Dr Julie Bond

Biography

My research has focused on the impact of climate and environment and the stability of agrarian strategies in marginal environments, using multiperiod settlements as a way of studying change over long time sequences. I am interested in the social and economic impact of Viking Landnám in the North Atlantic settlements, through excavations and research projects such as Pool (Orkney), Tofts Ness (Orkney), Old Scatness (Shetland), Jarlshof (Shetland), the Viking Unst Project (Shetland), and the international Heart of the Atlantic Project, Faroe Islands. I am currently co-directing (with Steve Dockrill) the excavation of an eroding coastal site at Swandro on the island of Rousay; an international research-based Field School with funding from Historic Environment Scotland, Orkney Islands Council, the University of Bradford and public funding raised through the Swandro-Orkney Coastal Archaeology Trust (of which I am Vice-Chair and Trustee). Swandro featured in the 2018 TV series ‘Digging for Britain’.      My research is in part field-based and uses excavation data from the North Atlantic region. The Viking Unst project, 2006-2009 was a major initiative with Shetland Amenity Trust for which I was the excavation director; funded principally by Heritage Lotteries Fund and other funds distributed through Shetland Amenity Trust, the research team included specialists and research students from the Universities of Bradford, Durham (Mike Church), Glasgow (Colleen Batey), CUNY and Stirling (Ian Simpson). I was also a co-director and post excavation manager (with Steve Dockrill, Bradford) of Old Scatness field and publication project (1995-2019),  excavations at the Historic Environment Scotland site of Jarlshof (co-director with PI Steve Dockrill, funded by the British Academy and Historic Scotland, 2005-6), and one of the team of directors of Undir Junkarinsfløtti (the international Heart of the Atlantic project, involving the Faroese National Museum (Sίmun Aarge), City University New York (Tom McGovern), Durham (Mike Church) and Bradford Universities). Currently my work centres on Orkney, Gateway to the Atlantic: fieldwork and community outreach in Rousay (2009-current, with S J Dockrill, University of Bradford; J Gibson, I L Mainland and J Downes; Orkney College UHI, Ruth Maher; William Paterson University, USA and students from Bradford, CUNY (USA) and other national and international universities.   I am a member of two international research co-operatives; the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation (NABO) and the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA). In 2008 I co-organised the NABO conference Archaeological Futures: A Research Agenda for the North Atlantic, held in Bradford, which led to a published protocol for work in the North Atlantic (NABO 2008 Bradford Community Statement Problems, Potentials, and Progress in North Atlantic Human Ecodynamics).  In 2010 I became an Adjunct Research Professor for the City University of New York (CUNY). In 2011 I was invited to become a member of the NABO NSF-funded International Polar Year research project: Long Term Human Ecodynamics in the Norse North Atlantic: cases of sustainability, survival and collapse (2007-2010) and the GHEA RCN-SEES Global long-term human ecodynamics research co-ordination network: assessing sustainability on the millennial scale. (Office of Polar Programs Science, Engineering and Education Research Coordination Network grant no. 1140106). The Gateway to the Atlantic Project (Swandro) formed part of this. I am also a member of the Humanities for the Environment (HfE) ‘Circumpolar Observatory’, a research network distributed throughout the Arctic and Subarctic.   My laboratory-based work centres on aspects of zooarchaeology including the archaeology of human/animal burials, cremation and the understanding of palaeoeconomies, especially intensification, dairying and adaptation to marginal environments. I have researched and published on the animal offerings in Anglo- Saxon cremation cemeteries such as Sutton Hoo, Sancton and Spong Hill, as well as the Roman fort of Brougham and the Viking cemetery at Ingleby (with Fay Worley).   In 2015 I won the University of Bradford’s Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award for the development of teaching methods in archaeological fieldwork. In 2017 I received a student-nominated commendation in the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Achievement, for work in the School of Archaeology and for the teaching of Viking archaeology.

Professional activities