Staff Profiles
I grew up in London and did my BA and PhD at the University of Cambridge. I held a research fellowship at Queens' College, Cambridge between 2001 and 2004. I have also worked at various periods for the Cambridge Archaeology Unit. In 2005 I was lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Wales, Bangor. Between 2005 and 2017 I was lecturer then senior lecturer in Early Prehistory at the University of Manchester. I joined Newcastle in 2018.
I am particularly interested in the following areas:
- The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of north-west Europe.
- Technology and materials
- Lithic studies
- Settlement and environmental change
- Human-animal relations
I specialise in the European Mesolithic, with interests ranging from technology and materials, human-animal relations, mortuary practices, radiocarbon dating of Mesolithic settlement and human responses to sea-level rise. My doctoral work focused on understanding Mesolithic technologies in the landscape of the Vale of Pickering. My current research has two main foci: The first explores theoretical approaches to technology and materials, which has produced a book An Archaeology of Materials (Routledge 2011); the second focuses on Mesolithic settlement, and as part of this I am working on a book, The Mesolithic of Britain (Routledge).
I have excavated on various sites in the Vale of Pickering, and between 2004 and 2015 co-directed excavations at Star Carr. I am a co-director of the Ice Age Island Project, which is responsible for survey and excavation of a number of Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic sites on Jersey.
- Milner N, Conneller C, Taylor B, ed. Star Carr. Volume 1: A Persistent Place in a Changing World; Volume 2: Studies in Technology, Subsistence and Environment. York: White Rose Press, 2018.
- Needham A, Croft S, Kröger R, Robson H, Rowley C, Taylor B, Gray Jones A, Conneller C. The application of micro-Raman for the analysis of ochre artefacts from Mesolithic palaeo-lake Flixton. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2018, 17, 650-656.
- Taylor B, Elliott B, Conneller C, Milner N, Bayliss A, Knight B, Bamforth M. Resolving the Issue of Artefact Deposition at Star Carr. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2017, 83, 23-42.
- Milner N, Bamforth M, Beale G, Carty J, Chatzipanagis K, Croft S, Conneller C, Elliot B, Fitton L, Knight B, Kroger R, Little A, Needham A, Robson H, Rowley C, Taylor B. A unique engraved shale pendant from the site of Star Carr: the oldest Mesolithic art in Britain. Internet Archaeology 2016, 40, 8.
- Albert B, Innes J, Blackford J, Taylor B, Conneller C, Milner N. Degradation of the wetland sediment archive at Star Carr: An assessment of current palynological preservation. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2016, 6, 488-495.
- Conneller C, Bates M, Bates R, Schadla-Hall T, Blinkhorn E, Cole J, Pope M, Scott B, Shaw A, Underhill D. Rethinking Human Responses to Sea-level Rise: The Mesolithic of the Channel Islands. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2016, 82, 27-71.
- Robson H, Little A, Jones A, Blockley S, Candy I, Matthews I, Palmer A, Schreve D, Tong E, Pomstra D, Fletcher L, Hausmann N, Taylor B, Conneller C, Milner N. Scales of analysis: Evidence of fish and fish processing at Star Carr. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2018, 17, 895-903.
- Little A, Elliott B, Conneller C, Pomstra D, Evans A, Fitton L, Holland A, Davis R, Kershaw R, O'Connor S, O'Connor T, Sparrow T, Wilson A, Jordan P, Collins M, Colonese A, Craig O, Knight R, Lucquin A, Taylor B, Milner N. Technological Analysis of the World’s Earliest Shamanic Costume: A Multi-Scalar, Experimental Study of a Red Deer Headdress for the Early Holocene Site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire, UK. PLoS ONE 2016, 11(4), e0152136.
- Shaw A, Bates M, Conneller C, Gamble C, Julien MA, McNabb J, Pope M, Scott B. The Archaeology of Persistent Places: A case study of La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey. Antiquity 2016, 90(354), 1437-1453.
- Conneller C, Bayliss A, Milner N, Taylor B. The Resettlement of the British Landscape: Towards a chronology of Early Mesolithic lithic assemblage types. Internet Archaeology 2016, 42.
