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Vincent Gaffney

50th Anniversary Chair

Area
School of Archaeological & Forensic Sci
Faculty of Life Sciences
Language
Croatian
E-mail
V.Gaffney@bradford.ac.uk
Phone
+441274234235
Vincent Gaffney

Biography

Professor Vincent Gaffney is Anniversary Chair in Landscape Archaeology at the Department of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford.  Current research projects include the ERC Synergy grant, Subnordica,  AHRC Taken at the Flood and Unptath'd Waters project. He continues his research in the Stonehenge Landscape as part of the LBI_ArchPro “Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes” Project where he led the UK team creating 3D and virtual imaging of the landscape from an extensive programme of geophysical survey of the largely unmapped landscape.  He is also a member of the Avon Riverside project team.

Previous research projects include the ERC-funded Advanced Grant project - "Lost Frontiers: exploring climate change, settlement and colonisation of the submerged landscapes of the North Sea basin using ancient DNA, seismic mapping and complex systems modelling".   During 2016 he was part of the "Curious Travellers" team which received AHRC funding to crowd-source images for reconstruction of damaged cultural sites. He led the analysis of the Mesolithic pit alignment at Warren Field Crathes, and took part in agent-based modelling of the battle of Manzikert (1071) in Anatolia and he was Co-PI on the EPSRC Gravity Gradient Project providing imaging for novel gravity sensor development.  Other fieldwork has included a major project investigating Roman Wroxeter, survey of Diocletian’s Mausoleum in Split, the wetland landscape of the river Cetina (Croatia), fieldwork in Italy centred on the Roman town at Forum Novum, historic landscape characterisation at Fort Hood (Texas) and internet mapping of the Mundo Maya region.  Professor Gaffney has wider interests in knowledge exchange and co-PI’d the ERDF/AWM-funded Visual and Imaging Network for the West Midlands industrial region. 

Professor Gaffney has received national and international awards for his work including the 2013 European Archaeological Heritage Prize awarded by the European Association of Archaeologists and the  Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education.  His work on inundated marine landscapes received the 2007 award for Heritage Presentation at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His book “Europe’s Lost World” was awarded the “Best Publication” prize at the British Archaeological Awards in 2010. In 2017 his work at Durrington Walls received "Best Research Project" prize, whilst in 2018 he was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Awards for services to scientific research

Research

I have a wide range of research interests centred around landscape archaeology and previous and current research projects.  

These include -

  • Landscape Archaeology
  • Inundated marine paleolandscapes
  • Croatian Archaeology
  • British Prehistory 
  • Mediterranean landscape archaeology
  • Digital Humanities

Research projects

Europe's Lost Frontiers

Date
to
Role
Principal Investigator

The only lands on Earth that have not been explored in any depth by science are those that have been lost to the oceans. Global warming at the end of the last Ice Age led to the inundation of vast landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people. These lost lands hold a unique and largely unexplored record of settlement and colonisation linked to climate change over millennia. Amongst the most significant is Doggerland. Occupying much of the North Sea basin between continental Europe and Britain it would have been a heartland of human occupation and central to the process of re-settlement and colonisation of north Western Europe during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Within this submerged landscape lies fragmentary yet valuable evidence for the lifestyles of its inhabitants including the changes resulting from both the encroaching sea and the introduction of Neolithic technologies. This inundated landscape cannot be explored conventionally, however pioneering work by members of this project has led to the rediscovery of Doggerland through the creation of the first detailed topographic maps relating to human occupation in the Early Holocene. Within the Europe's Lost Frontiers project, innovators in the fields of archaeo-geophysics, molecular biology and computer simulation will develop new paradigms for the study of past environments, ecological change and the transition between hunter gathering societies and farming in north west Europe that will involve the following elements: Seismic Mapping Environmental Analysis Sedimentary DNA Computer Simulation See https://lostfrontiers.teamapp.com/ for more information

Subnordica

Date
to
Role
Principal Investigator

The SUBNORDICA project, funded as an “ERC Synergy Grant”, researches the sunken post-glacial landscapes in the North and Baltic Seas. Traces and settlement sites of Stone Age people have been particularly well preserved there. They can provide information about the development and diversity of cultures at the time and allow a close look at how people adapted to rising sea levels. While numerous sites are already known in the Baltic Sea, the areas in the North Sea where cultural remains are to be expected have so far been particularly difficult to locate. They are often covered by thick marine sediments. At the same time, the settlement areas in the sunken landscapes are at acute risk due to construction activities in the offshore area. Together with the application partners from the Bradford (UK) and Aarhus (DK) as well as the Museum Moesgaard (DK), new methods for locating and investigating the difficult-to-access archaeological sites in the North Sea are to be developed based on findings from the Baltic Sea. At the NIhK the team led by Dr. Svea Mahlstedt (PI) is primarily concerned with the sunken forests and settlement areas in the southern Baltic Sea. The investigations contribute to the development of methods for locating human settlement sites in the sunken landscapes. The NIhK also contributes its geological expertise to offshore expeditions in the North Sea and is involved in the reconstruction of the submerged landscapes preserved there.

Professional activities

Awards (5)

  • MBE for services to science (1 January 2018)
  • Research Project of the Year (1 January 2017)
  • European Archaeological Heritage Prize (1 January 2013)
  • Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education (1 January 1996)
  • BT Development Award (1 January 1996)

Committees (3)

  • Society of Antiquaries of London, Member of the Society of Antiquaries of London
  • Highways Agency Scientific Advisory Panel for the A303 tunnel,
  • Archaeology Data service,

Education (2)

  • University of Reading - BA
  • University of Reading - PhD

Publications

Book (4)

Chapter in book (2)

  • SACRED AND PROFANE: THE TALEŽ ENCLOSURE AND VELA GOMILA ON THE ISLAND OF VIS

    Vincent Gaffney;branko Kirigin;Tim Kaiser;Vedran Barbaric (2024) In Ivan Basić;Ivan Josipović;Miljenko Jurković editor(s) International Research Center for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Motovun, University of Zagreb;.

  • The archaeological context of Doggerland during the final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic

    James Walker, Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch, Rachel Harding, Andrew Fraser, Merle Muru, Martin Tingle (2022) Europe's Lost Frontiers. Volume: 1 Context and Methodology. In Vincent Gaffney and Simon Fitch editor(s) Archaeopress.

Electronic article (1)

Magazine article (1)

  • Curious Travellers: Preserving endangered heritage across the world.

    Faber, E., Sparrow, T, Wilson, A.S., Gaffney, V., Gaffney, C., Murgatroyd, A., Ch’ng, E., Bates, R., Cuttler, R. and Sears, G. (2017) Current World Archaeology.

Non-peer reviewed journal (2)

Note (1)

Peer reviewed journal (8)