Full Time Fixed Term For 3 Years

Celtic Connections and Crannogs: A new Study of Lake Settlements Across the Irish Sea is a new AHRC funded research project led by Professor Tony Brown (PI) and Dr Peter Langdon (Southampton), with other collaborators from Newcastle, Plymouth and Queen’s (Belfast) Universities.

You will work as part of a multi-institutional team under the direction of Professor Tony Brown and Dr Peter Langdon. Your primary role will be to undertake detailed fieldwork and lake sediment recovery on a number of Crannog sites from across the Irish sea, mainly between SE Scotland and NE Ireland. In addition, there is much archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data and background literature on these sites which will need to be collated. You will undertake palaeoecological analyses on the lake sediments, which may/could include pollen, diatoms, chironomids and/or coleopteran analyses (some proxies will be done by another researcher). Your other main role will be to undertake the basic sedimentological (LOI, TOC/TN) and geochemical (Itrax XRF) analyses on the sediments, plus prepare ancient DNA samples for processing in Grenoble.

You will liaise with the other postdocs and co-investigators working on other proxies (Plymouth) and biomarkers (Newcastle), and the aDNA lab in Grenoble. You will also analyse the data collected, contribute to project meetings, attend conferences and be encouraged to produce publications.

You will have a PhD in Palaeoecology or a related aspect of Physical Geography/Earth Sciences/Environmental Science/Archaeology, knowledge of palaeolimnology, and a keen interest in archaeology and/or aDNA.  You will have a willingness to develop skills in the area of aDNA and the ability to work both independently and effectively in a team. A good ability with multivariate statistics, together with experience of working in R would be advantageous.

This position is tenable from 1 April 2015 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Professor Tony Brown or Dr Peter Langdon via email: tony.brown@southampton.ac.uk or p.g.langdon@southampton.ac.uk  Additional information about Geography and Environment and our research groups is available on our web pages at http://www.southampton.ac.uk/geography More general information on the University can be found on the web pages at http://www.southampton.ac.uk

The closing date for this vacancy is 11 February 2015.

Application procedure:

You should submit your completed online application form at www.jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Charlene Tyson (Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 6803. Please quote reference 506815WR on all correspondence.

Further details:

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Please note that applications from agencies will not be accepted unless indicated in the job advert.