Dr Helen Loney

Honorary Senior Research Fellow

School of Science and the Environment

Geography and Environment

Contact Details

email: h.loney@worc.ac.uk

Dr Helen Loney is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow

Dr Helen Loney is a European prehistorian who has specialised in the study of ancient technology and society in archaeology. Dr Loney has extensive experience in the archaeology of California, Thailand, much of the United Kingdom, and both continental and insular Italy. She has been a co-director, along with Dr. Andrew Hoaen, of the Matterdale Archaeological Project, a programme of site reconnaissance and excavation which took place in the area around Glencoyne Park and Matterdale, near Ullswater, in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria. This project focussed on the improving the archaeological record of this part of Cumbria, identifying Bronze and Iron Age monuments, as well as investigating Iron Age Roman interaction.

Dr Loney has also developed her expertise in ceramic manufacturing organization in archaeology through the Worcester Porcelain Project, an investigation into the industrial archaeology of Worcester Royal Porcelain factory. This project includes student collaborators through a program of field walking, site survey and test pitting in the Worcester City environs, as well as investigations into developing Gender roles in the porcelain industry during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Dr Loney has also collaborated as a pottery specialist on the Terralba Punic Period survey and excavation project, focussing on the development of Punic period ceramic workshop activities in the rural areas of western Sardinia. The Terralba Project is directed by Prof. Peter van Dommelen, Director of the Jakouwsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, is concerned with understanding how the predominately Punic rural countryside developed before and during Roman conquest. This project was in part being conducted under the auspices of the Leverhulme Funded Tracing Networks programme.

Qualifications

  • BA magna cum laude Anthropology (University of California at Santa Barbara, 1983)
  • MA, PhD Anthropology (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1995)

Research Interests

  • Gender roles in Industrial Archaeology
  • Discard and Industrial Waste Disposal in the 18th, 19th and 20th Century porcelain production in Worcester, UK
  • Archaeological landscape characterization, Worcester City environs
  • Motor memory and development of ancient technology
  • Upland prehistoric and Roman period landscapes
  • Punic period pottery production in western Sardinia
  • The Worcester Porcelain Project: the archaeology of the industrial production of porcelain in Worcester, UK, during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
  • Matterdale Archaeological Project: prehistory, Romano-British and post-Roman period survey and palaeoenvironmental analysis of Matterdale and Hutton Parishes, the Lake District, Cumbria. w/ Dr. Andrew W. Hoaen
  • Motor Memory and technological conservatism in Punic period pottery production, Sardinia
  • Ceramic Consultant, Terralba Rural Settlement Project, Director, Prof. Peter van Dommelen, University of Glasgow

Publications & Conferences

Gender and Industry in 19th century in Worcester Royal Porcelain Production. For submission to the International Journal of Historical Archaeology

2013 The Development of Apennine Ceramic Manufacture: technology and society in Bronze Age Italy. Accordia Institute monograph series, London

2013 Landesque Capital and the development of the British uplands in later prehistory: investigating the accretion of cairns, cairnfields and ancient agricultural landscapes, A. Hoaen and H. Loney. In C. Gibson and A. Chadwick (eds) Memory, Myth, Place and Long-term Landscape Inhabitation.

2010 ‘Iron age pottery at Baldhowend, Cumbria’, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, proceedings of the Ceramic views of Scotland and northern England from the Neolithic to the 20th century: issues of method, practice and theory. University of Glasgow/Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

2010 ‘Excavations at Glencoyne Park 2002: interim report’. Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, with A. Hoaen

2009 ‘Ceramic punica dal sito rurale di Truncu ‘e Molas (Terralba, Sardegna)., L’Africa romana XVII: 1617-1626. With Peter van Dommelen, N. de Bruijn, R. Puig and A. Roppa.

2007 ‘Prehistoric Italian Pottery Production: Motor Memory, Motor Development and Technological Transfer’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology (20.2): 182-207.

2006 ‘The precautionary principle’: archaeological Site Recovery and Management in light of recent work on prehistoric settlement in upland Cumbria’, The International Journal of Biodiversity Science and Management 2(4): 150-153, with Andrew W. Hoaen

2006 ‘Trends & Innovations: trying out prehistoric tools’, interview by M. Sever, Geotimes (April) 2005 ‘Landscape, Memory and Material Culture: interpreting diversity in the Iron Age’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 71: 361-378 w/ Andrew W. Hoaen

2003 ‘History and the Italian Bronze Age: A Discussion of the Effects of Italian Politics on Prehistoric Interpretation’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology:199-215.

2001 ‘Reply to Neff, Schiffer et al., reply to comments on 2000 ‘Society and Technological Control: An Argument Against Progress in the Study of Ancient Ceramic Technology’’ American Antiquity vol 65 (4) :646-668,' American Antiquity 66 (4): 738-741

National/Regional Publications

Forthcoming Chapter: Craft Activity in Later Prehistory in Northwest England, with Andrew W. Hoaen, ‘current perspective on prehistory, University of Liverpool, Jonathan Trigg ed.

Forthcoming Monograph: ‘Survey in Matterdale and Hutton Parishes: 1997-2006’, with Andrew W. Hoaen.

Forthcoming unpublished report: ‘Matterdale Archaeological Project, Baldhowend, the Lake District Cumbria. Data Structure Report, results of the 1999 field season’. Unpublished report, with Andrew W. Hoaen.

2013 ‘Matterdale Archaeological Project, Baldhowend, the Lake District Cumbria. Data Structure Report, results of 1997 and 1998 field seasons’. Unpublished report, with Andrew Hoaen.

2007 ‘Cairnfields: understanding economic and ecological practice during the Bronze Age of Central Britain’ in Studies in Northern Prehistory: Essays in Memory of Clare Fell, P. J. Cherry (ed). :177-198. Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society.

2007 ‘contributions to the North West Region Archaeological Research Framework Volume I: Resource Assessment’, edited by Mark Brennand, English Heritage/ALGAO

2007 ‘contributions to the North West Region Archaeological Research Framework Volume II: Research Agenda and Strategy’, edited by Mark Brennand, English Heritage/ALGAO

2004 ‘Bronze and Iron Age connections: memory and persistence in Matterdale, Cumbria’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society  3rd series vol. IV: 39-55. with Andrew W. Hoaen

2003 ‘Upland settlement in Glencoyne Park Ullswater, Cumbria', for TCWAAS 3rd series vol III:51-65. with Andrew W. Hoaen 2003 ‘Field Survey in Glencoyne Park’, Archaeology North, No. 21: 9-11, with Andrew W. Hoaen

2002 ‘Faunal Report from Glasgow Cathedral’, in ‘Excavation at Glasgow Cathedral’, ed by Stephen Driscoll and Susan Baines, Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division, for Historic Scotland.

2000 ‘1998 Excavations at Baldhowend (OS NY 396 226): an interim report’, TCWAAS N.S. Volume C:89-103. with Andrew W. Hoaen

2000 ‘Notes on recent research on Iron Age settlement in the Lake District, Cumbria’, in Glasgow Archaeological Society, Bulletin, Spring 2000, No. 44: 44-45. with Andrew W. Hoaen

1999 ‘Excavations at Baldhowend’, Archaeology North. with Andrew W. Hoaen

1999 ‘Matterdale Valley Survey Project: interim report of first season’, Matterdale Archaeological Society, Matterdale, Cumbria: 20-26. with Andrew W. Hoaen