Marta Diaz-Guardamino Uribe

My research is particularly concerned with the role of the material mediating social relationships. Currently, I am working on the project ‘Making a Mark: Imagery and process in the British and Irish Neolithic’, led by Dr. Andrew Meirion Jones. This two-year research project (2014-2016), funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is the first holistic analysis of decorated artefacts from the British and Irish Neolithic. It includes the application of digital imaging and digital microscopy to compare the techniques used in making motifs across a range of Neolithic media. Ultimately, this will build a framework for understanding the relationship between these artefacts and the more extensively studied art of Neolithic monuments and settlements. Since 2011 I have co-ordinated fieldwork research, jointly with Dr. David Wheatley (University of Southampton, UK) and Dr. Leonardo García Sanjuán (University of Seville, Spain), on Iberian Late Bronze Age stelae. Our research has been focused on aspects of LBA stelae that have remained largely unexplored, such as their making, their biographies, or the archaeological/spatial dimension of their find-spots. This research has entailed the application of a broad variety of techniques (RTI, 3D laser scanning, intensive surface survey, geophysics), and has involved an interdisciplinary team of researchers of the University of Seville, the University of Southampton and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

My PhD research, funded by the Caja Madrid Foundation, the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and the EAP (Education Abroad Program, Universities of California and Complutense de Madrid), attempted to provide a broad interpretative overview of prehistoric stelae and statue-menhirs on the Iberian Peninsula (ca. 5500-750 BC), focusing on their archaeological contextualization and the analysis of the ‘places’ where they were found at scales of higher resolution, tackling on issues such as personhood, commemoration and social reproduction.

My research interests include the intersection of Semiotics, Phenomenology and Pragmatism, and its potential to forge novel understandings among archaeologists on the social production of knowledge in the past and the present, and the role of the material in these processes.

In 2013 I was appointed Assistant Reviews Editor of the European Journal of Archaeology (http://www.maneyonline.com/loi/eja) and co-editor of the section ‘Theory and Interpretation in archaeology’ of the journal Open Archaeology (http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opar). I am currently Research Fellow on the project ‘Making a Mark: Imagery and process in the British and Irish Neolithic’, led by Dr. Andrew Meirion Jones, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Previously, I have also been based in Archaeology at the University of Southampton, first as a visiting post-doctoral researcher with the Archaeological Computing Research Group, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education (2011-2013), and then as a part-time lecturer (2013-2014). I obtained my BA (Licenciatura), MA (Grado) and PhD (Extraordinary Doctoral Award, 2009/2010) in Prehistoric Archaeology from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and specialise in the archaeology of the Neolithic, Copper and Bronze Age periods in the Iberian Peninsula, especially in relation to the study of rock art, sculpture, mortuary practices, monumentality and landscape. During my PhD I carried out research stays at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany) and at the University of California, Berkeley (United States). I have been involved in varied field projects in Spain and Portugal and have served as a contract archaeologist for public institutions in Portugal, including the IPPAR (Portuguese Institute of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage).

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I am currently Research Fellow on the project 'Making a Mark: Imagery and process in the British and Irish Neolithic', led by Dr. Andrew Meirion Jones, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Previously, I have also been based in Archaeology at the University of Southampton, first as a visiting post-doctoral researcher with the Archaeological Computing Research Group, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education (2011-2013), and then as a part-time lecturer (2013-2014). I obtained my BA (Licenciatura), MA (Grado) and PhD (Extraordinary Doctoral Award, 2009/2010) in Prehistoric Archaeology from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and specialise in the archaeology of the Neolithic, Copper and Bronze Age periods in the Iberian Peninsula, especially in relation to the study of rock art, sculpture, mortuary practices, monumentality and landscape. During my PhD I carried out research stays at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany) and at the University of California, Berkeley (United States). I have been involved in varied field projects in Spain and Portugal and have served as a contract archaeologist for public institutions in Portugal, including the IPPAR (Portuguese Institute of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage).

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