The University of Sheffield
Department of Archaeology

Dr Mike CharlesMike Charles

Reader in Environmental Archaeology

PhD

Email address: m.p.charles@sheffield.ac.uk

Telephone: 0114 2222923

Biography

After completing my first degree in Botany at the University of Cardiff I went on to study farming systems in ancient Sumeria for my PhD.

Since then my research has focussed on the analysis of archaeological plant remains as a source of insights into past human societies. Geographically and chronologically, my primary interest has been in the farming societies of western and central Asia, although my methodological research has also ranged across Europe and into the present.

Research interests

Current research projects

A 4 year European Research Council grant Evolutionary Origins of Agriculture [€1.99M] - the research brings together experimental ecology, molecular biology, and archaeobotany to address, the three key elements for understanding the selective pressures acting on early crop evolution:

  1. the relationship between human and environmental selective pressures and plant ecological characteristics: this will be addressed through experimental ecology;
  2. early genetic trait selection in crop plants: this will be addressed through simulation of phylogenetic relationships, and DNA analysis of barley landraces;
  3. the temporal and spatial location of selection for particular phenotypes as analysed through biometric morphological analysis of archaeological plant remains.

A 4 year NERC grant Origins of Agriculture: an ecological perspective on crop domestication [£558,718] - the project will develop an ecological model for crop domestication, integrating the roles of environmental change, plant traits, and human agency, under the constraints of the archaeological record.

It addresses the idea that natural selection and human agency played a critical role at different stages in the emergence of agriculture, focusing on the interactions between plants, humans and environment during the period preceding fully agricultural societies.

A 3-year NERC grant Out of Asia – A New Framework for Dating the Spread of Agriculture in Europe [£354,000] - the project carried out in conjunction with Prof G Jones and Profs Buck & Blackwell, (Department of Probability & Statistics, Sheffield) will investigate the timing and routes of the spread of agriculture from its point of arrival in SE Europe across the continent to NW Europe by:

NERC. Crop stable isotope ratios: new approaches to palaeodietary and agricultural reconstruction [£445,713]. - co-investigator with Dr Amy Bogaard (Oxford) Prof G Jone (Sheffield), Prof R Evershed (Bristol), Dr T Heaton (BGS).

Economic integration and cultural survival at neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey [$100,000] - a 3-year National Science Foundation (USA) grant, (with Dr. K Twiss, SUNY, USA and Dr. A Bogaard, University of Oxford) investigating the integration of small-scale crop and livestock husbandry and its effects on cultural stability in an early agricultural society.

The team brings together U.S., British and Turkish archaeologists specializing in faunal, botanical, and isotopic analyses to study the social and economic uses of plant and animal domesticates at the large and long-lived Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, central Anatolia.

Research supervision

I would welcome applications from students interested in pursuing research into:

Current students:

Teaching

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

Selected publications

Charles, M., Pessin, H. & Hald, M. M. 2010. Tolerating change at Late Chalcolithic Tell Brak: responses of an early urban society to an uncertain climate. Journal of Environmental Archaeology 15.2, 183-98

Cunniff, J., Charles, M. Osborne, C., & Jones, G. 2010. Was low atmospheric CO2 a limiting factor in the origin of agriculture? Journal of Environmental Archaeology 15.2, 113-23.

Charles, M. and Bogaard, A. 2010. Charred plant macro remains from Jeitun: implications for early cultivation and herding practices in western Central Asia. In Harris, D.R. (ed.) Origins of Agriculture in western Central Asia: archaeological and environmental investigations in southern Turkmenistan. London: UCL Press.

Bogaard, A., Charles, M., Twiss, K., et al. 2009. Private pantries, celebrated surplus: saving and sharing food at Neolithic Catalhöyük. Antiquity 83, 649 68.

Charles, M. 2011. Interpretation of Scirpus from early farming sites in western Asia and Europe. In Hadjikoumis, A. Robinson, E. & Viner, S. (eds.) The Dynamics of Neolithisation in Europe. Oxbow: Oxford 115-32.

Jones, G., Charles, M., Bogaard, A. & Hodgson, J. 2010. Crops and Weeds: the role of weed functional ecology in the identification of crop husbandry methods. Journal of Archaeological Science 37:1, 70 7.

Hald, M.M. & Charles, M. 2008. Storage of crops during the fourth and third millennia B.C. at the settlement mound of Tell Brak, northeast Syria. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17 (Suppl. 1): S35 S41.

Bogaard, A., Charles, M. and Twiss, K. 2010. Food storage and sharing at Catalhöyük: the botanical and faunal evidence. In Cutting, M. (ed.) SIGN conference proceedings 2009. Heidleberg.

Full publications list

Conferences

Other professional activities