The University of Stavanger hereby invites applications for a PhD Fellowship in analysis of archaeological wood and/or charcoal at the Museum of Archaeology, Department of Cultural Heritage managment. The PhD research fellow will be affiliated with the research project “Marine Resource Gathering and Infrastructure in the Norse North Atlantic (MARGAIN)”, funded by the Research Council of Norway and led by Dr. Dawn Elise Mooney. One of the most important gathered marine resources in the North Atlantic was driftwood, which was used as fuel and timber in many coastal communities and is now declining due to climate change and increased river management. To a certain extent, it is possible to identify archaeological driftwood through taxonomic analysis of wood and charcoal, as the taxa which arrive as driftwood are generally different to those which grow locally. However, there are some species which both grow locally in Norway and arrive as driftwood around the North Atlantic. This makes it difficult to understand the extent of driftwood use in the North Atlantic as a whole, and the impacts of driftwood exploitation on lifeways and settlement patterns in the region. Chemical and isotopic studies have had little success in identifying a driftwood “signature”, but there are promising avenues within tree-ring analysis and identification of decay features in wood and charcoal. The PhD candidate will therefore work to develop a method to identify driftwood in the archaeological record, allowing us to better understand its past use. This will involve working with a primary material of archaeological charcoal and/or wood from western and northern Norway and the North Atlantic islands (the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland). The candidate will be jointly supervised by Dr. Dawn Elise Mooney (UiS) and Dr. María Martín-Seijo at the Spanish Research Council’s Institute for Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT-CSIC). The position includes a 3-month research stay at INCIPIT in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. MARGAIN also emphasizes the potential of archaeology to fight “shifting baseline syndrome” by inviting the public to compare long-term trends in human interactions with coastal and marine environments. The relationship between driftwood and plastic pollution, which follow the same ocean currents and are cast up on the same beaches, will be a key part of this research communication. The PhD candidate will be invited to contribute to this communication, including working towards a touring exhibition which will use art and archaeology to explore human-ocean interactions. This work will fulfill the requirement for popular research dissemination which is a part of the doctoral course (cf. UiS guidelines). The core project team, including the PhD candidate, will work towards this during two month-long retreats, one in Norway and one in Iceland. There will also be opportunities to take part in fieldwork in Norway.
Plus d’informations :
[Website University of Stavanger]