Miss Bronwen Price
Research Interests
- The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Irish Sea region, particularly Wales
- The sociology of knowledge formation
- Prehistoric daily life and the dwelling perspective
- The archaeology and anthropology of journeys and rites of passage
- Landscape archaeology
- The archaeology and anthropology of pastoralism
Academic History
I studied for a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University from 1999-2002, specialising in Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, as well as Scandinavia in the first millennium AD. I then moved to Cardiff and completed my MA in the European Neolithic in 2003 under the supervision of Professor Alasdair Whittle. My MA dissertation explored the association of the Graig Lwyd axe factory in Conwy with an alignment of seven stone circles in the vicinity. I deconstructed the formalist economic assumption that the axe factory and its axes were the reason for extensive prehistoric construction in the local area, arguing that the cliff-face had imbued spiritual significance from the late Mesolithic. I suggested that a tradition of pilgrimages to the site had become established during the Neolithic, and that the Group VII axes were tokens of the completion of these journeys. This dissertation was presented as a paper at TAG December 2004, Glasgow, and published in 2007.
PhD Research
Since September 2005, I have been undertaking doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Alasdair Whittle. My thesis is provisionally entitled ‘Travelling beyond the known; life and self outside of the confines of normality and familiarity in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Irish Sea’. I examine the premise that all knowledge is socially constructed and reiterated in relation to how specific taskscapes and practices were understood in the past. By engaging with dynamic concepts of the known, unknown, familiar, unfamiliar, normal and abnormal, I suggest ways in which particular valleys, deaths, herding episodes and initiation rites were characterised during the third millennium cal BC. My first case study focuses on prehistoric taskscapes in the western Clun Hills of Shropshire and Powys, whilst my second is less tethered to place, exploring practices as the actualisation of dwelling. I hope to demonstrate how archaeologists can move beyond the recent concentration on somewhat abstracted themes, and instead focus on how the world was constantly being re-understood through the experience of daily life.
Papers Delivered
Journeying into different realms: Travel and Pilgrimage at Graig Lwyd
TAG, December 2004, Glasgow.
Unknown and Known Places in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Irish Sea region: familiar ground?
TAG, December 2006, Exeter
Bangor University Research Seminar, December 2007
Engaging with the Unknown: The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the northern Clun Hills of Shropshire and Powys
Bangor University Research Seminar, December 2007
TAG, December 2007, York
Publications
Price, B.R. 2007. Journeying into different realms: travel, pilgrimage and rites of passage at Graig Lwyd. In V. Cummings and R. Johnston (eds), Prehistoric Journeys, . Oxford: Oxbow.
Teaching
During 2003 – 2005, I taught A and AS Level Sociology, as well as I.T, numeracy and literacy in Kent. I have also marked A and AS Level Sociology externally for WJEC.
I am a seminar leader at Cardiff University for the following models:
HS2100: Human Origins, Complexity and Civilisation
HS2103: British Prehistory
I have also taught the following MA module:
HST405: Themes in the Neolithic
Projects
I worked as a supervisor in the excavation of Bargrennan White Cairn, run by Dr Vicki Cummings (UCLAN) and Dr Chris Fowler (Newcastle).
More recently, I have been involved in the ongoing Kintyre Project, run by Dr Vicki Cummings (UCLAN) and Dr Gary Robinson (Bangor) as an excavation supervisor and surveyor. The project has started its fourth year, and I hope to be involved once again in 2009.