Professor Jacqueline Mulville

(she/her)

BSc (Imperial), PhD (Sheffield), ARCS

Publication

• Date
• Type
• Promoted

Research

Projects

1. International
2. Interdisciplinary
3. Impact, Outreach and Engagement
4. Archaeology

1. International

Phoenix Heritage The Phoenix Heritage project aims to research and support heritage in the southwestern African country. It builds on the ongoing work of the Phoenix Project between the University of Namibia and the Phoenix Project at Cardiff University, directed by Professor Judith Hall. The Phoenix Heritage project is co-creating a sustainable Historic Environment Record with the National Heritage Council as a tool to provide opportunities for future research priorities, management priorities, training and public engagement. This open-source online heritage data management system, based on the HEROS system developed in Wales, will enable the recording and analysis of traditional data alongside digital mapping, images and documents.

Collaborating in Wales are Professor Jacqui Mulville (archaeologist with heritage management experience), Dr Steve Mills  (Computing, GIS and survey) and Dr Scott Williams (PDRA), Dr Ffion Reynolds of Cadw the historic environment service for the Welsh Government, Dr Scott Williams (Aerial Cam) and in Namibia Dr Goodman Gwasira, University of Namibia (heritage management, survey and rock art), Drs Andreas Amukwaya and Kauna Mufti (Computing and GIS) and Ms Agnes Shiningayamwe of the National Heritage Council of Namibia. Training is being developed with Dr Maggy Beukes-Amiss of the Centre for Open, Distance and eLearning.

Funded by: HFCW GCRF Small Project Fund £54,429 Duration: 2019 to date due to Covid Delays.

2. Interdisciplinary

Festivals Research Group The FRG was set up in 2016 to bring together academics at Cardiff University and key stakeholders to undertake collaborative research on the festivals scene, and to consider urgent questions on the future of festivals. The Festivals in Lockdown project sets out to capture a unique moment in UK festival history and to broaden the academic discourse about festivals and their culture and heritage value. A pilot survey of festival-goers to capture the thoughts and feelings held towards the loss of music and arts festivals due to CV19 was completed and the results have helped to shape further research on festivals and their cultural and heritage value.  The team also helped to formulate the 'Beyond the Festival' project with Green Gathering, supported by Clwster.  Team: Dr Eveleigh Buck, Coventry University, Dr Barbara Brayshay, Independent Researcher, Festival Research Group, Cardiff University.

Key publications: A Spotlight on Swn Music Festival 2016, Festival Monument making,mythologies and memory

3. Impact, Outreach and Engagement

Guerilla Archaeology To increase the reach and significance of my research, in 2011 I created an outreach group Guerilla Archaeology (GA); today comprises over one hundred members drawn from staff, students, alumni, artists and community members and supported by external funding. GA activities and methodologies have twice won City Region Exchange funding, formed parts of a REF 2014 Impact Case Study, and a REF 2021 Impact Case Study, and were a major focus within two successful 2017 AHRC grants (Co-I) Consuming Prehistory focused on Stonehenge (partner Historic England), Caer Studio (partner Action Caer Ely), and in 2019 a Children in Need Curiosity Grant.  Craftwork in 2022 saw the team utilise the crafts and creativity found in archaeological objects to stimulate sustainable economic growth, social regeneration and conservation on Scottish islands. In 2024 the Embedding Heritage Craft (AHRC funded) will continue this work by embeding staff members within a Heritage and Cultural organisation to create impact from archaeological research. An informed participatory model will address barriers to engagement within remote, rural populations. Working with trusted community partners the placement will directly develop the skill set and potential of working age individuals to support sustainable and creative island economies and develop new models of heritage engagement.

GA functions as a participatory pathway, taking academic research out of universities to wider audiences and appearing at 5-8 major public events, such as festivals (e.g. Glastonbury) each year. Quantitative analysis indicates that >75k people have attended GA events whilst qualitative evaluation has demonstrated that GA has enhanced public understanding of interdisciplinary research, promoted engagement and training within CU staff, PG and UG communities and provided key employability skills in PE. GA has also stimulated enquiry-led and practice-based research and publications and the creation of an undergraduate module.

