Newcastle University

Background

Originally from the Black Country, in the West Midlands, I studied my first degree at Sheffied University. My PhD, under the supervision of Prof. Richard Bradley at Reading University, was on the Neolithic monuments of lowland England. I moved to Newcastle University in 1996.

Roles and Responsibilities

Fieldwork Convenor, Director CIAS/Wolfson Laboratory, Admissions Officer, Mentor Co-ordinator, Robinson Library Co-ordinator, Chair of the Prehistoric Forum

Previous Positions

Examinations and Assessment Officer (1996-98); Undergraduate Vacation Studies Field Manager (1999-2002); Director of Graduate Studies for archaeology, classics and history (2002-06); Faculty Research Committee (1999-2002); Faculty Graduate Committee (2002-06); faculty representative on the University’s Postgraduate Regulations Working Group (2003-06).

Research Interests

Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain
Neolithic of north west Europe
Later prehistory of northern England
Monumentality, cosmology, cults and pilgrimage
Agency and bodily practice
Temporality and chronology

Current Work

I am currently completing the Thornborough Project research report, co-editing 'The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe' (to be published by Oxford University Press) with Chris Fowler and Dani Hofmann, and preparing the journal papers on 'Ancestry, pilgrimage and the standing stones and stone rows of Britain and Ireland' and 'Creating archaeological genealogies: l’histoire-problème and the British Neolithic'

Postgraduate Supervision

Since 1996 I have successfully supervised to completion a total of 18 MLitt students, 1 MPhil student and 4 PhD students. I currently supervise the following research students:

Brian Albrecht (PhD, Intimacy and the causewayed enclosures of Neolithic Britain)

Phil Richardson (PhD, The Neolithic of western Scotland)

David Cockcroft (PhD, The Neolithic-early Bronze Age burials and barrows of Yorkshire)

Rachel Crellin (PhD, The Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Isle of Man)

Esteem Indicators

Invitations to organise the 1997 and 2000 meeting of the Neolithic Studies Group and present the opening address at the conference Neolithic Orkney in its European Context in 1998.

Other invitations to lecture by Council for British Archaeology, Neolithic Studies Group and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Outreach programme for Thornborough, including separate presentations to eight archaeological societies.

Journal referee for World Archaeology, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Journal of Social Archaeology, Archaeoastronomy and the Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society.

Referee for grant applications to Arts and Humanities Research Board and Leverhulme Trust.

Nominated member of National Council of the Prehistoric Society (2000-2003), the Theoretical Archaeology Group (2001-), the Regional Framework Steering Committees for Yorkshire and North East England (2002-2008), and the Thornborough Consultation and Working Group (2003-2005).

Co-ordinator of the Ure-Swale Archaeology Forum and a member of the Steering Committee of The Prehistory Research Section, Yorkshire Archaeological Society.

External examiner for: MPhil degree, Birmingham University (2002); PhD degree, Sheffield University (2003); MA in Archaeological Practice at the UHI Millennium Institute (2003-2005); BSc in Archaeology and MA in Archaeology at Bradford University (2004-2007); MScs in Archaeology, European Archaeology and Mediterranean Archaeology at Edinburgh University (2006-2010); and the MAs in Archaeology, European Prehistory and Aegean Archaeology at Sheffield University (2006-2010).

Member of Arts and Social Studies Subject Review Panel for the UHI Millennium Institute (2008)

Funding

2003-2004, The Thornborough Monument Complex Project. Awarded a total of £149,880 from English Heritage.

1998-2002, The Raunds Area Prehistoric Project. Awarded a total of £189,484 from English Heritage.

1999, Archaeoastronomy and Cosmology at the Thornborough Monument Complex. Awarded a total of £2,000 from Small Grants Panel, Newcastle University.

1994-1998, Vale of Mowbray Neolithic Landscape Project. Awarded a total of £84,087 from English Heritage, British Academy, Society of Antiquaries, Robert Kiln Charitable Trust, and the Prehistoric Society.

Projects

• Raunds Prehistoric
  Project Leader(s): Jan Harding
• Thornborough Project
  Project Leader(s): Jan Harding

Undergraduate Teaching

ARA1028 Prehistoric Britain
ARA2011 Later European Prehistory
ARA2100 Fieldwork
ARA3025 A Social Prehistory of the British Neolithic and Bronze Age

