Newcastle University

Background

I studied at the University of Southampton from 1992 to 1999, on BA hons and PhD archaeology programmes. Through my PhD, and through a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship which I held at the University of Manchester from 2000 to 2002 I investigated the application of anthropological approaches to the body and the person in prehistoric archaeology, especially Neolithic and early Bronze Age Britain. I joined the School of Historical Studies at Newcastle in 2004.

I am extremely interested in anything to do with British and European later Mesolithic, Neolithic and early Bronze Age archaeology, and prehistoric archaeology in general. I am also interested in social and cultural anthropology, particularly where it relates to conceptions of the body and person.

Roles and Responsibilities

I am Degree Programme Director for Research Degrees in Archaeology. If you are considering studying for an MLitt, an MPhil or a PhD in archaeology at Newcastle and have any queries please feel free to contact me.

Qualifications

BA, PhD

Previous Positions

Temporary lecturer, School of Art History and Archaeology, University of Manchester, 2002-2004.

Leverhulme Special Research Fellow, School of Art History and Archaeology, University of Manchester, 2000-2002

I taught on a Certificate of Higher Education in Archaeology programme at New College, University of Southampton in 1999 and 2000, and co-ordinated that programme in 2000, both on a part-time temporary basis.

Research Interests

Neolithic and early Bronze Age Britain
Personhood, the body and identity in archaeology and anthropology
Mortuary practice in prehistoric Europe
Cosmology in prehistoric Europe

Other Expertise

Archaeological theory
Prehistoric art

Current Research

I am currently researching Beaker period and Early Bronze Age mortuary practices in Northeast England. I am currently completing a book which presents a new synthesis of the evidence for mortuary practices c. 2500-1500 BC in the northeast of England. This book, A Relational Realist Archaeology of Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices explores a new theoretical approach to archaeology through the Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age mortuary archaeology of northeast England. It is contracted for publication by Oxford University Press.

Alongside this work I recently led a project entitled Dead but not forgotten: human remains from archaeological excavations in North-East England , which assessed how much human bone survives in contemporary collections from excavated Neolithic to medieval period sites in the North East of England (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham).

I am a specialist advisor on prehistoric artifacts for The Cutting Edge, a project that draws together different sources of information about tools and weapons with sharp edges from  collections held in Tyne and Wear Museums and combines existing information with new images of the artifacts. Images and other information will then be made available online for public access, enabling easy assessment of key parts of the collection for future research projects. 

I am also the principle investigator for an AHRC-funded Research Networking project entitled Investigating Prehistoric Social and Cultural Networks through the Tyne-Forth Prehistory Forum, which I organise along with the co-investigator, Richard Tipping (University of Stirling). The Forum brings together archaeologists involved with research into prehistoric archaeology in north-east England and south-east Scotland. Its membership consists of archaeologists working in universities, museums and heritage agencies, of students, volunteers and members of amateur archaeology groups, and contract archaeologists. It is a fundamental aspect of the network to promote collaborative research between members of these communities. The Forum has planned five meetings during 2010-2 as part of this AHRC-funded project to investigate the nature, origins, and drivers of prehistoric social and cultural networks in the region, and the role of present-day borders that may disrupt our understanding of them.

Research Roles 

I am a member of the Research Council for the project 'Meetings Make History: Hunters’ Rock Art and Lands of Identity in Mesolithic northern Europe' (Oslo University, Principal Investigator Dr Ingrid Fuglestvedt), and a member of the Specialist Group reviewing and updating English Heritage's North East Regional Research Framework for archaeology. 

I am the co-ordinator of the Bodies and Identities Research Strand in the School of Historical Studies. From January 2012 I am also Acting Director of Research for the School.

Recent Research

I collaborated with Dr Vicki Cummings (UCLan) in excavating two Bargrennan chambered cairns in Dumfries and Galloway. Our interim reports are posted on-line through the Archaeology Data Service, and the final report has now been published as a British Archaeological Report. 

Postgraduate Supervision

I currently supervise the following PhD students:

David Cockcroft 'Interpreting the funerary monuments of Early Bronze Age Yorkshire (2500-1400 BC): changing mortuary practices, changing constructions of personhood?'
Rachel Crellin 'Scales of time, scales of change: the emergence of a Bronze Age on the Isle of Man.'
Sophie Moore 'Life, Death and Cosmology in Mid-Byzantine Anatolia (9th – 12th century AD): an holistic approach to mortuary practice' (lead supervisor Mark Jackson)
Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu 'A comparative analysis of rock art in southern Africa: animals and cosmological models.' (lead supervisor Dr Aron Mazel)
Phillip Richardson 'Persistent Places: Monument Complexes in Neolithic western Scotland.'

Recently supervised PhD students:

Michelle Gamble 'Health and Disease in Chalcolithic Cyprus: A problem-oriented palaeopathological study of human remains.' (lead supervisor Dr Kirsi Lorentz, completed 2011)
Brian Albrecht 'Activities at Causewayed Enclosures in the British Isles.' (lead supervisor Dr Jan Harding, completed 2010)                                                                                                                                         Ana Clelia Corriea 'Engraved World: Contextual Analysis of Figures and Markings on the rocks of south-eastern Piaui, Brazil.' (co-supervised with Dr Jan Harding, completed 2009)                                        Hannah Lynch 'The use and exchange of Neolithic flint in northern England' (lead supervisor Dr Jan Harding, completed 2007)

I currently supervise the following MLitt student:

Josephine Cleveland. Sequences of activity at Early Bronze Age round barrows (co-supervised with Jan Harding).

