back in time, my work in Madagascar with Malagasy archaeologist Ramilisonina has led to a new interpretation of Stonehenge as a monument for the ancestors, a theory which is currently being explored in my field project, Stonehenge Riverside.

Public archaeology and heritage

Having worked for over 5 years as an Inspector of Ancient Monuments for English Heritage, and as conservation co-ordinator for the Prehistoric Society, I have been closely involved in some of the major developments in archaeology's role in planning and public policy in England over the last 20 years, drafting the Department of the Environment's 1990 Planning Policy Guidance on Archaeology and Planning (PPG 16) and co-authoring English Heritage's Exploring Our Past: strategies for the archaeology of England. Several of my research students students have been awarded PhD's in this field, on topics such as the construction of Celtic identity, archaeology's 'fringe' and archaeological heritage management. I have also appeared on television on programmes such as Time Team (C4), Meet the Ancestors (BBC2), Ancient Voices (BBC2), Tracks (BBC2) and series such as Britain BC (C4) and Seven Ages of Britain (C4) [and turned down an appearance on Richard & Judy (C4)!]. Various aspects of my research have been regularly featured in national and international newspapers and magazines. At the local end of the spectrum, I have been developing approaches to 'community archaeology' in our fieldwork in Madagascar and on South Uist.

Ethnoarchaeology and material culture

Ethnoarchaeology is one of the most important ways in which we derive analogies from the present and the recent past to help understand the remains of the ancient past. Each paradigm shift in archaeological theory has been achieved through a co-ordinated programme of ethnoarchaeological research and my own interest began in 1979 as part of the post-processual movement in archaeological theory. As well as studying funerary practices in contemporary Britain and Madagascar, I have also investigated other aspects of material culture such as domestic architecture and food.

Field Projects

The Outer Hebrides: settlement and society from prehistory to the post-medieval period

I joined the SEARCH project in 1991 and have directed a major survey of the island of South Uist and large-scale excavations of the Iron Age broch of Dun Vulan (Between Land and Sea: excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist co-authored with Niall Sharples), the Viking and Norse period settlement at Cille Pheadair, and the Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement at Cladh Hallan, together with five smaller excavations on prehistoric and medieval sites. The other project directors are Jacqui Mulville and Niall Sharples of Cardiff University, Helen Smith of Bournemouth University and Jim Symonds of ARCUS. Our book South Uist: archaeology and history of the Dark Island is published in 2004 and will be followed by research monographs on Cladh Hallan, Cille Pheadair, Bornais and an overview of the surveys and smaller excavations. The fieldwork and post-excavation analyses have been generously supported by Historic Scotland, with other contributions coming from NERC, the Royal Archaeological Institute, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the various universities involved.

Southern Madagascar: society and landscape from human arrival to the post-colonial period

Since 1991 I have been directing a field project in the south of the island, as a joint venture between Sheffield University and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at Antananarivo University. We have conducted seven seasons of field survey and excavation, most recently carrying out excavations on four settlement sites of the 11th-13th, 14th-15th and 18-19th centuries in 2003. A research monograph on our fieldwork will soon be published (see project details elsewhere on this website).

The fieldwork and post-excavation analyses have been funded by National Geographic, the British Academy, the British Institute in Eastern Africa, NERC, the Nuffield Foundation and the Society of Antiquaries.

Stonehenge riverside

In 1998 my Malagasy colleague Ramilisonina and I visited Stonehenge and Avebury and developed a new theory about the purpose of these and other stone circles in Britain. Our story is told in Mike Pitts' book Hengeworld (Arrow Books 2000) and Francis Pryor's book Britain BC (Harper Collins 2003). The theory has a number of implications which can be investigated through fieldwork; one of these is that Stonehenge was linked via 'avenues' and the River Avon to a Neolithic monument with timber circles at Durrington Walls (and Woodhenge) as part of a larger complex in which the passage from wood to stone acted as a metaphor for the conduct of funerary rites and ancestor ceremonies along the axis of the river. The field project involves many of the leading Neolithic specialists in Britain and a large team of scientific specialists, students and local volunteers (see project details elsewhere on this website).

