Postgraduate Prehistory Reading Group

You are warmly invited to join the Prehistory Postgraduate Reading Group - a student-led interdisciplinary forum that meets in a cosy online environment. The Prehistory Group is a journal club with a difference - monthly readings are suggested by members and discussed as a group before a short online Q&A with the author. Since 2022, we have talked with scholars from across the globe and all stages of academic life about their projects and careers. Previous meeting topics have included: child burials, weaving, archaeo-metallurgy, rock-art, mega-sites, burial landscapes, funerary performance, kinship, evolution, environmental- and bio-archaeology and more.

Whether you are a dedicated agriculturalist (sow and reap every meeting), a pastoralist (herd yourself seasonally), or a hunter-gatherer (join when you have the opportunity) you are most welcome to join us! Be there. Be Prehistoric.

Our meetings have a friendly and active format where initial group discussion of the month's reading is followed by a short online Q&A with the author. Whether you join us as a 'Hunter-Gatherer' on a particular topic, attend more regularly as a 'Pastoralist' or become a dedicated 'Agriculturalist (suggesting articles, inviting scholars and leading the meetings) you are most welcome!

Meeting times and dates

Monthly meetings are held online via Zoom on Mondays 6-7.30pm, unless otherwise stated. Dates are confirmed closer to the meeting, as they depend on the availability of guests. 

Please contact Emma Bentley (e.v.bentley@sms.ed.ac.uk) or Kirsty Lilley (kirstymlilley@gmail.com) for monthly readings, guests and meeting links. You can also follow us on BlueSky @prehistorygroup.bsky.social 

2025/26

DateAuthorTopicSource
20 OctDr Joel Irish (Liverpool John Moores University)Dental bioarchaeologyIrish-Usai 2021. The transition from hunting–gathering to agriculture in Nubia: dental evidence for and against selection, population continuity and discontinuity.  Proc. R. Soc.  
17 NovDr Joana Valdez-Tullet (Durham University and Wessex Archaeology)3D modelling of rock artValdez-Tullett and Figueiredo Persson 2023. Digital Rock Art: beyond 'pretty pictures' F1000Research, 12:523 
1 DecDr Andrew Shapland (Ashmolean Museum and University of Oxford)Minoan Human-Animal RelationsShapland 2022 Collecting. In: Human-Animal Relations in Bronze Age Crete: A History through Objects. Cambridge University Press; 182- 211.   
Mon 12 JanDr Angela Perri (Chronicle Heritage)Dog domesticationPerri et al, 2021.  Dog domestication and the dual dispersal of people and dogs into the Americas. PNAS. 118 (6) e2010083118
Mon 2 FebTBCAncient DNA from Old Kingdom EgyptMorez Jacobs et al. 2025 Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian. Nature 644, 714–721. 
Mon 16 MarProfessor Petra Amman (University Vienna)Etruscan mirrors

Amman 2023. Cataloguing and Analysing Etruscan Mirrors in Austrian Collections. Scientia.

(Please note that we start earlier - at 5pm - on this date)

 

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Find out what else is on

The School of History, Classics and Archaeology offers an exciting programme of seminars across many subjects areas. Visit the research seminars website to find out what else is happening.

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