Dr Anne Teather

Lecturer

Qualifications

BA (Manchester), MA (Manchester), PhD (Sheffield)

Overview

I am a prehistorian with specialism in the British Neolithic. I studied at the Universities of Southampton and Manchester, completing my BA (2002), and undertook the Neolithic Archaeology MA at Manchester (2002-3). My PhD (2008) at Sheffield examined structured deposition in British Neolithic flint mines, focusing on the architecture of the mines and their deposits. Since 2004, I have been involved in the influential Stonehenge Riverside Project, a collaborative enterprise involving the Universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Bournemouth and University College London. I previously worked on digs in Scotland and Wales.

I came to archaeology after a decade in industry in the insurance sector and have been at the helm of a new organisation in Archaeology: British Women Archaeologists. I was appointed a Lecturer in Archaeology at Chester in September 2010 - the third archaeologist to join the growing team here at Chester.

Teaching

I contribute to teaching on the following undergraduate modules:

Introduction to the Archaeology of the British Isles 10000 BC - 1900 AD
Debates in World Archaeology
Introduction to Archaeological Practice
Themes in British Prehistory
Neolithic Britain

Research

My research to date has focused on Neolithic Britain, in particular flint mines and chalk artefacts. Specifically I have challenged interpretive assumptions on functional activity in what have been perceived as extraction sites (flint mines), instead promoting an approach incorporating temporality and the ritual context of action.

In addition, theoretical aspects of the discipline are of great interest to me, in particular the structures of categorization held with regard to artefacts, art and natural objects that deliberately appear in archaeological deposits. My work considers the history and development of theory and method in prehistoric studies.

I am the Director of the BWA (British Women Archaeologists) alongside Dr Rachel Pope (University of Liverpool).

Published work

Teather, A.M. 2011. 'Interpreting Hidden Chalk Art in British Neolithic Flint Mines', World Archaeology 43 pp.230-251.

Teather, A.M. 2009. 'Timber Circles' for Digital Digging.

Teather, A.M. 2007. ‘Neolithic Phallicies: a discussion of some southern British artefacts', in M. Larsson and M. Parker Pearson (eds.) From Stonehenge to the Baltic: Living with cultural diversity in the third millennium BC, pp. 205-11. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Papers in preparation

Teather, A.M. (forthcoming), 'Expanding artefacts in the British Neolithic', in J. Morris and C. Randall (eds.) Ritual in Context: Explaining Ritual Complexity in Archaeology, Oxford: Oxbow.

Teather, A.M. (in prep), 'Portable chalk artefacts in the British Neolithic'.

Teather, A.M. and Chamberlain, A. (in prep), 'Mining and Bodies: Reviewing human remains at Cissbury Neolithic Flint Mine' (Sussex Archaeological Collections).