Former MA student wins prestigious dissertation awards

Marcie’s dissertation was titled “Respect your elders: Formulating a new funerary archaeological approach to identify older adults and to assess the attitudes held towards those of advanced age in Anglo Saxon England.” In it, she aimed to focus on the study of older individuals in Anglo-Saxon society.

She explains:“In previous archaeological research, individuals aged skeletally over 45 have been treated as one age category, limiting our understanding of the lived experience of the old. This dissertation aimed to use a new methodology to better understand these individuals in their burial context, by considering age as something more complex than the passage of time, and instead as both a biological and social identity. Age was one of many social identities portrayed in the material culture selected for burial in Anglo-Saxon society. It has previously been suggested that with growing age, these individuals were given fewer objects in death. However, the results of my dissertation suggest that the treatment of old adults in death is more complex. For example, several individuals had burials with reduced gendered objects, whereas others retained a fully gendered assemblage. This may show a change in gender-associated social roles between younger and older adulthood. This dissertation also suggests that the selection of a burial assemblage for older individuals was influenced by other aspects, including the physical appearance of an individual's age, cultural background and economic status.”

Marcie is working towards publishing the results of her dissertation and hopes to be able to share more information on that soon. Since graduating from the University of York, she has been working as the primary Finds and Archive officer for a commercial archaeology unit based in the southwest, Oakford Archaeology. "Recently, we have been conducting an excavation inside Exeter Cathedral, and have been recording burials ahead during a development project". She shares that she has really been enjoying bringing the skills she developed during her MA in Funerary Archaeology at the University of York together with her work with archaeological finds, and she hopes to continue to bring these areas together to work on future research projects and publications.

Marcie’s dissertation supervisor, Malin Holst explains that the project was made possible by partnerships with commercial archaeology companies:

“Marcie was an incredibly enthusiastic student and was instrumental in driving in-depth discussions throughout her Master's in Funerary Archaeology at the University of York. Marcie chose a dissertation subject that is often neglected in archaeology - the analysis of the elderly in Anglo-Saxon society. Marcie liaised with researchers at other universities and three commercial archaeological companies who kindly provided her with data from their excavations of cemeteries (Archaeology South-East, Oxford Archaeology and Wessex Archaeology). It is thanks to these fantastic collaborations and the generous provision of time, help and data by these institutions, that Marcie's project was feasible.”

Malin goes on to explain the significance of Marcie’s research:

“Marcie decided to divide the mature adult age groups from the three cemeteries into 'healthy' and 'less healthy' individuals, based on their pathologies. This, together with the analysis of contextual information, data on grave goods, demography, isotopes and aDNA formed the basis of Marcie's analysis. Marcie was able to evaluate her incredibly complex results by using a series of graphs and charts, which she researched in depth, leading to profound interpretations of her data and new insights into Anglo-Saxon society. As her dissertation supervisor, I am incredibly proud of what she has achieved. We at the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, are delighted that BABAO and the SMA awarded Marcie with such prestigious prizes for her hard work, diligence and fantastic research.”

Marcie Weeks in the field, working on some Late Iron Age / Early Romano-British pottery at an Iron Age promontory fort.