Postgraduate Research

MRes and PhD research under way at the Archaeology Institute

With today being the deadline for three part-funded MRes studentships, now would be a good time to take a look at the research currently under way by University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute students.

With today being the deadline for three part-funded MRes studentships, now would be a good time to take a look at the research currently under way by University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute students.

In the past 12 months two of our students – Dr Jasmijn Sybenga and Dr Magdalena Blanz – celebrated PhD success. In August, Hannah Genders Boyd became our first postgraduate student to be awarded her Masters by Research (MRes).

So let’s turn the spotlight on our current research degree candidates.

At present the UHI Archaeology Institute has nine PhD and six MRes candidates at varying stage of their degrees, with the range of topics under investigation dating from prehistory through to the 19th century.

These are:

PHD

  • Neil Ackerman – Scotland’s earliest built environment: halls, houses and big houses.
  • Jay van der Reijden – Signed in Stone: idiosyncratic construction within Orcadian passage grave side-chambers.
  • Sandra Henry – Prehistoric seafaring in Scotland and Ireland.
  • Amber Rivers – Weaving Time: researching the prehistoric textile production in Scotland through archaeological and creative practice.
  • Darroch Bratt – Origins and history of whisky distilling: A historical and archaeological approach.
  • Jaqueline Estarath – The role of dark and light skies during the Late Neolithic in Orkney and Shetland.
  • Eilidh Paterson – A community on the Border: revealing landscapes of livelihood transitions and settlement changes in the Scotland as evidenced on Atholl Estates.
  • Holly Young – Shore Life: The contribution of shellfish to prehistoric subsistence and social life.
  • Jenny Murray – A Saint in Stone: The sign of the materiality of the cult of saints as evidenced in the cult of St Magnus the Martyr.

MRes

  • Claire MacKay – Marine mammal exploitation in Late Iron Age and Medieval Orkney.
  • Wanda Machin – A study of medieval pilgrimage through landscape and seascape perspectives.
  • Keith Neilson – Within the Round: An archaeobotanical investigation of the floor deposits of an Iron Age broch at The Cairns, South Ronaldsay, Orkney.
  • Bruce Sutton – Fuel for the Fire: An anthracological investigation of fuelwood resource use from the burnt mound deposits in Co Mayo, Ireland.
  • Asta Pavilionyte – Evaluating and reviewing archaeological mitigation undertaken as a result of major road infrastructure development in Scotland and associated public benefits.
  • Sarah-Jane Haston – Farming at the Edge: Neolithic agricultural evidence from the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney.

If you are interested in postgraduate research at the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute, click here for details, or get in touch by e-mailing at studyarchaeology@uhi.ac.uk.