Key publication: Mulville, J. 2019 Exhibitions, Engagement and Provocation: From Future Animals to Guerilla Archaeology. Ed P. Bjerregaard. ‘Exhibitions as Research: Experimental methods in Museums’ Routledge. ISSN 1317239032

Projects include

Wild Things? Developing sustainable food systems in prehistory Archaeological investigations on the outer Scottish islands have revealed exceptional and early evidence for the human control and manipulation of animals used as food resources. Detailed records of faunal introduction and interactions suggest that early settlers introduced red deer to a pristine environment across the dividing seas. Funded by the British Academy

On the Northern and Western Isles, red deer populations flourished and became integral to insular lives, just as farming systems spread across the UK and wild food usage declined. Deer, alongside sheep and cattle, became embedded in insular social, ritual and subsistence practices. Limited landmasses and challenging weather systems forced islanders to develop and adapt practices that allowed a wild species to thrive alongside domestic stock and crops for millennia. Through a close examination of the introduction, management, adaptations and, for some islands, the eventual extinction of deer, this project explores these distinctive and sustainable ways of living with wild animals.

CHEMARCH - the Organic Chemistry and Molecular Biology of Archaeological Artefacts The European Joint Directive project Innovative Training Networks (ITN), aims to train the next generation of archaeological chemists/biomolecular archaeologists, equipping them with interdisciplinary skills in chemistry, molecular biology and archaeology to become independent research leaders.  The field of archaeological science offers a great opportunity to present scientific concepts that are often perceived as ‘hard’ or ‘challenging’ by harnessing the public’s appetite for understanding the past. TheChemArch EJD will make a meaningful contribution to the public’s understanding of science by designing and delivering workshops at International popular culture and music festivals.  These will be delivered by Guerilla Archaeology and designed in collaboration with ESRs. These outreach events are particularly valuable for communicating research to groups (young adults) who are less likely than other demographics to attend heritage events or visit museums. Funded by: MARIE Skłodowska-Curie Actions 4,236,454.44 €  Duration 2021-2024

Consuming Prehistory: Feeding Stonehenge Stonehenge, Britain’s iconic prehistoric monument, continues to fascinate. Thanks to recent research including a new series of excavations undertaken over the last 10 years, the public’s appetite for the story of Stonehenge is as voracious as ever, demonstrated by countless documentaries, popular books and a new visitor centre at the site. Consuming Prehistory made the remarkable and detailed evidence for the consumption of food at Stonehenge, which came to light through the Feeding Stonehenge Project (AHRC) available to new audiences.

Food is central to all our lives, forming the structure of our days and lying at the heart of many social events. At the same time, food is the focus of many health concerns, with advice on the quality, quantity, type and source of food never far from the front page or the screen. This project will be tapped into the public appetite for all things edible by providing a prehistoric perspective on how foods were treated (acquired, prepared and consumed) in Neolithic Britain. We showed how scientists made these discoveries through examination and molecular analysis of bones and artefacts, focusing on those recently excavated from the Stonehenge monumental complex. Through these twin-core themes (food and science), we substantially extended the reach and significance of the original research. Funded by: AHRC Follow on Funding for Impact and Engagement £95,000

2019 CAER Community Science The CAER Project is a collaborative project between community development organisation ACE - Action in Caerau and Ely, Cardiff University, and local schools and residents. The project is based around one of Cardiff’s most important, but little-known, archaeological sites, Caerau Iron Age hillfort. Curiosity Club will hold regular extra-curricular activities on the themes 'What people made, What people ate and Changing environments'. Funded by: Children in Need £120,000 Duration 2020-24

4. Archaeology

Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles) - Current and recent projects include the co-direction of Cille Phaedair and Cladh Hallan and substantive contributions to Bornais (Mounds 1 to 3). These excavations have been funded by Historic Scotland with additional research funding provided by NERC (Changing Patterns of Marine Product Exploitation in Human Prehistory via Biomarker Proxies in Archaeological Pottery, Co-PI Prof Richard Evershed, NERC (£413,197) and NERC Life Sciences Mass Spectroscopy Facility (£22,692)) and the AHRC amongst others. These sites have been the focus of several doctoral studies (e.g. Best, Evans, Jones, Law) and numerous Masters and UG projects. Duration: ongoing.

