PhD summer travels

Matthew Jacobson is a current PhD student researching climate change and socio-economic transformations in the Late Antiquity of the Middle East. Read on to find out what he got up to over the summer…

Whilst on holiday in Singapore earlier this year, I visited the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and gave a presentation; this was on climate change in Arabia during the 7th century CE and the potential impacts of this on individuals, society and religion. The hospitality of Dr. Xianfeng Wang who hosted me was unparalleled, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time. I was given a tour of their laboratories, which were vastly different to Reading’s due to the influence of humidity on stable-isotopes – whereas our drilling lab is the same as any other room, to enter theirs you had to enter the academic equivalent of a decompression chamber and change your clothes (+shoes).

Luckily, before my presentation I saw a talk by Professor Charles Elachi (former head of NASA Mars Mission) and valuably noted what went down well in the presentation – the main point being that they found it hilarious if you referenced their Uni! Another lesson learnt following the presentation is to ensure you use all your allotted time for presentations: I finished slightly early and had to suffer 22 minutes of questions which meant they got particularly tough towards the end. Whilst in Singapore, I also visited the Asian Civilisation Museum (see below) and it was the best Museum I have ever visited, I could not recommend it more to anyone visiting the country (especially archaeologists)!

Later in the year, I also visited Princeton University in the states; where I was invited to the climate change and history research initiative (CCHRI) annual symposium to give a similar talk to the one I gave in NTU. This time I was lucky enough to be co-presenting with Professor John Haldon (Princeton) who is an esteemed historian, which saved some of the nerves – it also saved me from the horrible historical questions that came later! Both presentations went well, and I was happy with how I did! One of the patterns that I have observed whilst giving presentations is that people often ask about the aspects they understand least about – seems obvious but it’s more than that. Archaeologists/historians tend to ask me about the climate science whereas the climate scientists in Singapore asked lots of questions about the historical/archaeological aspects – prepare for any eventuality!

Matthew J Jacobson

Josie Handley is a current PhD student in the Department, researching the resilience of agricultural systems to human activities and climate change in the Peruvian Andes. Over the summer, she conducted fieldwork in Peru – read on to learn about her experiences…

“During July, I was lucky enough to visit Peru and carryout fieldwork related to my PhD. The two-week trip involved visiting two of my study areas, the Ancash District and the Chillón Valley. Whilst in these regions I took sediment core samples from six sites, including lakes and peat bogs, which provided me with the majority of my samples for my PhD. In the field, we also interviewed local farmers and held community workshops to discuss the present day issues affecting agriculture productivity and sustainability within the study areas. This was also an excellent opportunity to record local oral histories about changes in farming practices within living memory, to go alongside the deeper history perspective the collected core records will hopefully provide.

One of the study sites in Peru

Being out in Peru conducting fieldwork was not only useful in terms of sample collection and conducting the interviews, but it also provided the opportunity to see how the agricultural land was being cultivated and worked in the present day. This can provide a modern analogue for the agricultural activity signals we may pick up through analysis of the core sequences.

I also got the opportunity to attend two workshops, one at Universidad National Santiago Antunez de Mayolo, Huaraz entitled ‘Living with Climate Change’ and the second at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima. These workshops were a great opportunity to network with Peruvian colleagues from archaeology as well as local NGOs and governmental organisations such as the Mountain Institute and the National Institute of Investigation on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems.

My experience of fieldwork ran relatively smoothly; this was largely due to having native speakers of both Spanish and Quechua with me for the majority of the trip. This particularly helped when conducting interviews and structured discussion sessions. It was also useful having people that knew the areas well, especially when it came to site selection, as two of the sites were not in the original itinerary but turned out to be great coring locations, thanks to the local knowledge of the area. Whilst I was in Peru, I was also able to make the most of my trip and took the opportunity to do some travelling and spent two weeks after my fieldwork on the tourist trail of the south visiting Cusco, Machu Picchu, Nazca, and Huacachina, an oasis in the desert.”

Visiting Machu Picchu

First annual winners announced for the Rob Potter Memorial Overseas Travel Award

Congratulations to Aroa Garcia-Suarez (PhD student in Archaeology) and Izabela Stacewicz (PhD student in GES), who have made successful applications to the first annual Rob Potter Memorial Overseas Travel Award.  Both Aroa and Izabela have each been awarded £500 towards overseas fieldwork in 2014/2015.

Izabela Stacewicz

Izabela Stacewicz

“I am delighted to have received the Rob Potter Memorial Travel Award for Overseas Fieldwork, and I am most grateful to the Committee for supporting my work.  My PhD project explores the politics and effectiveness of Social Impact Assessment in addressing land and labour rights in the context of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.  The Award will contribute to fieldwork in Malaysia and Indonesia in Spring 2015, during which I will conduct research with palm oil plantation workers, and communities affected by palm oil production.”

Izabela Stacewicz

“This award represents a great aid to carry out fieldwork related to my doctoral project and will be used to cover travel costs to and from Turkey in order to finalise the excavation and sampling of an archaeologically significant Neolithic building at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Çatalhöyük.”

Aroa Garcia-Suarez

This is the first year of this award made in honour of the former Head of School, Professor Emeritus Rob Potter (1950 – 2014).  For more information about Rob’s academic achievements, and details on the application process for the Overseas Travel Award, please visit the webpage.