Scientific research projects

The Beaker people: diet and mobility in Britain 2500-1700 BC

Since the 19th century antiquarians and archaeologists have argued whether the appearance in Britain of burials with pots known as Beakers marked the arrival of continental migrants around 2400-2200 BC. These people have been variously credited with introducing metalworking to Britain, spreading the Indo-European language group and building Stonehenge. In recent decades many prehistorians have argued that the changes in material culture were due to the introduction of a 'Beaker package' rather than a wave of immigration but isotope results from the skeleton of the Amesbury Archer, found near Stonehenge, indicate that he grew up in Europe. This new project is a major scientific research programme which is being carried out jointly by Sheffield and Bradford Universities with the British Geological Survey, the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland, together with many of the local and regional museums across Britain with the aim of analysing up to 250 Beaker-period burials from England, Scotland and Wales for strontium, oxygen, lead, sulphur, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen isotopes in order to investigate their dietary and mobility histories. Accompanying studies of tooth wear and osteology should also yield important results on prehistoric health and lifestyle.

Developing a 'mummy identification kit': mummification and bodily preservation in prehistoric Britain and Europe

In 2001 we discovered human skeletons buried in the foundations of Late Bronze Age roundhouses (1100-1000 BC) at Cladh Hallan on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides. There is a more detailed account elsewhere on this website of how we found out that several of these had formerly had their soft tissue preserved long after death. The bodies - Europe's earliest prehistoric mummies - were also the subject of a BBC2/Discovery documentary The Mummies of Cladh Hallan first screened in March 2003. The research team includes Andrew Chamberlain, Oliver Craig (University of Newcastle), Matthew Collins (University of York), Jane Evans (British Geological Survey), Jen Hiller and Jacqui Mulville (University of Cardiff), Janet Montgomery and Mike Richards (University of Bradford) and Helen Smith (University of Bournemouth). We are currently completing tests on the Cladh Hallan skeletons but have also discovered that there are a number of similar 'mummy bundle' type burials from the same period (c. 1500 BC) known in other parts of Britain. It is possible that these were also bodies whose soft tissue was artificially preserved after death, and we suspect that some of the seated and tightly contracted skeletons of the British and European Neolithic period (c. 3000 BC) might also originally have been artificially preserved. A new project is now underway to develop a 'mummy identification' kit which will allow archaeologists to determine whether certain skeletons can be identified as former mummies by examining post-mortem changes in bone structure and chemistry.

Books

• 2005 Warfare, Violence and Slavery in Prehistory. BAR. (ed. with I.J. Thorpe)
• 2004 South Uist: archaeology and history of the Dark Island. Tempus. (with N. Sharples, J. Symonds, J. Mulville, J. Raven, H. Smith and A. Woolf)
• 2004 Fiskerton: an Iron Age timber causeway with Iron Age and Roman votive offerings. The 1981 excavations. Oxbow. (with N. Field)
• 2003 Food, Identity and Culture in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. BAR. (edited)
• 2002 In Search of the Red Slave: shipwreck and captivity in Madagascar. Sutton. (with K. Godden)
• 2001 Earthly Remains: the history and science of preserved bodies. BM Press. (with A. Chamberlain)
• 1999 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Sutton.
• 1999 Between Land and Sea: excavations at the broch of Dun Vulan, South Uist. SEARCH monograph 3. Sheffield Academic Press. (with N. Sharples, J. Mulville and H. Smith)
• 1994 Looking at the Land. Archaeological landscapes in eastern England: recent work and future directions. Leicestershire Museums. (ed. with T. Schadla-Hall)
• 1994 Architecture and Order: approaches to social space. Routledge. (ed. with C. Richards)
• 1993 Bronze Age Britain. Batsford and English Heritage.
• 1978 New Approaches to Our Past: an archaeological forum. University of Southampton. (ed. with T. Darvill, R.W. Smith and R. Thomas)