Field Research Projects

Using archaeology, archival research, and ethnographic fieldwork, I am tracking how the idea of the Picts - the inhabitants of much of Scotland from 300-900 CE - has been engaged and transformed within different historical contexts, from the early medieval through the present day.

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation (Award No. 2342127), a Nicholson Center for British Studies Graduate Fellowship (University of Chicago), an Agnes and Nathan Janco Travel Award (University of Chicago), and an Edward L. Ryerson Fellowship (University of Chicago).

People across Europe have made and interacted with large stone objects since prehistory. This project explores the shifting affordances and social entanglements of stone as a material. What is stone imagined to be capable of doing? What can/should people do to stone? What relations of temporality are brought about by working, observing, caring for, or curating stones?

This project combines my ongoing work on Pictish stone sculpture with more recent research on the stećak tombstones of the western Balkans.

CDAP investigates the landscape around Tyndrum, Scotland, an important crossing point for travelers moving east-west across the Scottish highland watershed. Early medieval sources indicate that this point was important for people's mental geographies and the imagination of their sociocultural worlds, including for the maintenance of the cultural distinction between Pictish groups and the Scots of Dál Riata.

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation (Award No. 2342127).