Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Archaeology to support the Leverhulme funded project, 'Did British tin sources and trade make Bronze Age Europe?'.

The new Leverhulme funded research project, Did British tin sources and trade make Bronze Age Europe?, is led by the Durham University Archaeology Department. The project aims to establish whether Britain's exceptionally rich tin deposits in Cornwall and Devon powered the massive technological and cultural change from copper to full tin-bronze, and thus create the European Bronze Age. If true, this would radically transform our understanding of Britain's social and economic relationships with the far larger and more complex

European societies from Scandinavia to the East Mediterranean. An interdisciplinary team will 'fingerprint' chemically and isotopically tin ores collected from fieldwork across southwest England and metal artefacts from museums. Comparative analyses will also be performed on tin ore samples obtained from collaborators in Brittany, Iberia and Germany.

The successful applicant will be expected to compile and analyse a comprehensive archaeological and geological relational database with integrated GIS for southwest England (Cornwall and Devon). The data to be identified and entered will include all known Bronze Age sites (monuments, burials, cairns, field systems, settlements, metalwork finds etc.) and all known tin ore deposits (alluvial and hard-rock). This data would be integrated with other layers (e.g. topography, rivers and geology) and then subjected to spatial analysis. Data gathering and inputting would involve extensive use of a wide variety of published and unpublished archaeological and geological data to a tight timescale. This work will underpin the fieldwork sampling strategy and the interpretation of the relationship between Bronze Age sites and tin deposits. Additional smaller databases (e.g. tin artefacts, lead and tin isotope data and tin levels in Bronze Age metalwork) will also be compiled as required.

This post is fixed term for 9 months, as the funding is available from 02/03/2020 for this fixed period only.

The post-holder is employed to work on research/a research project which will be led by another colleague. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Successful applicants will, ideally, be in post by 2 March 2020.