Professor Howard Williams

Professor of Archaeology; Programme Leader MRes Archaeology

+44 (0) 1244 511221
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
howard.williams@chester.ac.uk
Prof Howard Williams

I am an archaeologist with research interests in death, burial and commemoration.

I teach and research death, burial and commemoration, the Early Middle Ages and public archaeology.

I am programme leader for the MRes Archaeology and I contribute to the MA Archaeology of Death and Memory.

I am module leader for the following undergraduate modules:

  • The Contemporary Past
  • Empire and Aftermath: Archaeology of the First Millennium AD
  • Vikings
  • Death and Burial
  • Empire and Aftermath

I also contribute to the teaching of the following undergraduate modules:

  • Introduction to the Archaeology of the British Isles, 10,000 BC - 1900 AD
  • Debates in World Archaeology
  • Archaeology and Contemporary Society

I am module leader for the following postgraduate modules:

  • Research Skills in Archaeology and Heritage
  • Mortuary Archaeology
  • Landscapes and Memory
  • Research Dissertation

My research interests are mortuary archaeology, archaeologies of memory, public archaeology and the history of archaeology. I focus these interests on the study of the British Isles and Scandinavia in the Early Middle Ages (c. AD 4001100).

I co-direct Project Eliseg.

I founded and co-convene the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory: a research network for Offa’s Dyke, Wat’s Dyke and early medieval western Britain.

Areas of MRes and MPhil/PhD Supervision

  • Mortuary Archaeology: Theory, Practice and Ethics
  • Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Archaeology
  • Death, Burial & Commemoration in Early Medieval Wales
  • Early Medieval Linear Earthworks
  • Viking Burial Archaeology
  • Crematoria, Cemeteries and Churchyard Commemoration from the 19th century to Today
  • The Early Middle Ages in Heritage, Politics and Popular Culture
  • The Public Archaeology of Death

Key Books and Journals

Williams, H., Critchell, K. and Evans, S. (eds) 2022. Archaeologies and Antiquaries: Essays by Dai Morgan Evans. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Williams, H., Reavill, P. and Clague, S. (eds) 2022. The Public Archaeology of Treasure. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Guy, B., Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2022. Borders in Early Medieval Britain: Offa’s Dyke Journal 4.

Williams, H. and Swogger, J. 2021. What’s Wat’s Dyke? Wrexham Comic Heritage Trail. Chester & Knighton: University of Chester and the Offa’s Dyke Association.

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2021. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 3.

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2020. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 2.

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2019. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 1.

Gleave, K, Williams, H. and Clarke, P. (eds) 2020. Public Archaeologies of Frontiers and Borderlands. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Williams, H. and Clarke, P. (eds) 2020. Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies, Oxford: Archaeopress.

Williams, H., Pudney, C. and Ezzeldin, A. (eds) 2019. Public Archaeology: Arts of Engagement, Oxford: Archaeopress.

Williams, H., Wills-Eve, B. and Osborne, J. (eds) 2019. The Public Archaeology of Death, Sheffield: Equinox.

Williams, H. and Richardson, L. 2018. Death in the Contemporary World: Perspectives from Public Archaeology, AP Online Journal of Public Archaeology 8(2) Special Issue 3.

Cerezo-Román, J. I., Wessman, A. and Williams, H. (eds) 2017. Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Williams, H. (ed.) 2016. Mortuary citations: Death and Memory in the Viking World: Special issue of the European Journal of Archaeology 19(3).

Williams, H and Giles, M. (eds) 2016. Archaeologists and the Dead, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Williams, H., Kirton, J. and Gondek, M. (eds) 2015. Early Medieval Stone Monuments: Materiality, Biography, Landscape, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.

Williams, H. (ed.) 2011. Archaeologists on Contemporary Death: Mortality Special Issue, 16.2.

Sayer, D. & Williams, H. (eds) 2009. Mortuary Practices & Social Identities in the Middle Ages: Essays in Burial Archaeology in Honour of Heinrich Härke. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. 306 pages.

Effros, B. & Williams, H. 2008. Early Medieval Material Culture in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Imagination. Early Medieval Europe 16(1). 126 pages.

Semple, S. & Williams, H. (eds) 2007. Early Medieval Mortuary Practices: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology & History 14. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. 400 pages.

Williams, H. 2006. Death & Memory in Early Medieval Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 268 pages (paperback reprint, 2010).

Williams, H. (ed.) 2003. Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies. New York: Kluwer/Plenum.

Bradley, R.J. & Williams, H. (eds) 1998. The Past in the Past: The Reuse of Ancient Monuments: World Archaeology 30 (1) London: Routledge. 178 pages.

  • BSc (Sheffield)
  • MA (Reading)
  • PhD (Reading)
  • FSA