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About Prof Howard Williams

I teach and research death, burial and commemoration, the Early Middle Ages and public archaeology.  Read my Archaeodeath blog here. Visit my TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@archaeodeath

Teaching

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

Research

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 [https://projecteliseg.wordpress.com/] 

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 [https://offaswatsdyke.wordpress.com]

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

Published Work

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-6852  

Academia.edu: https://chester.academia.edu/HowardWilliams

Humanities Commons: https://hcommons.org/members/howardmrw/.  

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. https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803273105

Guy, B., Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2022. Borders in Early Medieval Britain: Offa’s Dyke Journal 4, http://revistas.jasarqueologia.es/index.php/odjournal/issue/view/ODJ4

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. https://offaswatsdyke.wordpress.com/whats-wats-dyke-wrexham-comic-heritage-trail-by-john-g-swogger-and-howard-williams/

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2021. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 3, http://revistas.jasarqueologia.es/index.php/odjournal/issue/view/ODJ3

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2020. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 2. http://revistas.jasarqueologia.es/index.php/odjournal/issue/view/ODJ2

Williams, H. and Delaney, L. (eds) 2019. Offa’s Dyke Journal. Volume 1. http://revistas.jasarqueologia.es/index.php/odjournal/issue/view/ODJ1

Gleave, K, Williams, H. and Clarke, P. (eds) 2020. Public Archaeologies of Frontiers and Borderlands. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://www.archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={728A30BF-8B57-4817-8398-9A1B5CD4F82A}

Williams, H. and Clarke, P. (eds) 2020. Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies, Oxford: Archaeopress. https://www.archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id=DE9A5B19-7AAD-4FA7-A097-060E0525533D

Williams, H., Pudney, C. and Ezzeldin, A. (eds) 2019. Public Archaeology: Arts of Engagement, Oxford: Archaeopress. https://www.archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id=628712D1-5935-4649-BA16-BF3B5B6E72A0

Williams, H., Wills-Eve, B. and Osborne, J. (eds) 2019. The Public Archaeology of Death, Sheffield: Equinox. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/public-archaeology-death/

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. http://dx.doi.org/10.23914/ap.v8i2

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. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/archaeologists-and-the-dead-9780198753537?cc=gb&lang=en&

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

 

Qualifications

BSc (Sheffield), MA (Reading), PhD (Reading), FSA.