Staff Profiles

Roles and Responsibilities

I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology.

I maintain the Heritage City website, which helps students from across the University find dissertation and project work centred on historic Newcastle  http://research.ncl.ac.uk/heritagecity/

I co-ordinate outreach activities with primary and secondary schools across the region, and am also leader of the Newcastle University branches of the Young Archaeologists Club (clubs for children aged 8-18), which are run by myself and staff and student volunteers. www.britarch.ac.uk/yac/branches/newcastle/

Undergraduate Teaching

My principal modules are ARA 1030 Britain from the Romans-Present, ARA 2097 Historical Archaeology of the Modern World, and ARA 3031 Britain after 1500, and ARA 3001-3. Many Newcastle archaeology students undertake fieldwork training with me every summer at the Derwentcote Steelworks Forge Cottages site, Gateshead http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/research/project/4544 Local volunteers and sixth-formers wanting to get some excavation experience can also dig with us for free: just email me at jane.webster@ncl.ac.uk

You can download a copy of the Module Handbook for ARA 3031 Britain after 1500 from the teaching resources pages on the Society for Historical Archaeology website at http://www.sha.org/assets/documents/research/BritainAfter1500_JaneWebster.pdf

I maintain the Heritage City website, which helps students from across the University find dissertation and project work centred on historic Newcastle  http://research.ncl.ac.uk/heritagecity/

Winner of the Vice Chancellor's Distinguished Teacher Award 2011. 

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/newslink/item/teaching-excellence-rewarded

Research Interests

I am an Historical Archaeologist in the widest sense of that term. My research crosses traditional frontiers (both temporal and disciplinary) but focuses on colonial material culture, from the early Roman Empire to the eighteenth century. My work explores the material culture of colonial subjects (including indigenous peoples and slaves), and examines the uses that these groups made of ‘foreign’ or imposed material things, as they created new identities in new circumstances. I work mainly in two fields: Romano-British iconography and the archaeology of slavery (looking at the latter in both in the Roman period and between 1660 and 1807). I am currently writing a book called Material Culture of the Middle Passage, looking at the social world of slave ships making the Atlantic sea crossing that took slaves to the New World during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Webster, J and Cooper, N (eds) (1996) Roman Imperlialism: Post-Colonial Perspectives can be read online at  https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/9179

Read my 2007 article in British Archaeology, called 'Ringed with the wrecks of slave ships: the Atlantic slave trade' at http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba94/feat1.shtml

My 2010 paper 'A distant diaspora; thinking comparatively about origins, migrations and Roman slavery' can be accessed at http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0310/news0310.html#3

 Many of my publications are available on the Academia website: https://newcastle.academia.edu/JaneWebster

Postgraduate Supervision

I am currently supervising PhD candidates working on 18th century popular protest; Trench Art from the First world war; the Derwent valley iron and steel industry; the comparative archaeology of mimesis in the Roman provinces; and the artefact biography of trade goods on slave ships. I would be very happy to hear from prospective research students with interests in either Romano-British or Historical Archaeology (post AD 1500), and particularly in the archaeology of slavery at any period.

