Elizabeth Craig

Dr Elizabeth Craig, Demonstrator of Anthropology

Lizzy's passion for fieldwork and research stems from "the opportunity to reconstruct the identity and lifestyles of people who lived in the past, whether decades centuries or millennia ago".

Her specific interest lies in skeletal analysis, "and how this can help inform us about how individuals may have lived, looked, or acted differently from each other, and the ways in which their contemporaries may have expressed these differences. For example, the links between physical appearance, disability and the provision of unusual funerary practices, as well as the relationships between health, social status, and the division between 'rich' and 'poor' burials".

Lizzy's role as Demonstrator of Anthropology at BU is a natural progression of her academic path, which began in her gaining a BA in Archaeology from Durham University in 2005. She then further specialised in biological anthropology and the study of funerary practices, receiving her MSc in Human Osteology and Palaeopathology from the University in Bradford in 2006. Having achieved her PhD - investigating burial practices in Northern England (c A.D. 650-850) - Lizzy took on a short-term lecturing position at the University of Sheffield before joining BU in the 2010 academic year.

On a broad level, Lizzy's research "has primarily focused on the combined analysis of archaeological and osteological data to investigate funerary rites and social identity in the past". More specifically, her research has considered skeletal and funerary analysis from Northern England, "during a period of great social change between c. 650-850 A.D., when Christianity replaced paganism as the major religion in England". Lizzy is currently in the process of publishing this research.

An overview of Lizzy's previous projects shows her commitment and motivation to research - "when faced with the opportunity to travel to exotic locations to study skeletal remains from around the world, I chose to focus on North Yorkshire". She continues, "I analysed the remains of several hundred individuals from a recently excavated cemetery of Spofforth, near Harrogate. The project was one of several collaborations I have undertaken with archaeological units and heritage organisations".

When asked to consider any memorable moments in her career, Lizzy cites a rather humorous example from her time at BU. "As part of the forensic team I'm involved in the annual setup of our forensic archaeology and mass grave simulations. This usually involves a day spent digging big holes, into which fully-clothed plastic skeletons, complete with ID, mobile phones and keys are placed, and then filling it all back in again." Lizzy says "this provides an interesting opportunity to engage with the general public through the desperate attempt to explain what we are doing before they call the police!"

Lizzy finds helping students develop their knowledge and research skills incredibly rewarding, and enjoys "the challenge of being the person they come to with all sorts of ideas and questions. It is vitally important that students have a wide group of people in a department that they can come to with questions, as after all, it is through asking questions - particularly the ones that we can't answer - that we can explore the limits of our knowledge and guide our own learning."

In terms of pressing issues in the field, Lizzy suggests that. "The storage of skeletal remains is becoming an increasingly challenging for curators of archaeological collections as heritage funding is squeezed. Storage facilities are becoming more difficult for many organisations to sustain, making universities like Bournemouth valuable locations for the curation of archaeological human remains for current and future study."

In her spare time Lizzy enjoys sewing and knitting, cooking Asian food, and enjoying the south coast climate which she says "makes a nice change from being snowed in for weeks in Sheffield!", and she has "recently found that buying a sugar thermometer results in eating way too much toffee and fudge!".

In the academic year 2010/11, Lizzy won the Vice Chancellor's Awards 2011 'Team of the Year' prize along with her colleagues from the Applied Sciences Laboratory and Technical Team led by Dr Iain Green.