Human Origins and Palaeo Environments (HOPE)

The consortium for the study on these two main areas promises to produce a functioning research cluster carrying out ground-breaking interdisciplinary research, focussed on evolutionary anthropology and environmental reconstruction and change.

It builds on the pre-existing collaboration of:

• Dr Adrian Parker – geoarchaeologist
• Simon Underdown – paleoanthropologist
• Dr Helen Walkington – geoarchaeologist

The team’s dovetailing research skills are in:

• Geoarchaeology
• Climate change studies
• Lithics
• Paleobotany
• Ecomorphology
• Cave archaeology

Currently cluster-members work on the development of the research techniques on four areas:

Dr Adrian Parker combines palaeocological and geoarchaeological techniques to produce environmental reconstructions against which regional archaeologists frame their data.

Simon Underdown employs palaeopathology as a diagnostic behavioural tool.

Dr Helen Walkington is a soil micromorphologist and sedimentologist working to understand the natural processes which form archaeological sites.

They use these techniques to contribute to interdisciplinary teams from:

• Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, UK
• Missouri, Kansas City, SMU Southern Methodist University (USA)
• Tübingen, Germany

Together, they are working on sites in South Arabia (Dr Parker, Dr Walkington and Underdown), as well as investigating the eco-physical characteristics of British Mesolithic populations, with colleagues in Plymouth University, and Plymouth City Museum (Cattedown Bone Cave Project) (Underdown).

HOPE is also affiliated with the Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage consultancy group (OBAH). OBAH provides archaeological and educational consultancy services to developers, environmental consultants, national museums, and international heritage organisations, with particular specialty in Arabia and the Persian Gulf region. Further information visit Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage group.