Postdoctoral Research Associate in Archaeology

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the field of the archaeology of Southwest Asia, focusing on landscapes and cultural heritage protection. The postholder will work as part of the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Project (funded by Arcadia) and the Climate, Landscape, Settlement and Society: Exploring Human-Environmental Interaction in the Ancient Near East (CLaSS) project (funded by the ERC), reporting to the project PIs Prof Graham Philip and Dr. Dan Lawrence.

The EAMENA Project uses satellite imagery and aerial photography to identify and document archaeological sites in the Middle East and North Africa (from Mauretania to Iran), to improve understanding and enhance their future protection and management. The EAMENA team at Durham works with partner teams at the Universities of Leicester and Oxford. The Durham component of the project is focused upon Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, western Iran and the Caucasus.

The CLaSS project investigates the relationship between climate fluctuations and the emergence of complex social and political formations over the Holocene. The project has been collecting archaeological settlement data and archaeobotanical data (plant and tree remains) and zooarchaeological data for the entire Fertile Crescent region and combining these with climate simulations derived from General Circulation Models (GCMs). The goal is to investigate the relationship between climate change and social complexity over the long- and short-term.

The postholder will be responsible for the organisation of existing, and the creation of new, settlement datasets from legacy sources and satellite remote sensing, and their input into the relevant project databases. The post-holder will also engage in research, including publication writing, project-related administration and other activities supporting the work of EAMENA and CLaSS.

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