This PhD project will be conducted within the scope of the MEDGREENREV ERC-Synergy project though which you will gain experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary, international research team. The links between pastoralism, cultivation, manuring, geology and type of field system are particularly opaque in documentary sources for the 6th - 16th centuries in Iberia and North Africa and are under investigated through archaeological research. As a multi-scalar research strand, geoarchaeology has a pivotal role to play in taking a holistic stance to investigate the symbiotic relationships between these aspects of agro pastoralist systems alongside the backdrop of climate research conducted by the project’s partner, the University of Basel. Soils and sediments are the backbone of the archaeological record and are palaeoenvironmental archives of historic land use and the links between settlement and landscape. These links will be investigated in this project using a suite of microanalytical and physio-chemical geoarchaeological techniques. Historic agrarian management and livestock alimentation decisions will be examined at the site scale to capture chronological and regional variations, within the frameworks of religious and climatic change, to create a timeline and map for the region. Outcomes will include an assessment of the extent to which the geoarchaeological data can be applied to the future development of sustainable and resilient agricultural approaches including livestock-centred agroforestry, regenerative agricultural practices, climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, and knowledge to inform the development of novel agri-technologies. This transdisciplinary research, co-supervised by Dr Mauchline, addresses key topics within the University of Reading’s Agrifood Futures research strategy. The position involves labour-intensive microscopic and laboratory analyses (e.g. of soil micromorphology thin sections, geochemical and sediment characterisation analyses) and 2-3 months of field work in Mediterranean environments (sample collection on excavations and some coring).
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