Professor Rick Schulting

Dr Rick Schulting
Professor of Scientific and Prehistoric Archaeology, on sabbatical Oct 24-Oct 25
Wolfson College
+44 (0)1865 278309
rick.schulting@arch.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests

Mesolithic and Neolithic of western Europe; North American Northwest Coast and Plateau archaeology and ethnography; Siberian steppe hunter-gatherers and pastoralists; Caribbean prehistory; Japanese prehistory; complex hunter-gatherers; transition to agriculture; mortuary analysis; stable isotope analysis and dietary reconstruction; strontium isotopes and provenance/mobility; skeletal evidence of interpersonal violence; radiocarbon dating; Bayesian modelling; marine and freshwater radiocarbon reservoir corrections, especially in Europe, Siberia, the Caribbean and northern Chile. 

Research Profile

Research Activities

I have had a long-standing interest in the Mesolithic and Neolithic of Western Europe, both in themselves, and in terms of the transition to farming. Recent and ongoing research is focussed on improving our understanding of chronology, through the use of AMS 14C dating, and of palaeodiet, through the use of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis. Another current research strand involves a re-assessment of extant Neolithic skeletal collections from various regions of western Europe, from the point of view of evidence for interpersonal violence. Most recently, I have extended my interests to Eurasian steppe pastoralists, and to the hunter-gatherers of Siberia and northern Japan, as a member of the Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeological Project (http://bhap.arts.ualberta.ca/).

An edited volume titled 'Sticks, Stones & Broken Bones: Neolithic Violence in a European Perspective' (OUP), published in 2012, presents overviews of violent injuries on skeletons from various regions of Europe. 

Co-Investigator - Cultivating Societies: assessing the evidence for agriculture in Neolithic Ireland: http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/instar

Links

Publications
Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Undergraduate course convenor for:

  • FHS core paper 3: Landscape and Ecology
  • FHS option paper: Physical Anthropology & Human Osteoarchaeology

Undergraduate lecturer for:

  • Honour Moderations paper 1: Introduction to World Archaeology
  • Honour Moderations paper 3:  Perspectives on Human Evolution

Postgraduate teaching

Postgraduate taught course options in: 

Doctoral Supervision

I am happy to supervise topics addressing human and animal diet and mobility, individual life histories, inequality, conflict and human adaptations to coastal zones and islands

Current students

Nourishing Life and Movement: Understanding Diet and Mobility in the Intermediate and Middle Bronze Age in Israel
Lev Cosijns | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
Extricating the importance of freshwater resource use within prehistoric diets: combining the power of bulk and compound specific stable isotope analysis with established freshwater reservoir effects on radiocarbon dates
Corrie Hyland | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Amy Styring
A multi-isotope approach to hunter-gatherer mobility and microregional connectivity in Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal, Southern Siberia
Karolina Werens | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
Unlocking Basque Uniqueness: A Multifaceted Approach
Valentin Darre | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Greger Larson
Nuna Nalluyuituq/The Land Remembers: Spatial technology, collaborative community engagement, and capacity building in Southwest Alaskan cultural landscapes
Jonathan Lim | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and John Pouncett
Change and Continuity in the Spatial and Social Organisation of Late Longshan (2500-1900BC) Sites on Zhengzhou Plains, Henan, China
Muyang Shi | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Anke Hein
Foraging to farming: diet and health on the frontier of maize agriculture in pre-Columbian central Chile
Jaime Swift | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting

Past students

Violence Leaves Scars: A Biocultural Approach to Violence in Prehistoric Jomon Japan
Izumi Braddick (2022) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Mark Hudson
Archaeological marine carbonates in northern Hokkaido, Japan: methodology, chronology and palaeothermometry
Tansy Branscombe (2022) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Julia Lee-Thorp
Histological, Physicochemical, and Osteogenic Reaction-Related Approaches to Identifying the Pre-Burning Condition of Bone
Emese Vegh (2022) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
The role of conflict during the adoption of agriculture in the Southwestern Japanese Archipelago: Late-Final Jomon and Yayoi Period Traumatic Lesions
Julia White (2022) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Mark Hudson
Diet and Health in a time of transition: Pictish and Viking age Orkney
Alexandra Johnson (2021) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Helena Hamerow
Modelling Seafaring in Iron Age Atlantic Europe
Karl Smith (2020) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and John Pouncett
From the Andes to the Coast: Human mobility and diet in the Atacama Desert during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 900-1450)
Francisca Santana Sagredo (2016) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Julia Lee-Thorp
Palaeodietary Reconstruction in Late Antique Spain and Assessing Means of Inter-Site Comparison
Margaret Ziriax (2016) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
Neolithic Anatolia and Central Europe: Disentangling Environmental Impacts from Diet Istotope Studies
Chelsea Budd (2015) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
Understanding Violence in Medieval London: An Examination of the Skeletal Evidence
Kathryn Krakowka (2015) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
A Burning Question: Structural and Isotopic Studies of Cremated Bone in Archaeological Contexts
Christophe Snoeck (2014) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Julia Lee-Thorp
'That Which Was Missing': The Archaeology of Castration
Kathryn Reusch (2013) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting
Life and Death in the Korean Bronze Age (c.1500-400 BC): An analysis of settlements and monuments in the mid-Korean peninsula
Sun Kim (2012) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Chris Gosden and Rick Schulting
Heading for Trouble: Skeletal Evidence for Interpersonal Violence in Neolithic Northwest Europe
Linda Fibiger (2009) | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Rick Schulting

Key words: bioarchaeology, diet, mobility, chronology, health, farming and herding, inequality, resilience, hunter-gatherers, conflict, violence, warfare, earlier prehistory, later prehistory, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Europe, Eurasia, Americas, Britain, Ireland, Siberia, Bahamas, Japan