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School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology

Staff Profile of Dr Kristján Ahronson

Name:

Dr Kristján Ahronson

Position:

Lecturer in Archaeology

Email:

Location:

Room T13, Main Arts

Phone:

+44 (0)1248 383251

Dr Ahronson is a specialist in the later prehistoric and early historic archaeology of Europe and North America, with fundamental interests in Celtic and medieval studies, human-environmental interactions, histories of archaeological thought and inter-disciplinary theory. Over the Autumn of 2010-11, he was Visiting Professor in Celtic Archaeology at the University of Toronto. Dr Ahronson has created and organises two inter-disciplinary seminar series in Bangor:

  1. ‘People and Environment’ seminar (inter-collegiate).
  2. ‘Origins of our Ideas: Celtic studies and Archaeology’ seminar (inter-school)

Areas of Teaching and Supervision

Dr Ahronson teaches and supervises topics in the general areas of archaeology and Celtic studies. More specifically, his undergraduate and postgraduate teaching explores archaeological theory and method, Atlantic archaeology, palaeoecology, the history of archaeology (especially in the nineteenth century), and Celtic studies.

*NEW MODULE FOR 2011-12 :
HTA2115/HTA3115* ARCHAEOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

The role of people in bringing about or contributing to environmental change – and how human societies adapt to that change – is a high profile topic, highlighted by recent inter-governmental meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun. Read full abstract ...

Current Research

Human-environmental interactions; archaeology and Celtic studies; Viking-Age Iceland and Britain and Ireland; later prehistoric and early historic NW Europe and NE North America; tephrochronology; nineteenth-century scholarship; archaeological and ethnological collections; systems theory and archaeology.

Active Field Interests

  • Seljaland site, Vestur-Eyjafjallasveit, southern Iceland [early medieval; human-environmental interactions]
  • Meath sites, Ottawa Valley, eastern Ontario, Canada [multi-period]

Key and Recent Publications

Books

In Press. Into the Ocean: Viking-Age Gaels, Norse and Environmental Change. University of Toronto Press: Toronto.

2007. Viking-Age Communities: Pap-names and Papar in the Hebridean Islands. Oxford.

Articles and Book Chapters

2011. Old World Prehistory and early Canadian archaeology. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 35, 1-17.

2010. (with T M Charles-Edwards) Prehistoric Annals and early medieval monasticism: Daniel Wilson, James Young Simpson and their cave sites. Antiquaries Journal 90, 455-66.
( pdf iconFree downloadable PDF of article. (Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2010))

2006. (with W Gillies and F Hunter) Early Christian activity at Scottish cave sites. Church Archaeology 7/8/9, 123-5.

2004. The crosses of Columban Iceland: A survey of preliminary research. In Lewis-Simpson, S. (ed.) Vínland Revisited: The Norse World at the Turn of the First Millennium. Selected Papers from the Viking Millennium International Symposium, 15-24 September 2000, Newfoundland and Labrador, St John’s, Newfoundland, 75-82.

2003. (collected and edited) Atlantic Peoples between Fire, Ice, River and Sea. Past Environments in Southern Iceland.  Published as a collection of articles in Northern Studies 37, 49-111.

–. One North Atlantic cave settlement: Preliminary archaeological and environmental investigations at Seljaland, southern Iceland. In Atlantic Peoples, 53-70.

–. (with K T Smith) Dating the cave? The preliminary tephra stratigraphy at Kverkin, Seljaland. In Atlantic Peoples, 71-80.

2002. Testing the evidence for northernmost North Atlantic papar: A cave site in southern Iceland. In Crawford, B. (ed.), The Papar in the North Atlantic: Environment and History. Proceedings of the St Andrews Dark Age Conference, St Andrews, 107-120.

–. Review of O Owen and M Dalland, Scar. A Viking Boat Burial on Sanday, Orkney. Scottish Historical Review 81, 258.

2001. ‘Hamarinn’ frá Fossi: Kristinn norrænn kross með keltneskum svip / The Foss ‘hammer’:  A Celtic-influenced Norse cross from Viking-Age southern Iceland. Árbók Hins Íslenzka Fornleifafélags 1999, 185-9.

2000. Further evidence for a Columban Iceland: Preliminary results of recent work. Norwegian Archaeological Review 33:2, 117-24.