Recently supervised MLitt students:

Ivana Zivaljevic 'Human and animal bodies during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Danube Gorges' (lead supervisor, completed 2010)                                                                                                Ben Dyson 'Cosmology and land use in upland Bronze Age landscapes'                                                    Erin Watson Rock art and 'portable' art in northern Britain'                                                                        Kate Phillips 'Violence in the British Iron Age'                                                                                                                                                                   Hannah Flint 'Cosmology and architecture in prehistoric Britain' 

If you are considering studying for an MLitt, MPhil or PhD in a topic related to my research interests please feel free to contact me.

Projects

• The Cutting Edge
  Project Leader(s): Professor Eric Cross

Undergraduate Teaching

I am currently module leader for:
ARA1028 Prehistoric Britain
ARA2001 Archaeological Theory and Interpretation
ARA3022 Themes in European Prehistory (cosmology, bodies, personhood, and art)

I also contribute to other modules including:
ARA1027 Introduction to Archaeology                                                                                                  ARA2011 Later European Prehistory
HIS2085 Pre-Columbian and Spanish America 

Postgraduate Teaching

I contribute to ARA8020 Themes, Theories and Methods in Archaeology

External Examining

I am the external examiner for the following MA programmes at Sheffield University: MA Archaeology; MA European Prehistory, and; MA Aegean Prehistory. 

• Fowler C. Personhood and the Body. In: Insoll, T, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Religion in Archaeology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp.133-150.
• Fowler C. Pattern and Diversity in the Early Neolithic Mortuary Practices of Britain and Ireland: Contextualising the Transformation of the Dead. Documenta Praehistorica 2010,XXXVII 1-18.
• Fowler C. From Identity and Material Culture to Personhood and Materiality. In:Mary Beaudry and Dan Hicks, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies.Oxford:Oxford University Press,2010, pp. 352-385.
• Fowler C. Relational personhood as a subject of anthropology and archaeology: comparative and complementary analyses. In: Garrow, D; Yarrow, T, ed. Archaeology and Anthropology: understanding similarities, exploring differences. Oxford: Oxbow, 2010, pp. 137-159.
• Fowler C. Fractal bodies in the past and present. In: Dusan Boric and John Robb, ed. Past Bodies: Body-Centred Research in Archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2008, pp. 47-57.
• Cummings V, Fowler C. From Cairn to Cemetery : An archaeological investigation of the chambered cairns and early Bronze Age mortuary deposits at Cairnderry and Bargrennan White Cairn, south-west Scotland. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007.
• Fowler C. The Archaeology of Personhood: An anthropological approach. London, UK: Routledge, 2004.
• Fowler C. Landscape and personhood. In: David, B; Thomas, J, ed. Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. California: Left Coast Press, 2007, pp. 291-299.
• Fowler C. Identity politics: personhood, kinship, gender and power in Neolithic and early Bronze Age Britain. In:Conlin Casella, E., Fowler, C., ed. The Archaeology of Plural and Changing Identities: Beyond Identification.New York:Springer,2005, pp. 109-134.
• Casella, E, Fowler, C, ed. The Archaeology of Plural and Changing Identities : Beyond Identification. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, 2004.
• Fowler C. In touch with the past? Bodies, monuments and the sacred in the Manx Neolithic. In: Cummings, V., Fowler, C., ed. The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: Materiality and Traditions of Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, 2004, pp. 91-102.
• Cummings V, Fowler C. The form and setting of Manx chambered cairns: cultural comparisons and social interpretations. In: Cummings, V., Fowler, C., ed. The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: Materiality and Traditions of Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, 2004, pp. 113-122.
• Cummings V, Fowler C, ed. The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: Materiality and traditions of practice. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, 2004.
• Fowler C, Cummings V. Places of transformation: building monuments from water and stone in the Neolithic of the Irish Sea. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2003, 9(1), 1-20.
• Fowler C. Rates of (ex)change: Decay and growth, memory and the transformation of the dead in early Neolithic southern Britain. In: Williams, H, ed. Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies. New York, USA: Springer, 2003, pp.45-63.
• Fowler C. Body parts: Personhood and materiality in the Manx Neolithic. In: Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M., Tarlow, S, ed. Thinking Through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002, pp.47-69.
• Fowler C. Personhood and social relations in the British Neolithic, with a study from the Isle of Man. Journal of Material Culture 2001, 6(2), 137-163.
• Fowler C. The subject, the individual, and archaeological interpretation: reading Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray. In: Cornelius Holtorf and Hakan Karlsson, ed. Philosophy and Archaeological Practice: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Gothenburg: Bricoleur Press, 2000, pp.107-135.
• Fowler C. Comment on 'Funerals as Feasts: Why Are They So Important?' by Brian Hayden. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 2009, 19(1), 45-47.
• Fowler C. Comment on 'The regeneration of life: Neolithic structures of symbolic remembering and forgetting' (Ian Kuijt, this issue). Current Anthropology 2008. , 49(2), 188-189.
• Fowler C. Inside the Neolithic mind: consciousness, cosmos and the realm of the gods' - By David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insitute 2007, 13(3), 765-766.