PhD Studentship Zooarchaeology of Later Pastoralism in Kenya

Position: PhD Studentship in the Zoo archaeology of Later Pastoralism in Kenya
We invite applications for a 3-year funded PhD studentship starting in October 2027 under the co-supervision of Professor Paul Lane and Dr Lizzie Wright, as part of the Landscape Historical Ecology and Archaeology of Ancient Pastoral Societies in Kenya (LHEAAPS) project. This PhD studentship is funded by a UKRI Frontier Research Grant.

The LHEAAPS project aims to investigate the origins and evolution of Pastoral Iron Age societies in north-central Kenya through integrated analysis of patterns of human and livestock mobility, dietary practices, exchange networks, and responses to periods of known drought and increased rainfall over the last c. 1800 years. Through the innovative use of diverse bioarchaeological, archaeological and zoo archaeological approaches, the PhD project is intended to contribute to the reconstruction of diets, animal economies and herd management strategies (including seasonal and longer-term mobility of livestock) via combined zoo archaeology and isotopic analyses.

The study will contribute to wider syntheses and analyses aimed at demonstrating the value of understanding these pastoralist pasts as paths for planning more sustainable futures for the region's contemporary pastoralist societies. In doing so, the project aspires to respond to calls to build long-term sustainability and resilience into social-ecological systems in sub-Saharan Africa through provision of deep histories of human-environment interactions and holistic approaches to the reconstruction of past and present human responses to climate-induced socioecological vulnerability.

We are looking for a highly motivated student to join the project. The selected student will be jointly co-supervised by the PI of the project (Professor Paul Lane, University of Cambridge) and Dr Lizzie Wright (Assistant Professor in Zoo archaeology), with additional input from other members of the Department and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and external researchers depending on training needs.

The successful applicant's research will focus on reconstruction of the animal economies and herd management strategies associated with Pastoral Iron Age sites across north-central Kenya, assessing changes and continuities over time in terms of dietary breadth, mobility strategies and related factors. In order to do this a combination of zoo archaeological (analysis of species composition, body part representation, mortality, pathological and metric data), and isotopic analyses will be employed.

Candidates must meet the requirement for a PhD application in archaeology (see details here: ), and have (or expect to obtain by July 2027) an MA, MSc or MPhil degree in archaeology, archaeological science or a cognate discipline, with evidence of a sound grounding in and specialist knowledge of zoo archaeology. Ideally, applicants will have knowledge of East African Holocene archaeology and/or on the archaeology of pastoralist economies, and practical field experience in researching the archaeology of pastoralism.

However, we also welcome students with appropriate zoo archaeological knowledge and analytical experience on archaeological materials from other geographical areas. To conduct the research, applicants may need relevant linguistic skills in Swahili or Maa or demonstrate a willingness to acquire such skills during the course of the PhD. They must also be willing to participate in fieldwork and spend extended periods in Kenya (up to five months at a time) working on data collection and analysis.

The PhD student will be part of the LHEAAPS core team (currently the PI, one post-doctoral researcher, and another doctoral student and the project coordinator) based at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,…