Key publications: Marshall, P., Smith, H., Mulville, J. and Parker Pearson, M., 2021. Cladh Hallan: Roundhouses and the dead in the Hebridean Bronze Age and Iron Age: Part I: Stratigraphy, Spatial Organisation and Chronology. Cladh Hallan. Parker Pearson, M., Brennan, M. and Smith, H. 2018. Cille Pheadair: A Norse farmstead and Pictish burial cairn in South Uist. Oxbow Books. ISBN: 9781785708510,  Mulville, J. and Powell, A. 2012 Mammalian Bone; Resource Exploitation, Site Activities and Discussion. In Sharples, N (ed.). A Late Iron Age farmstead in the Outer Hebrides: Excavations at Mound 1, Bornais. South Uist. Oxbow. Bornais, South Uist. Cardiff Studies in Archaeology, Oxbow Books, Oxford, Stanton, D., Mulville, J. and Bruford, M. 2016. 10.1098/rspb.2016.0095, Cramp, L., et al. 2014. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2372, Jones, J. and Mulville, J. 2016. DOI. 10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.08.019, Jones, J. and Mulville, J. 2018.DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2018.1439678

Isles of Scilly - The Islands in A Common Sea project sought to reinvigorate archaeological research into the prehistory and later history of the Islands (British Academy, Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Cardiff University, Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, NERC  to the value of £70,585). The project developed knowledge of the early environment, settlement and social activity, established a monumental and ceramic chronology for the Isles of Scilly investigated the relationship between the Islands and the Southwest British mainland and enhanced understanding of the archaeology of the Atlantic façade. See also the project blog at http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/isles-in-a-common-sea/. Duration: 2005-2009.

The Lyonesse Project funded by English Heritage further developed this research and examined the evolution of coastal and marine environments in Scilly. The project reconstructed the evolution of the physical environment of Scilly during the Holocene, the progressive occupation of this changing coastal landscape by early peoples and their response to marine inundation and changing marine resource availability. Of particular importance was the development of models of sea-level change during the past 8,000 years and the baseline data for estimating a future sea-level rise in Scilly for regional and national climate change forums and reviews. Methods included survey and sampling of intertidal and submerged peat deposits with analysis of palynological, diatom and foramifica in association with radiocarbon and OSL dating. Duration: 2009-2013, and on-going

Key publications:

Charman, D., Johns, C., Camidge, K, Marshall, P., Mills, S., Mulville, J., Roberts, H. 2015. A study of the historic coastal and marine environment of the Isles of Scilly. Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Cornwall Council ISBN: 9780993392900.

Barnett, R.L., Charman, D.J, Johns, C.J, Ward, S.L., Bevan, A., Bradley, S., Camidge, K.,  Fyfe, R.M.,  Gehrels, W. R., Gehrels, M. J., Hatton, J., Khan, N. S., Marshall, P., Maezumi, S. Y., Mills, S., Mulville, J., Perez, M., Roberts, H. M.,  Scourse, J. D. Shepherd, F., Stevens T., 2020. Nonlinear landscape and cultural response to sea-level rise. Science advances, 6(45), p.eabb6376. 10.1126/sciadv.abb6376

Research into changing sea levels in South Wales developed from this project (PhD Philp).

Osteology - Zooarchaeology and Human Remains

Recent projects include substantive publications on zooarchaeological assemblages from Neolithic Turkey (Ҫatalhöyük) and Scotland (Skara Brae) to medieval Wales (Llangorse Crannog) and England (Eynsham and St. Albans Abbey, and Southampton (PhD Yang) well research into multiperiod sites from Na h-Eileanan Siar/Western Isles and Oxfordshire (Yarnton).  Other projects have focused on particular species (e.g. cetaceans, birds), analytical methodologies (e.g. identification, isotopes, aDNA, proteomics and usewear) and processes (e.g. decomposition, PhD Waldron) with ongoing projects focused on mediaeval zooarchaeology at Llanbedrgoch (AHRC CDP Hood) and Southampton (PhD Yang).

Work focused on human remains includes the Neolithic Cave burials in (PhD Konstantinidi), the Iron Age of Eastern England (awarded PhD Legge), differentiating populations (PhD Faillace), Medieval populations in Hungary and Romania (PhD Russu) and Bronze Age burials on Barra (Na h-Eileanan Siar/Western Isles) and eroding bodies from South Wales (Cwm Nash).

I am on the Advisory Board for 'Norwegian Future preservation of past life: A multidisciplinary investigation into preservation of ancient biological remains from medieval cemeteries in Stavange'r (led by Cardiff alumni Hege Hollund). https://am.uis.no/forskning-og-publikasjoner/forskning/prosjekter/mellomalderliv-i-rogaland/

I was on the Advisory Board of the EU-funded CHERISH (Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands, and Headlands) project http://www.cherishproject.eu/en/

Teaching

Teaching Profile

At Cardiff I teach in the areas of bioarchaeology (bones, bodies, plants, animals, molecules and isotopes), field archaeology, heritage management and outreach and engagement.

