Profile
Biography
Professor Martin Carver was an army officer for 15 years, a free-lance archaeologist for 13 years and has been an academic for 20 years. His specialities are Archaeological Practice and Protohistoric Europe. He has a degree in Mathematics and Chemistry from UCL and a Diploma in Anglo-Saxon Studies from Durham.
He was elected as the first secretary of the newly formed Institute of Field Archaeologists in 1982 and Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries in 2002. He was appointed professor of archaeology at York in 1986 and was Head of Department from 1986 to 1996.
He has carried out archaeological field research on early Medieval towns (1975-1985) and has led campaigns of research, excavation and evaluation at Stafford (England), Castel Seprio (Italy), Achir (Algeria) and towns in southern France. He led the recent campaign of excavation and survey research at the 7th century princely burial ground of Sutton Hoo (1983-2005) and discovered and excavated the first monastery of the Picts at Portmahomack, NE Scotland, 6-9th century (1996-2007). This work has thrown light on changes in social control and Christianisation in northern Europe(400-900) and has helped to establish York's pre-eminent position in early medieval archaeology.
Martin Carver was Editor of Antiquity from 2002-2012. He was appointed Professor Emeritus in 2008.
He gave the Rhind Lectures in Edinburgh 23-25 April 2010.
Research
Overview
Research Interests
For update see http://www.martincarver.com
- World archaeology
- Early Medieval Europe
- Field method in archaeology
Projects
Sicily in Transition: the archaeology of regime change 2014-
- Co-directed by Prof Alessandra Molinari, University of Rome, Tor Vergata
- In collaboration with BioArCh at University of York and Laboratory for Paleoecology, University of Salento at Lecce
- Field campaign began 2014
- Funded by European Research Council for five years from 1 August 2016
Read more about the Sicily in Transition project
- Field Campaign began 1996
- Bulletins available on website
- Interim report in Medieval Archaeology 2004.
- Visitor Centre opened 2000 by Prince Charles.
- Interim publication 2008
- Full publication 2016
- Field campaign 1983-1993
- Monograph published 1998 (repr. 2000, 2005)
- Final Report published 2005
- Archive available on line at ADS
- Visitor Centre opened 2002 by Seamus Heaney
- For local events including site visits and conferences, see www.suttonhoo.org
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- 2017 The Sutton Hoo Story. Encounters with Early England (Boydell)
- 2016 (with Cecily Spall and Justin Garner-Lahire) Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness. Changing ideologies in North-east Scotland sixth to sixteenth century (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland)
- 2016 Portmahomack. Monastery of Picts (Edinburgh University Press; 2nd edn.)
- 2015 Commerce and Cult: Confronted ideologies in 6th - 9th century Europe Medieval Archaeology 59, 1-23
- 2014 (ed. with Bisserka Gaydarska and Sandra Monton Sabias) Field Archaeology from around the World. Ideas and approaches (Springer books)
- 2011 Making Archaeology Happen: Design versus Dogma (Taylor and Francis)
- 2010 The Birth of a Borough. An archaeological study of Anglo-Saxon Stafford (Boydell)
- 2009 Archaeological Investigation (Routledge) 424pp
- 2008 Portmahomack Monastery of the Picts (Edinburgh University Press)
- 2009 (with Catherine Hills and Jonathan Scheschkewitz) Wasperton. A Roman, British and Anglo-Saxon Community in Central England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press)
- 2005 Surviving in Symbols: a visit to the Pictish nation (Edinburgh: Birlinn and Historic Scotland (Reprint)
- 2005 Sutton Hoo. A seventh-century princely burial ground and its context (British Museum Press)
- 2003b Archaeological Value and Evaluation (con contributo di Gian Pietro Brogiolo; SocietB Archeologica Padana s.r.l.; Manuali per L'Archeologia 2).
- 1999 Surviving in Symbols. A Visit to the Pictish Nation (The Making of Scotland; Canongate Books, Edinburgh) 64pp. [Repr. 2005]
- 1998 Sutton Hoo. Burial Ground of Kings? (British Museum Press) 195pp [repr. 2000, 2005, 2014]
- 1993 : Arguments in stone: archaeological research and the European town in the first millennium AD (being the Dalrymple Lectures for 1990) University of Glasgow and Oxford: Oxbow. 123 pp.
- 1987 Underneath English towns (Batsford).
