Colin's research focuses on Iron Age societies in Britain and Europe and their relations with the expanding Roman world; early coinage and currency in Europe; the relevance of developer-funded archaeology for understanding the long-term evolution of settlement and landscape in Europe; Iron Age and Roman material culture and deposition; and application of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian Modelling to dating later prehistoric societies. His publications over the last decade include edited books on developer-funded archaeology in north-west Europe (2012); three on the British and European Iron Age (2007, 2006) and one on the ritual significance of coinage in Iron Age Europe (2005), and numerous articles and book chapters on Iron Age settlement and societies in Britain and northern France, and on topics such as Iron Age coinage, iron hoarding and the dating of the East Yorkshire chariot burials. He is currently writing a monograph on the results of the 1980s excavations and more recent research on the late Iron Age royal site at Stanwick, North Yorkshire and co-editing the Oxford Handbook of the European Iron Age with Peter Wells and Katharina Rebay-Salisbury.

Colin is currently engaged in two five-year research projects. British and Irish prehistory in their European context (with Professor Richard Bradley, University of Reading and funded by the Leverhulme Trust) is re-examining the continental background to British prehistory from the end of the Mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age using the new information generated by developer archaeology over the last 20 years. Mint condition: coinage and the development of economic and social networks is examining the spread of coinage from the Graeco-Roman world into temperate Europe as part of the Leverhulme Programme, Tracing Networks: Craft Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, based in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History.

Colin's most recent fieldwork has been based in southern Scotland and in the Arroux valley in southern Burgundy, following on from earlier projects in north-east England and in the Aisne Valley, northern France. The Traprain Law Environs Project (2000-2004, with Dickinson College USA) excavated six later prehistoric enclosed settlements on the East Lothian coastal plain, including Whittinghame Tower (2002), Standingstone (2003) and Knowes (2004), providing a wealth of new information about the changing character of settlement in the region from the later Bronze Age to the early Medieval period. The final report was published in 2009 by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The Arroux Valley survey (2000-2003) used geophysical survey and fieldwalking to locate rural settlement in the largely pastoral landscape around Mont Beuvray, the Iron Age capital of the Aedui, and Autun, its Roman successor. The survey is published at http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/creighton_index.html

Topics available for PhD Supervision

I am happy to supervise PhD Students in the following areas:

• the Iron Age in Britain and Europe;
• early coinage and currency in the old world
• the Iron Age/Roman transition in western Europe
• later prehistoric settlement and landscape
• Iron Age and Roman material culture and deposition

Current and recent PhD students

Anna Lewis, Iron Age and early Roman chariot fittings from western and central Britain (Collaborative Doctoral Award with National Museum of Wales, co-supervisor Adam Gwilt)

Tammy Macenka, Kingdoms in Iron Age Britain

Sarah Percival, Iron Age Pottery from Northern East Anglia.

Frank Hargrave, Late Iron Age shrines and temples in Britain.

Anna Booth, The penannular brooch in Britain (Collaborative Doctoral Award with British Museum, co-supervisor Roger Bland)

Marta Fanello Later Iron Age Coinage in Britain

Marcella Raiconi Greek and Etruscan contacts with indigenous communities in the western Mediterranean (Advisor)

Sophie Adams, Late Hallstatt and early to middle La Tène brooches in Britain (Collaborative Doctoral Award with British Museum; co-supervisor Jody Joy)

Kate Parks, Crop husbandry in the East of England in the Iron Age and Roman period (Advisor)

Melissa Edgar, Later Iron Age brooches in northern France

Julia Farley At the Edge of Empire: Iron Age and early Roman metalwork in the East Midlands

Andy Tullett, Social transformations from the Middle Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age in Central Southern England' (PhD 2011).

Stephen Sherlock Later Prehistoric Settlement in North East England (PhD 2011)

Derek Hamilton, Use of radiocarbon and Bayesian modelling to (re)write later Iron Age settlement histories
in east-central Britain (Collaborative Doctoral Award with English Heritage, co-supervisor Alex Bayliss) (PhD 2011)

Martin Sterry, House, Land and Place: a re-evaluation of Central Adriatic Communities: 6th-1st centuries B.C (Advisor, PhD 2010)

Duncan Campbell, Cultural exchange in Hellenistic Greece (Advisor, PhD 2008)

Judith Rosten Personal adornment and the expression of identity in Roman Britain (Advisor; PhD, 2008\0

Laura Cripps, The Iron Age in south-west England (PhD 2007)

Mairi Davies, The Iron Age settlement record in eastern Scotland (PhD 2006)

Former PhD students hold posts at several universities in the UK and USA, including Bournemouth, Durham, Glasgow, Leicester, Liverpool and Nottingham; with English Heritage, Historic Scotland and other national bodies such as PAS; and at the British Museum, National Museum of Wales and other museums and at leading field units.