- Palmer A, Matthews I, Candy I, Blockley S, MacLeod A, Darvill C, Milner N, Conneller C, Taylor B. The evolution of Palaeolake Flixton and the environmental context of Star Carr, NE. Yorkshire: stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT) lacustrine sequences. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 2015, 126(1), 50-59.
- Candy I, Farry A, Darvill C, Palmer A, Blockley S, Matthews I, MacLeod A, Deeprose L, Farley N, Kearney R, Conneller C, Milner N, Taylor B. The evolution of Palaeolake Flixton and the environmental context of Star Carr: an oxygen and carbon isotopic record of environmental change for the early Holocene. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 2015, 126(1), 60-71.
- Scott B, Bates M, Bates R, Conneller C, Pope M, Shaw A, Smith G. A New View from La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey. Antiquity 2014, 88(339), 13-29.
- Conneller C, Milner N, Taylor B, Taylor M. Substantial settlement in the European Early Mesolithic: new work at Star Carr.. Antiquity 2012, 86, 1-16.
- Conneller C. An Archaeology of Materials: Substantial transformations in Early Prehistoric Europe. New York: Routledge, 2011. In Preparation.
- Milner N, Conneller C, Elliott B, Koon H, Pantor I, Penkman K, Taylor B, Taylor M. From Riches to Rags: Organic Deterioration at Star Carr. Journal of Archaeological Science 2011, 38(10), 2818-32.
- Boreham S, Conneller C, Milner N, Taylor B, Needham A, Boreham J, Rolfe C. Geochemical indicators of preservation status and site deterioration at Star Carr. Journal of Archaeological Science 2011, 38(10), 2833-57.
- Milner N, Conneller C, Taylor B, Schadla-Hall T. Star Carr in a post-glacial lakescape. Journal of Wetland Archaeology 2011, 11(1).
- Hadley P, Hall A, Taylor M, Needham A, Taylor B, Conneller C, Milner N. To block-lift or not to block-lift? An experiment at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK. Internet Archaeology 2010, 28.
- Conneller C. Investigation of a Final Palaeolithic site at Rookery Farm Cambridgeshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2009, 75.
- Conneller C, Ellis C. A Late Upper Palaeolithic site at La Sagesse Convent, Romsey, Hants. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2008, 73, 191-228.
- Conneller C. Inhabiting new landscapes: settlement and mobility in Britain after the last glacial maximum. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2007, 26(3), 1468-92.
- Conneller C, Warren G, ed. Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New Approaches. Stroud: Tempus, 2006.
- Conneller C. The Space and Time of the châine opératoire: Technological approaches to past landscapes. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 2006, 21.1.
- Conneller C. Becoming deer: corporeal transformations at Star Carr. Archaeological Dialogues 2004, 11(1), 37-56.
- Conneller C, Schadla-Hall T. Beyond Star Carr: the Vale of Pickering in the tenth millennium BP. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2003, 69, 85-105.
- Spikins P, Conneller C, Ayestaran H, Scaife B. GIS based interpolation applied to distinguishing occupation phases of Early Prehistoric sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 2002, 29(11), 1235-1245.
- Milner N, Conneller C, Taylor B. Star Carr : Volume 2 Studies in Technology, Subsistence and Environment. York: White Rose Press, 2018.
- Elliott B, Conneller C. Masks in context: representation, emergence, motility and self. World Archaeology, 52(5), pp.655-666. World Archaeology 2022, 52(5), 655-666.
- Conneller C. The Mesolithic in Britain: Landscape and Society in Times of Change. London: Routledge, 2022.
- Elliott B, Nilsson Stutz L, Conneller C. Clamber of the dead: material ontology and cosmological affect within the hunter-gatherer mortuary traditions of the Eastern Baltic 4000-3000 cal. BC. World Archaeology 2021, 52(5), 707-723.
- Bello SM, Blinkhorn E, Needham A, Bates M, Duffy S, Little A, Pope M, Scott B, Shaw A, Welch MD, Kinnaird T, Conneller C. Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands). PLoS ONE 2020, 15(8), e0236875.