Postgraduate Teaching

ARA8031 Research Methods in Archaeology

• Bayliss A, Healy F, Bronk Ramsey C, McCormac FG, Cook GT, Harding J. Absolute chronology. Swindon: English Heritage, 2011. The Raunds Area Project: a Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscape in Northamptonshire. Volume 2 Supplementary Studies.
• Harding J, Healy F. The Raunds Area Project. A Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscape in Northamptonshire: Volume 2 Supplementary Studies. Swindon: English Heritage, 2011.
• Harding J, Johnson B, Goodrick G. Archaeoastronomy and the Monument Complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. Prehistory Research Section Bulletin 2008, 45, 34-43.
• Healy F, Harding J. A thousand and one things to do with a round barrow. In: Last, J, ed. Beyond the Grave: New Perspectives on Barrows. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007, pp. 53-71.
• Harding J, Johnson B, Goodrick G. Neolithic Cosmology and the Monument Complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. Archaeoastronomy 2006, 20(1), 28-53.
• Harding J. Pit-digging, occupation and structured deposition on Rudston Wold Eastern Yorkshire. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2006, 25(2), 109-126.
• Harding JDV. 'Rethinking the Great Divide': a reply to Thomas, Olivier and Murray. Norwegian Archaeological Review 2006, 39(1), 93-97.
• Harding J, Johnson B. Recent fieldwork at the Thornborough monument complex. Prehistory Research Section Bulletin 2005, 42, 11-15.
• Harding JDV. Rethinking the Great Divide: Long-Term Structural History and the Temporality of Event. Norwegian Archaeological Review 2005, 38(2), 88-101.
• Healy F, Harding J. Reading a burial: the legacy of Overton Hill. In: Gibson, A; Sheridan, A, ed. From Sickles to Circles: Britain and Ireland at the Time of Stonehenge. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2004, pp. 176-193.
• Harding J, Johnson B. Yorkshire's holy secret. British Archaeology 2004, 75, 26-31.
• Healy F, Harding J. Raunds, Northamptonshire: pre-Iron Age project. CfA News 2003, 5, 4-7.
• Healy F, Harding J. Raunds: from hunters to farmers. British Archaeology 2003, 73, 16-21.
• Harding J. The Henge Monuments of the British Isles: Myth and Archaeology. Stroud: Tempus, 2003.
• Harding J. Ceremonial centres,cosmology and pilgrimage: the monument complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. In: Ritchie, A, ed. Neolithic Orkney in its European Context. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000, pp. 31-46.
• Harding J. From coast to vale, moor to dale: patterns in later prehistory. In: Harding, J; Johnston, R, ed. Northern Pasts: Interpretations of the Later Prehistory of Northern England and Southern Scotland. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000, pp. 1-14.
• Harding J, Johnston R, ed. Northern Pasts: Interpretations of the Later Prehistory of Northern England and Southern Scotland. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000.
• Goodrick GT, Harding J. Virtual reality at the Neolithic monument complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. In:Virtual Reality in Archaeology . Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000, pp. 115-119.
• Harding J, Barclay A. An introduction to the cursus monuments of Neolithic Britain and Ireland. In: Barclay, A; Harding, J, ed. Pathways and Ceremonies: the Cursus Monuments of Neolithic Britain. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1999, pp. 1-8.
• Barclay A, Harding J, ed. Pathways and Ceremonies: the Cursus Monuments of Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1999.
• Harding J. Pathways to new realms: cursus monuments and symbolic territories. In: Barclay, A; Harding, J, ed. Pathways and Ceremonies: The Cursus Monuments of Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1999, pp. 30-38.
• Harding J, Rault S. The Raunds Prehistoric Project: under new management. Field Archaeologist 1999, 35, 20-1.
• Harding J. An architecture of meaning: the causewayed enclosures and henges of lowland England. In: Edmonds, M; Richards, C, ed. Understanding the Neolithic of North-Western Europe. Glasgow: Cruithne Press, 1998, pp. 204-230.
• Harding J. Recent fieldwork at the Neolithic monument complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. University of Durham and Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1998. Archaeological Reports for 1997.
• Harding J. Recent fieldwork at the Neolithic monument complex, North Yorkshire. Northern Archaeology 1998, 15/16, 27-38.
• Harding J. Interpreting the Neolithic: the monuments of North Yorkshire. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 1997, 16(3), 279-295.
• Harding J. Recent fieldwork at the Neolithic monument complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. Past 1997, 26(1), 4-5.
• Harding J. Reconsidering the Neolithic round barrows of eastern Yorkshire. In: Frodsham, P, ed. Neolithic Studies in No-Man's Land: Papers on the Neolithic of Northern England from the Trent to the Tweed. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumberland Archaeology Group, 1996, pp. 67-78.
• Harding J, Frodsham P, Durden T. Towards an agenda for the Neolithic of northern England. In: Frodsham, P, ed. Neolithic Studies in No-Man's Land: Papers on the Neolithic of Northern England from the Trent to the Tweed. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumberland Archaeology Group, 1996.
• Harding J. Social histories and regional perspectives in the Neolithic of lowland England. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 1995, 61, 117-136.
• Bradley J, Harding J, Mathews M, Rippon S. A field method for analysing the distribution of rock art. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 1993, 12(2), 129-143.
• Bradley R, Harding J, Mathews M. The siting of prehistoric rock art in Galloway, south west Scotland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 1993, 59, 269-283.
• Harding J. Using the unique as the typical: monuments and the ritual landscape. In: Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference on Archaelogy, Ritual and Religion. 1991, Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology.