Meet the Team
Editor
The Editor, Dr Robert Witcher, is Associate Professor in Archaeology at Durham University. He studied for a BA and MA at Newcastle University and a PhD at the University of Leicester. He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the British School at Rome before joining the Archaeology Department at Durham in 2004. His principal research interests are Roman and landscape archaeology in Italy and the Mediterranean. Prior to becoming Editor, he was Reviews and Deputy Editor from 2013-2017.
Reviews Editor
The Deputy and Reviews editor, Dr Claire Nesbitt, gained a PhD in Byzantine Archaeology from Newcastle University, following M.Litt and BA degrees in Archaeology. She has been a Research Associate at Durham University for several years, publishing legacy sites, teaching and undertaking research on a range of archaeological periods. Claire is an experienced field archaeologist having worked for commercial units and undertaken research fieldwork. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and has served on the executive committee of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Her principal research interests are Byzantine and Classical archaeology.
Associate Editor
The Associate Editor, Dr Rebecca Gowland, is an Associate Professor in Bioarchaeology at Durham University. She studied for a BSc and PhD at Durham University and an MSc at the University of Sheffield. She has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Universities of Sheffield and Dundee and a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge, before joining the Archaeology Department in 2006. Her principal research interests include: the inter-relationship between the human skeleton and social identity; health and the life course in the Roman World; palaeopathology; and social perceptions of the physically impaired.
Editorial Manager
Liz Ryan has worked in journal publishing since 2007 managing a wide range of editorial offices for publishing companies including Taylor & Francis and SAGE and she is a member of the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors. Liz has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Language from the University of Liverpool, a masters in History from Teesside University and a masters in Archaeology from Durham University focusing on the early medieval period. Liz is also involved in community archaeology with an emphasis on archaeology in northern England.
Deputy Editorial Manager
Thomas Swindells gained a BA and MA in English literature at Durham University. An Associate of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, he operated his own proofreading and editing business prior to joining Antiquity in 2013, working within a range of academic disciplines and in association with several prominent journals, including Procedia and the Review of Islamic Economics. His research interests include Renaissance tragedy, Restoration poetry, and the Classics and historical fiction, alongside the works of Thomas Pynchon, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene. He is also a published author of short stories and writes regularly on cinema.
Editorial Assistant
Ross gained a PhD in Archaeology and Anthropology from Durham University in 2015, following on from an MA in Anthropology and BA in Archaeology. An experienced field archaeologist and freelance human osteologist, his research expertise is in biomolecular archaeology, principally the analysis of ancient proteins. He currently teaches part time in the Archaeology Department at Durham University on topics within archaeological science and biomolecular archaeology. Ross has published in international archaeological journals, is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of professional organisations including BABAO and the Society for Archaeological Sciences.
Public Engagement and Press Administrator
Adam Benton has a Bsc and Msc in Palaeoanthropology from the University of Liverpool. During this time, he engaged in numerous public engagement activities. Online, this involved building Filthy Monkey Men, a human evolution science communication website and associated social media presence. These have an online reach of more than 200,000 users per month. Offline, he gave human evolution talks at various events across the north-west of England.