Research
Research highlights
My principal research areas include the origins and spread of agriculture, the domestication of animals, human and animal dispersal, diet and health, palaeopathology and palaeoeconomics. I also have growing interests in aspects of wartime heritage and conflict.
My research group have made new contributions to international and interdisciplinary research agendas - specifically in the contentious debates concerning Austronesian origins and human colonisation of the Pacific; novel evidence for Neolithic dispersal from the near East into Europe (results of which have very recently been confirmed by human genetic data) and the origins and processes of animal domestication and commensalism (specifically through research into pigs, dogs, rodents and birds of prey). These draw heavily on both traditional and novel approaches, deploying a successful research model that combines genetic and novel morphometric approaches with direct dating.
Also undertook the largest and most comprehensive study of a domestic animal (the pig); produced the first comparative analysis of the genetic and archaeological records for dog domestication; revealed the continental origin and island evolution of the Orkney Vole.
Working with genetics colleagues in Adelaide, we undertook the first ancient DNA research on the Human Palaeomicrobiome - based on earlier work I undertook during the 1980s (as a research technician at the Institute of Archaeology, London with Professor Don Brothwell). This field is fast becoming one of the most exciting prospects for studying the evolution of diet and disease.
Other recent research highlights include using shape analyses of skeletal remains to explore the identity of the earliest settlers of Iceland and the evolutionary impact of bipedalism on back pain.
Research grants
Deciphering dog domestication through a combined ancient DNA and geometric morphometric approach
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
March 2016 - May 2017
Animals, Lifeways and Lifeworlds in Yup'ik Archaeology (ALLY): Subsistence, Technologies, and Communities of Change
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
March 2016 - November 2018
One Health Research Network for the Horn of Africa (HORN)
BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2017 - March 2023
The Consequences of Gene Flow between Wild and Domestic Populations during Livestock Evolution
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2018 - September 2021
From wolf to dog: Reconstructing their role in early human societies
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
October 2017 - March 2022
IPACE - Iceland: Physical Anthropology of Colonization and Evolution
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
August 2017 - July 2019