Borja Legarra Herrero read Ancient and Medieval History (BA, 1998) and Social and Cultural Anthropology (BA, 2000) at the University of Deusto, Spain. He was awarded a MA in Archaeology (2002) and a PhD in Archaeology (2007) from University College London. His PhD research focused on mortuary behaviour in the Cretan Early and Middle Bronze Age. He worked as research assistant for the Knossos Urban Landscape Project in 2008 and in 2009 became the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Post-doctoral Fellow. He is now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Leicester's School of Archaeology and Ancient History (since January 2010). The research focus is: The emergence of the Mediterranean. A comparative investigation of the creation of the first hierarchical societies in Europe and the Levant.

Since 1996, Borja has worked in various projects in Spain and Greece, both on excavations and intensive survey. In the last five years, he has been involved in the Knossos Urban Landscape Project (directors Prof. T. Whitelaw, University College London, Dr. A. Vasilakis and Dr. M. Bredaki, 23rd Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Greece), of which he is currently the Assistant Director as well as the ceramic specialist for Prepalatial pottery. The project is the first intensive survey of the urban centre of Knossos and its immediate hinterland, from the earliest Neolithic to Modern times. The project aims to approach the long term history of one of the most distinctive settlements in the Mediterranean as well as to shed light on the less known periods of occupation.

His current research is focused on the development of complex societies in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Aegean during the early and Middle Bronze Age and how were influenced by their Mediterranean background (see more here). His academic interests also include the archaeology of death, anthropological and archaeological theory and the Mediterranean in general.

•  Current Research

Research

Research Themes:
Early and Middle Bronze Age societies in the Mediterranean; Landscape archaeology and archaeological survey; State Formation; Archaeology of death.

Topics for Supervision:
Bronze Age Mediterranean; State formation; Archaeology of death.

Teaching

I am lead tutor for the Year 2 module AR 2035 The Mediterranean in the Ancient World and Year 3 module AR 3071 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. I also teach part of the AR3067 Later Prehistory of Europe and the Mediterranean as well as provide seminars for the MA in the Classical Mediterranean.

Selected Recent Publications

• Legarra Herrero, B. 2011. New kid on the block: the nature of the first systemic contacts between Crete and the eastern Mediterranean around 2000 BC. In T. Wilkinson, S. Sherratt, and J. Bennet (eds) Interweaving worlds: systemic interactions in Eurasia, 7th to 1st millennia BC. Oxbow Books, 266-281.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2011. Cemeteries and the construction, deconstruction and non-construction of hierarchical societies in Early Bronze Age Crete. In  I. Schoep, P. Tomkins and J. Driessen (eds) Back to the Beginning: Reassessing social, economic and political complexity in the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Crete. Oxbow Books, 325-357.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2011. The Secret lives of the Early and Middle Minoan Tholos cemeteries: Koumasa and Platanos. In J. Murphy (ed). Prehistoric Crete: Regional and Diachronic Studies on Mortuary Systems. INSTAP Academic Press, 49-84.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2009. The Minoan fallacy: cultural diversity on Crete at the beginning of the Bronze Age as assessed through the mortuary behavior. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28.1. 29-57.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2009. Cemeteries and the construction, deconstruction, and non-construction of hierarchies in Early Bronze Age Crete. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 52. 255-256.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2004. About the Distribution of Metal Objects in Prepalatial Crete. Papers of the Institute of Archaeology 15, 29-51.
• Legarra Herrero, B. 2003. Review of Hamilakis, Y. (ed.) 2002. Labyrinth Revisited. Rethinking “Minoan” Archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow books. Papers of the Institute of Archaeology 14, 138-42.

Forthcoming monographs (2012):

• Legarra Herrero, B. Mortuary behaviour and Social trajectories in Pre- and Protopalatial Crete. INSTAP Academic Press.