Recent Media Coverage

Bangor archaeology research on early Iceland attracts international attention

Publication Date: 21/01/2011

Archaeological and palaeoecological discoveries demonstrate that Iceland was inhabited around AD800 - that's 70 years before the traditional dating of its Viking settlement. These earliest people in Iceland appear related to medieval Irish monastic communities in Atlantic Scotland. Dr Kristjan Ahronson of Prifysgol Bangor University's School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology made the discoveries, which were covered by Canadian Radio's flagship evening current-affairs programme "As It Happens". This interview was broadcast across Canada on CBC Radio and in the United States on its National Public Radio service. Ahronson's team used tephrochronology, which is a technique based on airfall deposits from volcanic eruptions (or, tephra), to date the site and to explore records of human-environmental interactions and climate change in early Iceland.

LISTEN TO THE CBC RADIO INTERVIEW:

Listen to the interview online at www.cbc.ca/aih . Go to the episode for Tuesday January 11th, 2011 and click on the link to Part 3. Dr Ahronson's interview starts at 18:54.

DIRECT LINK TO AUDIO PLAYER FOR TUESDAY JANUARY 11th EPISODE, PART 3: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1750326896

READ MORE:

http://www.medievalists.net/2010/12/23/did-the-scots-visit-iceland-new-research-reveals-island-inhabited-70-years-before-vikings-thought-to-have-arrived/

http://www.unreportedheritagenews.com/2010/12/did-scots-visit-iceland-new-research.html

Research Seminar

Fforwm Rhwng Disgyblaethau - DRIVING CHANGE

Gan fanteisio ar ffrwyth deialog ryngddisgyblaethol, bydd y Fforwm Rhwng Disgyblaethau yn ein herio i fyfyrio dros a chyfuno gwaith archaeolegwyr, gwyddonwyr amgylcheddol a ffisegol, ysgolheigion ym maes iaith a llenyddiaeth, seicolegwyr, anthropolegwyr, haneswyr, athronwyr, ymarferwyr yn y celfyddydau creadigol ac eraill. Bydd y Fforwm yn gosod astudiaethau unigol yn y gwyddorau dynol ac yn y gwyddorau naturiol ochr yn ochr â'i gilydd a thrwy hynny yn ceisio meithrin persbectifau newydd, methodolegau newydd a syniadau newydd ynghylch ein hastudiaethau o'n hamgylcheddau, y gorffennol a'r hyn y mae'n ei olygu i fod yn ddynol. Bydd pob cyflwyniad 30 munud yn un arbenigol ond ar yr un pryd yn rhwydd i'w ddeall a bydd croeso cynnes i bawb o fewn a thu allan i'r Brifysgol fynychu'r seminarau.

Yr Athro Henry Lamb
(Daearyddiaeth a Gwyddorau Daear, Aberystwyth)
‘Environmental drivers of human evolution:What can we learn from long continental core records?’

Dr Paul Butler
(Gwyddorau Eigion)
‘Oceans, volcanoes and climate - an Atlantic mollusc helps us
answer the big questions’

TRAFODWR: Yr Athro Jerry Hunter (Cymraeg)

PRYNHAWN GWENER am 4:00 o'r gloch
Te a choffi o 3:00YP gloch ymlaen

*YSTAFELL G1 (Llawr Gwaelod), Prif Adeilad y Celfyddydau*
Prifysgol Bangor University

pdf iconLlwythwch mwy o wybodaeth i lawr.

Inter-Discipline Forum - DRIVING CHANGE

Grasping the fruits of inter-disciplinary dialogue, the Inter-Discipline Forum challenges us to reflect upon and integrate the work of archaeologists, environmental and physical scientists, literature and language scholars, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, creative artists and others. The Forum sets individual studies in the human and natural sciences alongside each other, and thus seeks to foster fresh perspectives, methodological innovation and new ideas surrounding study of our physical environments, the past and what it is to be human. Each 30-minute presentation shall be both accessible and specialist, and all are warmly welcome from within and beyond the University.

 

Prof Henry Lamb
(Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth)
'Environmental drivers of human evolution:What can we learn from long continental core records?’

Dr Paul Butler
(Ocean Sciences)
‘Oceans, volcanoes and climate - an Atlantic mollusc helps us answer the big questions’

DISCUSSANT: Prof Jerry Hunter (Welsh)

FRIDAYS 4:00PM
Tea & Coffee from 3:00PM

ROOM G1 (Ground Floor),Main Arts Building
Prifysgol Bangor University

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