Biography

Education and Qualifications

University of Sheffield

Ph.D. ' Milking, Herd Structure and Bone Chemistry - An Evaluation of Archaeozoological Methods for the Recognition of Dairying'. This research explored the techniques available for the identification of dairying and suggested two innovative methodologies.

Imperial College of Science and Technology, London University.

B.Sc. (Hons.) Biology,  Dissertation: Pathways of radionuclides in the environment of the Cumbrian coast - Sellafield

Career Overview

Although my first degree is in Biology from Imperial College, London, prior to and during my undergraduate years I become interested in archaeology spending my summers digging as a volunteer on the English Heritage (then the Department of the Environment) funded excavations firstly at Beeston Castle, Cheshire and then at other sites. On finishing my degree I carried on working as a field archaeologist and became interested and involved in environmental archaeology. As a result of this interest and my zoological background I ended up working in the Ancient Monuments Laboratory with Rodger Jones looking at the material from Beeston Castle. I subsequently moved to Cambridge University as an English Hertiage funded Research Assistant working on Roman and later assemblages from Caesaromagus and Camulodunum (Chelmsford and Colchester).

After a couple of years in Cambridge I was awarded a SERC grant to go to Sheffield University and study for my doctorate with Paul Halstead. I became interested in the identification of milking and looked into novel techniques for its identification – studying St Kildean Soay Sheep of known age, sex and parturition (number of births) to look for changes associated with these factors. Over the course of my PhD I visited the Western Isles annually, excavating and collecting animal bones – a project that I am still involved in today.

I next went north, up the M1, to work at West Yorkshire Archaeology Service, where I recorded a large proportion of the West Heslerton assemblage and continued to excavate on a range of sites. After being made redundant whilst on maternity leave (!) I went to work for the commercial archaeology unit at Sheffield University (ARCUS) writing desk top assessments, project designs and continuing in zooarchaeological consultancy. An opportunity to work on the large EH funded medieval assemblage from Castle Mall Norwich presented itself and I moved to Birmingham University to work with Umberto Albarella and Mark Beech.

From here I relocated to Southampton University, working again as an EH funded Research Assistant. During my three years down south, I worked on, amongst others, the large assemblages from Saxon Eynsham and Neolithic to Saxon Yarnton, and Iron Age Gravelly Guy. I also taught zooarchaeology to undergraduates and postgraduates.

Although I had left Sheffield I continued to excavate on the Western Isles, returning once or more each year to South Uist and digging on a wide range of sites, included many years leading excavations on Cladh Hallan. Out of this continuing involvement has come one of my largest research interests (see above).

On the creation of the English Heritage Regional Science Advisor posts in 1995, I moved to Oxford University as a Senior Research Fellow to promote and enhance archaeological science in developer funded archaeology for the East Midlands (Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire). I was involved in numerous projects over this time: for example, Glaston, Fiskerton and the Regional Research Framework in addition to teaching and research.

Although I enjoyed this challenging job, I decided I wanted to spend more time on research and teaching – so I returned to academia, teaching briefly (but enjoyably) at University College Winchester, before moving here to Cardiff in 2002 to replace Professor John Evans on his retirement.

In 2018 I was awarded a personal chair, I am the first woman to be awarded a Chair, by Cardiff University, within the department. In late 2024 I took Voluntary Severance from Cardiff University, but I continue to be active in research, pubic engagement, fieldwork, supervision and teaching. 

My university email remains active. 

Professional memberships

Memberships

Association of Environmental Archaeology

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland

Prehistoric Society

International Council for Archaeolozoology

External examiner

Bradford University.

York University

University College London

Discipline Specific Activity

Founder of Zooarch

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of:

• Zooarchaeology - traditional and emerging methodologies, with a focus on integrating aDNA, stable isotopes (dietary and locational) ZooMS, GMM, histology
• Human osteology
• Insular archaeology, including Island biogeography, sea-level change, marine resources
• Cetacean Zooarchaeology
• Integrating Zooarchaeology and Conservation biology
• Public engagement, outreach and impact
• Festival Archaeology and Archaeology of Festivals
• Archaeology and Heritage of Namibia

Current supervision

Iulia Rusu

Shu Yang

Meredith Hood

Bethany Revell

Past projects

Previous Postgraduates

Archaeology Doctorates awarded to Ffion Reynolds, Richard Madgwick, Julia Best, Jennifer Jones, Eleni Konstantini, Matthew Law, Steve Walden, Rhiannon Philp, Susan Strachan.

Conservation Doctorates awarded to Yoita Manti, Mary Davies.