• Webster J. Collecting for the cabinet of freedom: the parliamentary history of Thomas Clarkson's chest. Slavery & Abolition 2017, 38(1), 135-154.
• Webster J. Creolisation. In: Christin O, ed. Dictionnaire des concepts nomades en sciences humanines. Paris: Éditions Métailié, 2016, pp.273-280.
• Webster J. A Dirty Window on the Iron Age? Recent Developments in the Archaeology of Pre-Roman Celtic Religion. In: Ritari, K, ed. Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past. Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press, 2015, pp.121-154.
• Webster J. ‘Success to the Dobson’: commemorative artefacts depicting 18th-century British slave ships. Post-Medieval Archaeology 2015, 49(1), 72-98.
• Webster J, Tolson L. Material Testimonies: Landscapes, Artefacts, and the Oral Tradition. Historical Archaeology 2014, 48(1), 1-2.
• Webster J, Tolson L, Carlton R. The Artefact as Interviewer: Experimenting with Oral History at the Ovenstone Miners’ Cottages Site, Northumberland. Historical Archaeology 2014, 48(1), 11-29.
• Turner S, Webster J, Duggan M. Medieval and later settlement around Chassenon (Charente), France: fieldwork in 2012. Medieval Settlement Research 2013, 28, 93-95.
• Turner S, Webster J, Duggan M. Chassenon: développement d'un paysage historique. Rapport 2012. Newcastle: Newcastle University, 2012. Unpublished report for the Service Régional de l’Archéologie, Poitiers.
• Turner S, Webster J. Medieval and later settlement around Chassenon (Charente), France: fieldwork in 2011. Medieval Settlement Research 2011, 26, 60-66.
• Rocque G, Bal MC, Belingard C, Bertrand I, Bujard S, Coutelas A, Doulan C, Geniès C, Guédon S, Gueguen JF, Hourcade D, Joly C, Loiseau C, Méaudre JC, Sicard S, Turner S, Vissac C, Webster J. Rapport du projet collectif de recherche. Cassinomagus, l'agglomération et son ensemble monumental : chronologie, organisation et techniques. Conseil Général de la Charente, 2011. Chassenon.
• Webster J. A distant diaspora: thinking comparatively about origins, migration and Roman slavery. African Diaspora Archaeology Network, 2010. Available at: http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0310/news0310-3.pdf.
• Webster J. Routes to slavery in the Roman World: a comparative perspective on the archaeology of forced migration. In: Eckardt, H, ed. Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire. Portsmouth, Rhode Island, USA: Journal of Roman Archaeology LLC, 2010, pp.45-65.
• Webster J. The Unredeemed Object: Displaying Abolitionist Artefacts in 2007. Slavery & Abolition 2009, 30(2), 311-325.
• Webster J. Less beloved. Roman archaeology, slavery and the failure to compare. Archaeological Dialogues 2008, 15(2), 103-149.
• Webster J. Slave Ships and Maritime Archaeology: An Overview. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 2008, 12(1), 6-19.
• Webster J. Rome and the 'Barbarians'. In: Alcock, SE; Osborne, R, ed. Classical Archaeology. London: Blackwell, 2007, pp.401-424.
• Webster J. The material culture of slave shipping. In: Hamilton, DJ; Blyth, RJ, ed. Representing Slavery: Art, Artefacts and Archives in the Collections of the National Maritime Museum. London: Lund Humphries, 2007, pp.104-117.
• Webster J. The Zong case in the context of the eighteenth-century slave trade. Journal of Legal History 2007, 28(3), 285-298.
• Webster J. Archaeologies of slavery and servitude: bringing ‘New World’ perspectives to Roman Britain. Journal of Roman Archaeology 2005, 18(1), 161-179.
• Webster J. Historical Archaeology and the Middle Passage. Journal for Maritime Research 2005, (submitted).
• Webster J. Art as resistance and negotiation. In: Scott, S., Webster, J, ed. Roman Imperialism and Provincial Art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp.24-51.
• Scott S, Webster J, ed. Roman imperialism and provincial art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Webster J. Creolizing the Roman Provinces. American Journal of Archaeology 2001, 105(2), 209-225.
• Webster J. A New Roman Britain? Recent Developments in Romano-British Archaeology. American Journal of Archaeology 1999, 103(1), 122-125.
• Webster J. At the End of the World: Druidic and Other Revitalization Movements in Post-Conquest Gaul and Britain. Britannia 1999, 30, 1-20.
• Webster J. Here be dragons! Roman attitudes to Northern Britain. In: Bevan, B, ed. Northern Exposure: interpretative devolution and the Iron Ages in Britain. University of Leicester: School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, 1999, pp.21-31.
• Webster J. Resisting traditions: ceramics, identity and consumer choice in the Outer Hebrides from 1800 to the present. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 1999, 3(1), 53-73.
• Webster, J. Mystics or Freedom Fighters?. British Archaeological News 1998, 18, 17-18.
• Webster, J. A negotiated syncretism: readings on the development of Romano-Celtic religion . In: Mattingly, D.J, ed. Dialogues in Roman Imperialism. 1997, pp.164-184.
• Webster, J. Necessary comparisons: a post-colonial approach to religious syncretism in the Roman provinces. World Archaeology 1997, 28 (3), 324-338.
• Webster, J. Text expectations: the archaeology of ‘Celtic’ ritual wells and shafts. In: Gwilt, A. and Haselgrove, C, ed. Reconstructing Iron Age Societies. 1997, pp.134-144.
• Webster J. Ethnographic barbarity: colonial discourse and ‘Celtic warrior societies’. In: Webster J ; Cooper N, ed. Roman Imperialism: post-colonial perspectives. Leicester: School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, 1996, pp.111-123.
• Webster J. Roman imperialism and the 'post imperial age'. In: Webster J ; Cooper NJ, ed. Roman Imperialism: post-colonial perspectives. Leicester: School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, 1996, pp.1-17.
• Webster, J and Cooper, N (eds). Roman Imperialism: Post-colonial Perspectives. Leicester, 1996.
• Webster, J. Rosiers-D’Egletons, St-Etienne-au-Clos, Bussiere-St-Georges. In: Bilan Scientifique de la Région Limousin 1996. Service Régional de l’Archéologie, 1996, pp.58-9.
• J. Symonds and J. Webster. Archaeological Assessment at New Stubbin, Rotherham, South Yorks. In: Cumberpatch, C.G., and Whiteley, S, ed. Archaeology in South Yorkshire 1994-5. 1995, pp.14-15.
• J. Symonds, J. Webster, and T. Cooper , in. Archaeological Assessment at Straightmile, Rotherham, South Yorks. In: Cumberpatch, C.G., and Whiteley, S, ed. Archaeology in South Yorkshire 1994-5. 1995, pp.16-18.
• J. Symonds, J. Webster, and T. Cooper. Archaeological Investigations at The Corn Exchange, Doncaster, S Yorks. In: Cumberpatch, C.G., and Whiteley, S, ed. Archaeology in South Yorkshire 1994-5. 1995, pp.19-24.
• M. Parker-Pearson, J. Mulville, T. Roper, H. Smith, N. Sharples, and J. Webster. Archaeological Investigations in South Uist. In: Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1995. 1995, pp.4-5.
• Webster, J. Interpretatio: Roman Word Power and the Celtic Gods. Britannia 1995, 26, 153-162.
• Webster, J. Sanctuaries and Sacred Places. In: Green, M, ed. The Celtic World. London: Routledge, 1995, pp.445-464.
• Webster, J. Translation and subjection: interpretatio and the Celtic gods. In: Hill, J.D., and Cumberpatch, C, ed. Different Iron Ages Studies in the Archaeology of Iron Age Europe. 1995, pp.175-183.
• Webster, J. The just war: Graeco-Roman texts as colonial discourse. In: Cottam, S. et al, ed. Proceedings of the Fourth Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference 1994. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1994, pp.1-10.
• Webster, J. Celtic religion in archaeology versus Celtic religion in text. Shadow 1991, 8.2, 1-15.